Deontology In Movies

Do you remember when we first began watching movies together and you told me “good movies are like books, you can’t judge them by their cover?” As a child, I remember thinking you were wrong. In my opinion, good movies were those with my favorite actors, interesting covers, and spoken in simplistic English language. They had predictable endings that didn’t make me cry. I watched a good movie in class today that taught me my preconceived notions of a good movie were wrong and proved you right. The movie Of Gods and Men was in a foreign language, had no famous actors, made me cry, was thought provoking, and a good movie. More importantly, it gave me a deeper understanding of what some consider to be a Jesus ethic that I never would have guessed …show more content…
Benedict. Therefore, I expected to watch these monks “keep every rule for the love of Christ” (Doyle) in accordance with St. Benedict’s teachings. However, I was wrong, deontology wasn’t the central Jesus ethic in this movie. Instead, I observed the monks continually demonstrating a virtue ethic as they strove to fulfill their mission to truly embody the virtue of love, deemed the most important Christian virtue by St. Paul. The monks learned to embrace the virtue of love through the pursuit of their self identified goal “to be brothers to all.” By following strict rules, the guidelines from St. Benedict, and most importantly the rules commanded by Jesus, these monks successfully developed the virtue of love. This virtuous Jesus ethic centered on love allowed the Trappist monks to obey Jesus’ teachings of “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark [12:31]), react with nonviolence (Matthew [5:38-42]/ Luke [22:49-51]), and to love your enemies (Matthew [5:44]/Luke …show more content…
Olaf; therefore, it is my turn to give you a book metaphor to help you understand this concept. This metaphor demonstrates the connections between virtues, rules, and goals in a virtue ethic. When reading a book the most important part is having the ability to read, this translates into the embodiment of the virtue in a virtue ethic. Maintaining your reading skills and learning to comprehend the words takes habitual action (practice) this is done by following the rules. Finally, understanding of the message of the book is a goal in virtue ethics. It is important to note that the goal can only be achieved after learning to read and practice; therefore, virtue ethicist believe the ultimate goal is perfecting the