"It is true that each day, hour, moment represents mystery in the sense that the future is not totally known."
Let us not get off track. The future is not known at all--not a bite, not a bit, not an electron--not a year, not a month, not a second.
"I was thinking of mystery as those areas of the unknown which represent a significant challenge that could be avoided by simply going with the daily flow of things"
Yes, some people have a more curious nature than others and some take risks with more bravery (or more foolishness) than others.
"Certainly you must agree that folks in history who've met such challenges and discovered marvelous things have been persecuted for disrupting the status quo
Certainly, I agree. That is not controversial, so far as I have ever heard.
This is evidence of the risk some are not willing to take wrt that level of mystery"
Yes, some people have a more curious nature than others and some take risks with more bravery (or more foolishness) than others.
This is evidence"..."of the virtue involved in facing such challenges."
The fact that people in history have taken risks and have been persecuted for disrupting the status quo is NOT EVIDENCE OF VIRTUE! Taking risks that disrupt the status quo and risking possible persecution is not evidence of virtue. And even when some risk takers and achievers ARE virtuous (because they have virtuous qualities according to their culture)--it is because of their virtuous qualities that they are considered so--NOT BECAUSE THEY TOOK RISKS OR UPSET THE STATUS QUO OR WERE PERSECUTED.
"I was thinking of 'accepting challenges' to engage in solving a mystery as a category of virtue, and a subcategory of Honor"
That is fine. I know many people who have accepted challenges to "engage in solving a mystery"--including myself. Whether or not the person was considered virtuous or not had nothing to do with the challenge, per se, but everything to do with whether or not the person exhibited a virtuous character as in exhibiting qualities that our culture considers virtuous--pure thinking, clean living, caring and compassionate feeling and thinking and acting--and so forth. Risk taking itself is not a category of virtue. Bank robbers take risks and they are surely persecuted when they fail. As for bringing "honor" into robbing banks, I think I will pass, thanks. You are playing the baseball game in deep left field and I would prefer we at least stay in the ball park and hopefully some place within the intellectual solar system of our common dictionaries and grammar books.
As I said before:
Virtue is FAR MORE than hoping for the best in an unpredictable outcome. ALL humans do that and ALL humans peer behind the veil of ignorance into "mystery". If one asserts that all humans are thus virtuous, then one removes all moral value from human existence. The word becomes meaningless and the exercise of TRUE VIRTUE is rejected or dismissed.
And I will add to bring our discussion to date:
If one asserts that SOME such humans are virtuous, that is fine. But they are not virtuous because they peer behind the veil of ignorance into "mystery". They are not virtuous because they rob banks or because they wonder how fast the earth travels through space. If they are virtuous it is because the culture they live in considers them to be virtuous due to their exhibiting character attributes valued by that culture. |
