Musings...

I received The Fellowship of the Ring from Jessica for my birthday - a great birthday present - and I am now halfway through it. Once again, the movies are never better than the books... no matter how well made, and how much acclaim the movie(s) might receive.

Ang laid down the challenge today, if I don't have a tv for the fall - if I give up tv - he will give up the internet. Now there are many implications to this. First and foremost I need to discuss virtue ethics. As a Christian I hold to the theological virtues, faith, hope, and love, and as a virtuous person, I ought to exercise the virtues. Part of this exercise includes loving God - for the virtue of love - and loving man for God's sake. Since I love Ang for the sake of God (but also because he is my friend), I need to be virtuous and give up tv. This frees up Ang's time so that he might love God more, and make better use of his time. Also, Ang is helping me out because I am receiving more motivation for giving up tv, beginning in the fall. Aristotle would call this an example of friendship.

One more musing... Linda Zagzebski's book, Divine Motivation Theory, is in contrast to traditional Christian ethics - Divine Command Theory (DCT). DCT states that if God commands X, then X is good to do because it is God's command, and one is obligated to perform X. So what's the problem? The problem is the command to do X, does not take into account the Sermon on the Mount. In the Sermon, Jesus states, that it is not enough just to do the act, but to do the act for the right motivation. So, Zagzebski is correct in believing that a Christian ethic ought to utilize and emphasize motivation. Because according to Jesus, looking at a woman with lust is the same as committing the act of fornication or adultery. DCT often seems very Kantian, or are Kantian ethics an offshoot of DCT? Probably the latter, because DCT has been around much longer than Kant.

I will post more later tonight...