Is it hard to be a virtuous person? What is virtue? Does virtue happen with or without intent? If I overcome my nature to do the right thing, does that mean I am not virtuous?
These arejust some of the questions asked in todays discussion. What really boggles my mind are the less... philosophical questions. Repeating a sentence from the text, than using the same sentence to answer your questions- sometime I am left off balance.
When one of my classmates says that he does not like luck, and instead favors fate. Of course we ask this peer, what is fate? His responce is predestined action. That the moment is going to happened because it is planned...
THEN
the same student goes on to say that the reason he likes fate is because it is constantly changing and that you can determine your own fate by making choices...
So, fate is a predestined decision that isn't predestined at all cause you can change the outcome.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Oh, I dunno. I kind of agree with him. It makes more sense when you think of fate as a series of roads--based on the decisions you make. You follow one path until the next fork, and hey.. maybe all that's predetermined.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there's also the Terry Pratchett school of thought, which might be relevant to your interests due to nerdiness. I think it went something along the lines of how... fate isn't really something that shapes the lives of people, but the other way around. That people shape fate based on what they due.
It _is_ a bit confusing though, isn't it? I try not to think too much about it...
As for being virtuous... coming from a Daoist, it makes sense that there can only be so much virtuous people. If everyone was virtuous and smart and stuff, it would throw the balance out of whack.
ReplyDeleteThe problem wasn't so much his IDEA of fate - it was that he stated 'this is fate - it is predetermined and controls everything and it is unshakable... but yeah, it's is constant change.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember the specific words he used, but he was pretty adament for the first half of class that fate is this force of nature that everyone adheres to... and then in the second half of class that it isn't any of the things he was saying before hand.