Professor Ambrosio’s Approach to the Issue of a Meaningful Life Draws on the Typology of Hero and Saint. After Listening to the First Two Lectures, What Do You Understand These Terms to Mean? Explain Your Answer,

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Professor Ambrosio’s approach to the issue of a meaningful life draws on the typology of hero and saint. After listening to the first two lectures, what do you understand these terms to mean? Explain your answer, comparing and contrasting the hero and the saint and providing examples of each view of life. Are these metaphors “ideal types” that serve as fundamentally distinct ways of living personally and in society; that is, must we choose between them? In the two lectures given by Dr. Ambrosio, the approach to the meaning of life was described as being divided into two separate groups: the genetic (hero) and the metaphysical (saint). The distinction between the two comes in the form of one’s beliefs and approach to life. The genetic approach (or hero) is based in doing good deeds for others and one’s accomplishments in life (Ambrosio, Lecture 1). The hero is often commended for his or her actions, and the hero’s way of life is lived to achieve certain stature as an honorable and noble figure. On the other hand, we have the metaphysical approach (or saint). The saint lives a life based in faith and what cannot be comprehended or felt by the human being. The saint, one could say, bases their approach to the meaning of live through the intangible, divine way of loving others. The latter is exactly how the saint approaches and embraces the meaning of life—through their love and kindness toward others (Ambrosio, Lecture 1). Both the hero and the saint share commonalities and differences that are unique and independent to one another. The metaphorical “hero” and “saint” each have great distinction in their approaches to the question of life’s meaning. The meaning of life is different for every individual and has no definitive answer (Ambrosio, Lecture 1). What is fulfilling for one may not be fulfilling for another. Paradoxically, the way of the hero is selfish,

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