Morality, Virtue and the Public Figure Essay - 2080 Words

Morality, Virtue and the Public Figure Introduction According to the dictionary Grand Robert, the term â€Å"public† means â€Å"what concerns people as a whole and what belongs to the social or political community and is done in its name†; a public figure is defined as â€Å"a person who is invested with an official function or plays an important role in the social or political life of his or her country†. In relation to these definitions, it is possible to identify different categories of public figures with more or less important roles : a political figure such as a government Minister who creates laws and take important decisions for his country; an intellectual and a star who is defined as an artistic performer or athlete whose leading role or†¦show more content†¦B) Differences between morality and virtue The same word can mean both a morality principle and a virtue but there is a fundamental difference between the two. If we take the example of generosity, the idea is a moral concept, which means that we have a duty to give back a part of what we received. On the other hand, the effort of giving this generosity is the concern of virtues and it is not limited to give money but also give time, comfort and shared competences. However, morality can lead decision-makers to act in a way that could have terrible consequences. For example, in the name of democracy, human rights and liberty, the president of a country could choose to lead his nation to war, and all this for a transcendental idea. In this case, the government is the decision-maker, but the people of the country have to follow it and share the same values, like for example Churchill during the Second World War, who said that the only thing he could offer his nation was blood, labour, sweat and tears. And when these political figures lack this moral principal called courage, like Daladier in France during the Second World War, it allow people like Hitler to come to power. As Machiavelli argues in â€Å"The Prince†, â€Å"it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good† (----), which means that a Prince could be required to lie, betray, steal or kill if it secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number ofShow MoreRelatedThe Movie Crash Film Analysis1473 Words   |  6 PagesHollywood films always attach virtue to the well-off middle and upper classes this is not always the class. Media and Hollywood films are guilty of assigning privilege to some and strife to others, however, the characters in the movie Crash played by, Chris Bridges, Brenden Fraser, and Michael Pena all from different economic classes display different types of class and virtue. 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