Virtuous Person, Virtuous Citizen
Textbook: Chapter 12
Lesson
Minimum of 1 scholarly source (in addition to the textbook)
Initial Post Instructions
Each person owes a duty to himself or herself and to the world to study ethics and to engage in thoughtful debate about what is right, and what is wrong. It is this habit of thinking about and reflecting on ethics that will help you determine the right choices when faced with an ethical dilemma.
Articulate a moral dilemma wherein one has to show a specific virtue or virtues (it can be any virtue or virtues including honesty, courage, charity/generosity, compassion, etc.)
What is the moral dilemma about?
What virtue or virtues should be shown? (You are here selecting the best course of action)
Why is that virtue or those virtues to be shown?
How should the virtue or virtues be expressed, and why in that manner?
Apply Aristotle’s golden mean to the dilemma.
Tell us how the dilemma involves conflict moral duties (loyalty to community versus to self, professional versus familial duties, national or personal obligations).
The dilemma must be a situation in which a choice has to be made.
Be sure you told us why your chosen course of action was best.
Sample Solution
Moral issues greet us each morning in the newspaper, confront us in the memos on our desks, nag us from our children’s soccer fields, and bid us good night on the evening news. Dealing with these moral issues is often perplexing. How, exactly, should we think through an ethical issue? What questions should we ask? What factors should we consider? The first step in analyzing moral issues is obvious but not always easy: Get the facts. Some moral issues create controversies simply because we do not bother to check the facts. This first step, although obvious, is also among the most important and the most frequently overlooked.
