short assignments

Wicked Pleasures

Being Moral, Being Polite : read Comte-Sponville, “Politeness” (M), 7-15.

Reading Questionnaire

Answer the following questions (#1 to #3) in your own words and in complete sentences.

#1. What does Comte-Sponville mean when he calls politeness a “virtue of pure form” (p. 7)? (Note: it’s helpful to notice that Sponville has the same idea in mind when he says that being polite is “mere attention to form.”)

#2. Think of Hannibal Lector, the cultured cannibal of Silence of the Lambs, who ate one of his victims “with fava

beans and a delightful chianti.”

According to Comte-Sponville, a polite and cultured villain such as Hannibal the Cannibal is even more to be

despised than a brutish one? Why?

Do you agree? Why or why not?

#3. What role, according to Comte-Sponville, does learning to be polite play in a person’s moral development? Be

sure to explain Comte’s view thoroughly.

Optional Questions :

#4. (a) Provide an example of a scenario in which morality calls for us to be impolite—in which, that is, it would

be morally better to violate (rather than obey) the rules of etiquette. (b) Be sure to explain why it would be

better to break the rule.

#5. Can you think of an excellent example—from tv, the movies, literature, wherever—of a person who is a “slave to etiquette”?

#6. Ultimately, what’s the primary difference, do you think, between being moral and being polite?

All Done!