What is the role of courage
in promoting human flourishing? Since ancient times courage has been considered
a virtue to cultivate that with other virtues contributes overall to happiness
(eudaimonia). Aristotle designated courage as the best state of character in
relation to feelings of fear and daring. As a mean good, the state of excess is
foolhardiness (over-boldness) and the state of deficiency is cowardice
(timidity, fearfulness). Aristotle outlined five types of courage as they play
out in endurance of various dangers in society or one's context. There is
"civic" courage which is based on a sense of shame; there is
"military" or experienced courage, which is based on experience and
knowledge of coping with them; another rests on "inexperience and
ignorance", the kind that make children play with snakes; there is
"expression of hope" which is based on one's previous success(es);
and lastly "irrational passion" that may emerge because one is made bold
by pain or frustration, e.g., love or rage. (Aristotle, The Eudemian
Ethics)
The idea of valor, akin to
courage, suggests engagement that is thoughtful in order to not shrink
from threat, challenge, pain, or difficulty. While valor is more than bravery
during physical threat, it expands to intellectual or emotional stances that
are unpopular, difficult, or dangerous. It encompasses the capacity to uncouple
the emotional and behavioral components of fear, to resist the urge to flee and
face (distancing, isolation) the fearful situation.
Brené Brown, who has conducted
important work with human vulnerability and shame, exhorts,
Rather
than deny our vulnerability, we lean into both the beauty and agony of our shared
humanity. Choosing courage does not mean that we’re unafraid, it means that we
are brave enough to love despite the fear and uncertainty. . . When confronted
with news of a stranger’s unimaginable pain – a suicide, an overdose, a protest
for justice and basic dignity – we have two choices: We can choose to respond
from fear or we can choose courage.
Brown provides five
applicable examples of how to apply courage in our lives to promote
whole-heartedness: 1. Asking for what you need, 2. Speaking your truth, 3.
Owning your story, 4. Setting boundaries, 5. Reaching out for support.
We glean from the ancient to contemporary
applications of the use the courage that its use for good should be voluntary and not coerced action. It should involve
judgment, i.e., some understanding of the risk and an acceptance of the
consequences. At some level, a courageous person should have a disposition to
take risks, yet must also overcome a tendency to take unconsidered risks. There
is the awareness with courage that it requires the presence of danger, loss,
risk, or potential injury. Earl Shelp “Without a sense of danger, risk, or
vulnerability, there is no bravery in an act. Bravery is valuable because it
allows people to dampen their immediate response to danger and evaluate the
appropriate course of action. Bravery involves the mastery of fear.”
Courage is a necessary virtue
or element of human capacity to face difficult challenges that are related to the
relationships and circumstance that evoke fear and threat in and around us. In
the face of challenges we can cower and be less human gravitating to our pseudo-self,
or we can choose and develop with our sold (authentic) self the strength to
name and tame the emotions of fear and dread and thus mobilize resources to
help calm and act in a manner that achieves a higher good.
Sources:
Aristotle, The Eudemina Ethics, Transl. Anthony Kenny. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be
Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead. New York: Penguin
Group, 2012)
Earl W. Shelp, “Courage: A Neglected Virtue in the Patient-Physician
Relationship.” Social Science and Medicine, 18 (1984), 351–360.
