Benjamin Franklin was definitely one of the most morally correct men of his time. He had a great deal of character along with intelligence that resulted in respect from his peers and colleagues. He would show his great deal of character in his philosophy, inventions, and political ideas. He implemented his genius in his plan to become morally perfect. This plan was to set thirteen virtues and try to follow one each week while marking down when he fails (Franklin). These thirteen virtues were temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. These were apparently the virtues that Franklin saw to be the traits of moral perfection in a person. He then decided that he would go about a scientific approach to this. He did not exactly know what to expect, but his experiment showed that it was harder than he thought to follow these virtues (Franklin). His conclusion was most likely that people naturally have certain virtues and that it is hard to change this even with repetitive and strenuous work toward the positive.
I think that Franklin was unsuccessful in becoming a better person. There are a few reasons for this. The first stems from the fact that Franklin was already a good person. He did not even spoil himself or live in a wealthy manner even though he had wealth (Franklin). He wanted to help others and he wanted to help himself. He did not want to help himself for selfish reasons though. Franklin wanted to help himself become a better person, which the idea in itself sort of showed that he was already a good person. The other reason that he was not really successful in the end was that he did not make it through every day with perfection. He had some failures with specific virtues such as silence and order. He had five marks for each of these, which signified that he had a problem or some trouble with upholding that virtue (Franklin). Franklin started off hoping to become a better person, but he basically stayed the same. He found out that it is hard to keep silent, especially when you are as renowned as Benjamin Franklin. He also could not handle keeping things in order which sort of entailed keeping his priorities straight. Franklin’s experiment was less of something to work on, but more of something to learn from. He cannot fix his virtues, but he can definitely see what his problems are. The major factors, his already good character and his inability to change something this permanent, coincided to produce somewhat unsatisfactory results, but they were results nonetheless. He learned what his virtues were but he could do nothing to help it, and this sort of showed Franklin that he was just a human. His science could not help him in this situation. The positive aspect of this is that he was still a virtuous man. He did not really need to change very much in my opinion because nobody can truly reach moral perfection. Franklin was as close enough as anybody could be, and that is good enough.
Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Henry Altemus. 1895. Print.
Your blog has good use of support from the story and your own ideas. And you used paragraphs. I don't have anything constructive to say, other than good job.
ReplyDeleteI think you have a lot of good ideas in this and have a good concept of the Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. I like what you said about trying to become a better person just shows that he is already a good person. That is so true. But I do think that he at least somewhat bettered himself, just by the discipline he implemented in his life and the character it takes to try to stay disciplined.
ReplyDeleteI like how you used support from Tuckerman's criticism. Good Job on the blog.
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