Moral character

Moral character or character is an evaluation of a particular individual's stable moral qualities. The concept of character can imply a variety of attributes including the existence or lack of virtues such as empathy, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or of good behaviors or habits. Moral character primarily refers to the assemblage of qualities that distinguish one individual from another — although on a cultural level, the set of moral behaviors to which a social group adheres can be said to unite and define it culturally as distinct from others. Psychologist Lawrence Pervin defines moral character as "a disposition to express behavior in consistent patterns of functions across a range of situations".

Overview

The word "character" is derived from the Ancient Greek word "charaktêr", referring to a mark impressed upon a coin. Later it came to mean a point by which one thing was told apart from others. There are two approaches when dealing with moral character: Normative ethics involve moral standards that exhibit right and wrong conduct. It is a test of proper behavior and determining what is right and wrong. Applied ethics involve specific and controversial issues along with a moral choice, and tend to involve situations where people are either for or against the issue.

The Road

The Road is a 2006 novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. It is a post-apocalyptic tale of a journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed most of civilization and, in the intervening years, almost all life on Earth. The novel was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006.

The book was adapted to a film by the same name in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat.

Plot summary

An unnamed father and his young son journey across a grim post-apocalyptic landscape, some years after an unspecified disaster has caused another extinction event, destroying civilization and most life on Earth. The land is filled with ash and devoid of living animals and vegetation. Many of the remaining human survivors have resorted to cannibalism, scavenging the detritus of city and country alike for flesh. The boy's mother, pregnant with him at the time of the disaster, gave up hope and committed suicide some time before the story began, despite the father's pleas. Much of the book is written in the third person, with references to "the father" and "the son" or to "the man" and "the boy".

The Road to Character

The Road to Character is the fourth book written by David Brooks. Brooks taught an undergraduate course at Yale University for three years during the 2010s on Humility, the subject of this book.

Published in 2015, the author says, "I wrote it, to be honest, to save my own soul." According to The Guardian, Brooks decided that he had spent, "...too much time cultivating what he calls “the résumé virtues” – racking up impressive accomplishments – and too little on “the eulogy virtues”, the character strengths for which we’d like to be remembered."

Outline

Brooks begins with Adam I and Adam II, two contradictory sides of human nature described in The Lonely Man of Faith by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik. Adam I is the external, career-driven, ambitious side, which Brooks calls the "résumé" self. The subject of this book, Adam II, is internal, humble and the "eulogy" self, the one who “wants to have a serene inner character.”

The bulk of the book is eight chapters of biographical sketches. Loosely one per chapter they are: Frances Perkins, Dwight D. Eisenhower with a page or two devoted to redefining sin for contemporary times, Dorothy Day, George Marshall, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin who organized the March on Washington, the novelist George Eliot and her mate George Lewes, Augustine and his mother Monica, Samuel Johnson and Michel de Montaigne, winding up with sketches of Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath. Each chapter describes the personal weaknesses that the individual overcame.

Road to ...

Road to ... refers to a series of seven comedy films starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour. They are also often referred to as the "Road" pictures or the "Road" series. The movies were a combination of adventure, comedy, romance, and music. The minimal plot often took a back seat to gags, many of them supposedly ad-libbed by Crosby and Hope during filming.

Films in the series

Each film is not simply a comedic film, but a satire of some of the popular film genres of the day, including jungle, Arabian nights, Alaskan adventure, and high seas. The final film not only comes much later, but involves a newer genre; Hong Kong spoofs the spy films of the sixties.

In 1977, an eighth Road to ... movie was planned, titled Road to the Fountain of Youth; however, Crosby died that year of a heart attack.

In 1947, Astor Pictures released a compilation film of several of Crosby's Educational Pictures short subjects called The Road to Hollywood to evoke the series.

David Brooks

David Brooks may refer to:

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