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[nataliebrant16]

Justice as a Valued Virtue

the pre-Socratic feeling about justice as comparable to the balance or harmony which kept things going is very remote to us" - Anscombe.

Justice is a virtue that is a part of the typical group of cardinal virtues. In modern day, justice is used quite often in describing how people advocate for others for equality, equity, and inclusion. Justice means to evaluate if an action is right or not through a lens of morality. It is commonly used synonymously with fairness; furthermore its about upholding human dignity in every sense. One can be just by deciding right actions or outwardly disagreeing with wrong actions.

Justice can be seen first defined very early on by Plato in the Republic. This is one of the earliest accounts of this virtue being described. The main definition is 'what the gods love' but has many more layers to that. Further, Socrates says that justice is what sustains and perfects the other virtues, which in this context was temperance, wisdom, and courage.

The Catholic Church defines justice as 'giving others their due'. This means that making sure that consequences are adequately given to actions. This also means giving respect and dignity to others. What others are owed aren't necessarily negative, but what they should have just for being an existing human being. Dignity plays a very large role into what justice can look like.

People can live out this virtue everyday. Someone who is an exemplar of justice is Sojourner Truth. I think that she lived out this virtue exceedingly well in her adult life. She fought for racial and gender equality in ways that stood out for her time. Her efforts for justice were even recognized by Abraham Lincoln.

Biography: Sojourner Truth

A former slave, Sojourner Truth became an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women’s rights in the nineteenth centu

Engaging in virtues allows our human development to continue into being good people. When we are good people we can satisfy our needs. Seligman talks about PERMA, which describes our needs to achieve flourishing. When we engage in justice we are about to give our lives positive emotions, as its a good feeling to advocate for righteous things. We also engage with others and build relationships with them, even if they are useful. Further, when enacting justice we give our lives meaning and accomplishment, especially if we cause the right action to happen. When living out this virtue we are able to achieve the flourishing that leads to happiness, which is ultimately the goal for the living world.

When applying the idea of Seligman's PERMA to the acting out of virtue, its very easy to see the connection of flourishing to virtue and that we have this need to act out the good. When acting upon virtues we just enrich our life so much more.

Socrates talks about living the examined life and looking within. When we are able to look within and work on ourselves and further grow into virtuous people, we are able to access that happiness that is described. The human good and morality (through practice of the virtue) ultimately leads to that peace of a good life, an examined life.

To start finding out more about justice, there are many places to look. There are two places that could be the places to enter the forest. The first is the ending of slavery in the United States and who was imperative to that movement. That could lead to discovery of those who were key to the civil rights movement. There is lots of access to justice in this movement, with Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and William Lloyd Garrison. All of these people engaged in the virtue of justice to advocate for what was right and were exemplifying the virtue throughout the movement.

5 American Abolitionists Who Fought to End Slavery

Many people throughout history have fought for the eradication of slavery. We’ve heard of and studied many of these brave men and women in o

Another place to look to enter the forest for justice would be the women's right to vote and beginnings for justice for women. There are many women who were crucial to that movement to start and so that event would be a great place to start. These stories tell the story of not just justice, but many of the other virtues as well. There can be a start with the focus on women like Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul, but then that search will lead to other women's rights activists. Soon after one would develop their own thread of prominent women right's activists. These women also show the virtue of justice at its peaks and really live parts of the flourishing in regards to the virtue.

16 women throughout history who famously fought for equality

From Susan B. Anthony to Malala Yousafzai, here are 16 famous women throughout history who fought for women's rights and equality.

[nataliebrant16]

Virtues and the Human Good

Virtues is an idea I have been around for a very long time. I think this concept is taught in many ways but ultimately mean the same thing. To be a virtuous person is to be a good person, and not just one singular act, but a good person all of the time. Virtue is also a habit, it isn't a once in a while practice, but all the time. Something interesting about virtues is this balance between two vices. You can do too much of a virtue that it is a vice, and you can do not enough and it is a vice. This balance is quite interesting (and really explained well in Nicomachean Ethics).

The human good is something that I don't think is talked about quite enough. I think that sometimes its really only something I think about in my philosophy courses. Knowing virtue is the only way to really practice virtue in a lot of senses. In the first video there was the explanation of Deontic vs. Aretaic, and that just shows how really actions are evaluated. These Deontic theories really just give rules on how things are good or bad, some sort of criteria. The Aretaic theories are evaluating if some act is a virtue or not. These are just methods to test what different acts are what and if they are good and/or virtuous.

Virtue theory seems straightforward in how its presented. It seems that virtue theory is the focus on actions being a virtue or vice. I think that this is a good way to be evaluating actions especially in the lens of trying to be a good human and achieving what we call "the human good".

I think that there is some discussion on what is the "human good" and who decides that. This could lead to further discussion of religion and different spiritual ideologies. Overall, it seems crucial to be able to define "good" and what "human good" is and be able to illustrate what that looks like. It has been taught prior that bad is the absence of good but then the question really lies in what is good. These are all very 'big' questions to be asking but also really important questions to try to answer.

[nataliebrant16]

Positive Psychology / Positive History

Positivity is something that is lacking in the world, especially now. When we turn on the news or read about current event, its always about what bad thing has happened now. Granted, there are a lot of bad things happening in the world, but there are also a lot of good things happening in the world.

Positive Psychology is at its a core, a focus of positive emotions, why we feel happy, what makes us joyful, and then all the things that go in those categories. It also encompasses about how and when positive psychology exists.

There is the acronym of PERMA that shows what things are inside of positive psychology. Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, meaning and acccomplishment is what makes up PERMA.

Connecting Positive psychology with positive history it makes it very clear that sometimes it can be really hard to find both of these things. I think that the world we live in has such a focus on tragedy that we forget to focus on the good things that are happening.

When we focus on the good things and the positive history that does exist, things happen. Motivation and Inspiration for the future takes place and this shift from negative thinking to positive thinking occurs. The world probably needs more of this way of thinking. There is a way to recognize the bad things that happened while also being to highlight the positive history of something and that seems to be what is forgotten the most.

This idea sits the most with me because it shows how you can do both, recognizing tragedy while also learning positive history, and that seems to be the most productive methods of learning things.

[nataliebrant16]

The Forgotten War - Entering the Forest of Positive History

The development of the red thread comes a lot from what positive history has to offer. But to find positive history you have to look in the history that we have to find what happened, the people involved, and what actions were took.

A lot of the time it seems that history picks and chooses what it wants to tell. That is how we don't learn about some very important topics, like the Korean war.

The Korean War is often called the “Forgotten War” because it was largely overshadowed by the Vietnam war and World War 2. The importance of this war is highly understated and not known to many. This was the first real battle to take place after the Cold War.

I still don't know that much about the Korean war except that it happened. So it will be very interested to 'enter the forest' and find out what events took place and what people were there to shape the happenings of this event.