Courage

Courage is the ability to confront fear in the face of pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation. As a virtue, courage is covered extensively in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, its vice of deficiency being cowardice, and its vice of excess being recklessness.

Related Topics:
Pain - Uncertainty - Intimidation - Virtue - Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics - Cowardice - Recklessness

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The precise view of what constitutes courage not only varies among cultures, but among individuals. For instance, some define courage as lacking fear in a situation that would normally generate it. Others, in contrast, hold that courage requires one to have fear and then overcome it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There are also more subtle distinctions in the definition of courage. For example, some distinguish between courage and foolhardiness in that a courageous person overcomes a justifiable fear for an even more noble purpose. If the fear is not justifiable or the purpose not noble, then the courage is either false, or foolhardy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~