Through all the readings and discussions that we have done in class, I have decided upon the definition of what I believe a moral saint to be. However, unlike others, I also know that I may not be correct in my definition. That having been said, to me a moral saint is somewhere in between what the Wolf piece said and my own thoughts that I have derived both from the discussions in class as well as other readings. The part of the definition that I will borrow from Wolf is a moral saint being a person whose every action is as morally good as possible. The way I read this, which may not be how Wolf intended, is that for someone to be a moral saint they need to do all they can, in their own lives/situations, both practical concerns and moral concerns, make every action as morally good as possible. After all, should one person be condemned as being more of a moral saint than others simply because they have more opportunities to show qualities that people would define as being characteristics of a moral saint? That would not be fair to those with fewer opportunities.
A point also comes up of having two different types of moral saints, the loveable saint and the rational saint. The lovable saint is a person who does actions to help people simply because of that persons love for people. On the other hand a rational saint is someone who does good actions because they realize that someone has to do something to help or people may suffer, die, etc. Looking at the surface of this, one would say that the loveable saint should be held higher. In some cases, I believe this could be correct, however, I believe that it should all come down to intent. Why is someone doing certain actions? If the rational saint is doing things to help themselves and in the process h ...