Some Thoughts on Courage

Dr. Helen Smith recently asked us all to offer some thoughts about courage. Clearly, it is a primary civic virtue, but do we really know what it is or why it matters? And why does it always seem to be defined in terms that make it more a masculine than a feminine virtue? Link here.

Unsurprisingly, much of the best thinking about courage comes to us from Aristotle. So I will follow his thought through much of this post. For those who are interested, the relevant texts are his Magna Moralia, Eudemian Ethics: Books I, II, and VIII (Clarendon Aristotle Series) (Bks.1, 2 & 8), and Nicomachean Ethics.

Aristotle believed that courage involved confidence in the face of danger. Anyone who is confident, he wrote, in circumstances where other people would be afraid is brave or courageous.

Given that courage is a civic virtue, Aristotle declared that it must be exercised rationally and freely. Someone who does not understand that there is danger is not being courageous; he is being foolhardy. And someone who gets carried away by passion and commits actions that would otherwise be called courageous does not represent the embodiment of virtue. You cannot be courageous if you do not know what you are doing.

As was his wont, Aristotle defined courage as something that exists somewhere between cowardly and foolhardy. In our terms, courage exists somewhere between trigger-happy and gun-shy.

The key to being courageous is knowing when, where, and how to put it into action.

There is no courage in picking a fight for no good reason with someone who is of no importance. And there is no courage in refusing to face any and all dangers. Shying away from any action that would endanger you is not courageous.

To be courageous, you need to know whether the specific situation requires an act of courage, and whether you are the one to perform it. And then, of course, you need to perform it.

Courage exists in action, not in feeling or thought. You may feel that you are extremely courageous but if, when the time for action comes, you do not act courageously, you will have failed the test.

As Dr. Helen points out, the crux of the issue is the connection between courage and masculinity. Is courage just an outmoded stereotype that forces men to conform to society's idea of manly behavior? Or are we at fault, as Dr. Helen suggests, for teaching men to be cowards?

If you look at these issues through the lens of evolutionary psychology, they become more clear. Since men are very often stronger than women and children, they have been called upon to protect and defend those weaker than they.

When men want to show themselves to be suitable mates, they try to prove their courage, their willingness to risk life and limb, their ability to face extreme danger... in order to show that they can protect women and children.

Again following Darwin, reproductively speaking, men are the more expendable sex. By what must be considered an insidious patriarchal plot, women's lives are considered to be more valuable than men's. A woman's contribution to reproductive success far exceeds a man's, thus a man has the liberty to hunt and fight, to be away from home for extended periods of time, while a mother does not.

For men wounds are badges of courage. For women they are signs of vulnerability.

If this is true-- and we have no real reason to think it is not-- then boys are more prone to fight, to struggle, to compete, and to take unnecessary risks to impress girls. As everyone knows this starts at a young age, in the schoolyard.

And as everyone also knows, girls find the boys who win fights to be more attractive. Unless, of course, they are bullies who pick on those who are weak. The greater the strength disparity the less the courage involved.

By definition, a bully is not going to be a reliable protector. His impulse to hurt the weak speaks ill of his capacity for courage.

When children are involved, the courage often involves a strong dose of posturing. Given that boys do not have very many adult responsibilities the chances for them to demonstrate courage are limited.

Yet, when grown men indulge in the same posturing, we do not see them as courageous, but as pretenders.

Sometimes, in their politically correct deliria, today's schools decide that vigorous competitive activity, especially the kind that boys love, must be outlawed because it promotes the wrong kinds of stereotypes.

Evidently, these efforts to stifle boys' nature leads these same boys to displace their impulse onto video games, violent sports, and even gang activity.

Some might say that boys have a violent streak, an aggressive impulse that leads them to want to hurt others. I would prefer to say that they are developing their civic character, their courage, by trying it out in different situations.

Can girls and women be courageous? Of course, they can. But even today, when women have many more opportunities to exhibit courage in the workplace, there is still no real sense in our culture that girls should engage in violent sports and vigorous struggles as a means to proving their suitability as mates.

But, what happens in the culture when women are encouraged to learn martial arts... as a means of protecting themselves? What is left of the man's role of protector if women declare themselves fully capable of fending for themselves?

In my view, this image of the new female warrior who does not need a man, but who can defend herself and her children, is illusory. It is a convenient fiction for the politically correct crowd, but far more easy to portray in fiction than to live out in the world.

Unfortunately, some segments of our culture promote this intellectual deformity. Then they are shocked to discover that women do not really find these newly feminized men all that attractive after all. Pity to those men who accept these ideas unthinkingly and fail to develop their capacity for courage. Link here.

[A warm welcome to those of you who have gotten to this post via Instapundit or Dr. Helen. My thanks to Prof. Glenn Reynolds and Dr. Helen Smith for linking it.]