Chapter 7 & 8: Moral Courage PDF

# Chapter 7 Moral Courage ## Overview This chapter focuses on courage, a rare and often misunderstood virtue. The discussion is an exploration of the different meanings and forms of courage, with emphasis on moral courage. It answers the question, "What does it take to act morally?" ## Objective...

# Chapter 7 Moral Courage ## Overview This chapter focuses on courage, a rare and often misunderstood virtue. The discussion is an exploration of the different meanings and forms of courage, with emphasis on moral courage. It answers the question, "What does it take to act morally?" ## Objectives At the end of the chapter, you should be able to: 1. Explain moral courage with appropriate examples; 2. Describe acts of moral courage. ## Heroes are often associated with the word courage They act in ways that most others around them are too timid to even try. They stand out because of their desirable and rare qualities. They do "good" when everyone else is overwhelmed with fear. ### Courage is "the capacity to risk harm or danger to oneself." With this definition, there is no surprise in the apparent correlation between courage and conflict. Conflict brings many kinds of danger, and not everyone has the capacity to face them. In contrast, peaceful times and places seem to pose little or no risk. ### Courage is "the capacity to risk harm or danger to oneself." In reality, conflicts are everywhere. They only differ in form and gravity. Accordingly, courage comes in different forms. ## Physical Courage Physical courage refers to the willingness to face danger in battle, which is typically viewed as a military trait. In ancient Greece it was called *andreia*, which literally means "manliness," as it was thought of to be a masculine virtue. Soldiers are trained and expected to have the confidence to face the possibility, even the probability, of a violent, painful death. Aside from soldiers, there are others who have the capacity to face life-threatening situations. Paul Rusesabagina was a hotel manager in Rwanda when a long-standing conflict between two ethnic groups, the Hutus and Tutsis, escalated into a full-scale government-supported genocide in 1994. Within a few months, hundreds of thousands of people were killed. A Hutu, Rusesabagina was relatively safe, although his Tutsi wife and children were targeted by the murderous militia. He could have decided to secure his family regardless of other people, but he would not let other innocent people, even strangers, get killed. He hid 1, 268 people fleeing from the carnage in a hotel to keep them safe. He bribed militias in order to protect the people he was hiding. At the end of the carnage, none of the refugees he helped was hurt or killed in the attacks. Rusesabagina had all the reasons to secure just his family and flee to relative safety, which was hard enough by itself, yet he did more in spite of the circumstances. He saved more people than most others did. With physical courage, one faces an external threat to one's life, in some cases voluntarily. There may be some opportunity to fight back. Soldiers are not doomed; even if they do, at least they die on active service. To the adventurous, it is worthwhile. In the case of noncombatants like Rusesabagina, the conviction that they did it for something greater than themselves, something perceived as evil, was enough to induce the needed courage. ## Psychological Courage Psychological courage is "thriving in the face of physical and mental illness." Take the case of John Diamond, a journalist battling with cancer. Two months before his death in 2001, his editor asked him to write an article about the meaning of life. He wrote, among others, "It's about loving and being loved, about doing the right thing, about one day being missed when we're gone ... Why am I happy? Because I'm alive." Every year many physically fit people commit suicide, while many others with terminal illnesses stoically face the eventuality of their untimely death. It takes courage to face life's present challenges without bitterness and stay on without false hopes for the future. With psychological courage, one is forced to face the eventuality of death by an internal condition, an illness with no assurance of cure, a suffering with no guarantee of alleviation. Psychological courage is a point of contention on the issue of euthanasia. Which is more courageous, to overcome suffering by living on or to overcome the instinct for survival by deciding to die? ## Moral Courage Moral courage is the “disposition to voluntarily act, perhaps fearfully, in a dangerous circumstance, where the relevant risks are reasonable appraised, in an effort to obtain or preserve some perceived good for oneself or others, recognizing that the desired perceived good may not be realized.” ### Moral courage is good-oriented. For Mencius, the difference between petty and great courage is that the latter "is grounded in and oriented towards the good." Moral courage is the willingness to act, in spite of danger or suffering, for a good purpose. Willingness alone without good purpose is pointless. Good intention alone without willingness is useless. Anyone can be brave, but only those who use their bravery for some good purpose are morally courageous. Moral courage is “a commitment to moral principles, an awareness of the danger involved in supporting those principles, because of his personal conviction that genocide was wrong and his intention to save innocent lives. Good intention made his physical courage moral” Moral courage is voluntary. It is a function neither of the intellect nor of the emotions. Moral courage is a function of a strong will. It is a personal decision and commitment to act without being induced by some external force. The intellect may identify the good thing to do, and the emotion may provide the motivation; however, ultimately, it is free will that makes one act. ### Moral Courage is not necessarily the absence of fear Fear is a normal and healthy emotional reaction to some perceived danger. Moral courage is the ability to think and act in spite of and not because of fear. A morally courageous person is not suicidal. Willingness to act comes from realistic assessment of the risks involved. Excessive confidence is rashness, and it is not courage. Moral courage involves deliberate planning and careful execution of plans. ### Acts of courage sometimes involve benefiting others. People like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. defied social norms, faced strong opposition and grave personal danger for the sake of many other people. However, helping another person is not always required. Sometimes personal challenges are more than enough for one to bear. Yet good intentions need not be altruistic. Moral courage involves commitment in spite of uncertainty of outcomes. Even the best calculative risk assessment, strategic planning, and tactical preparation are not guaranteed to succeed. Failure, which can mean anything from humiliation to death depending on the situation, is always a possibility. A morally courageous person, driven to attain a good purpose, takes risks with no assurance of success. ## Showing Moral Courage A morally courageous person is willing to face ostracism, ridicule, and rejection if necessary to stand by what he or she believes is right. Moral courage does not only emerge from extraordinary circumstances like life-and-death situations, and exceptional individuals are not the only ones who possess such courage. Sometimes living is more difficult than dying. People often face unfair demands and try to live up to unrealistic expectations. They need to have moral courage to cope with the challenges in the real world. Take the young people as an example. One of the challenges they face is peer pressure. They want to fit in with their chosen group and to belong. However, to gain their peers' approval sometimes requires more than just "repackaging" themselves in new fashion styles or listening to some genre of music. It may entail acquiring certain habits (such as drinking alcohol or taking illegal drugs) or material things that are considered as status symbols (such as expensive gadgets). Without firm guidance as to how to resist or withstand peer pressure, adolescents may fail to cope well. They still need to develop their decision-making skills and grow in emotional and intellectual maturity. Young people nowadays are in keen competition. Their access to social media has put them at the center of the game of one-upmanship. In their own network, in particular, they can get regular updates of the whereabouts and activities of their peers and contemporaries. They can know what their friends are having for dinner before they even get to eat it. Supposing that some of their friends are already successful in their careers (perhaps, someone is already a successful entrepreneur, jet-setting across national boundaries), seeing photos of them makes one reflect on one's self-image. Though uncertain, the young can choose from the myriad paths that can lead them to a promising career. Avoiding competition is hard, though, and it is harder for them. Many vie for the same things, especially jobs that could help them get what they want. A stable family is one's refuge from the dangers of peer pressure. It satisfies one's need for acceptance and belongingness. However, even the family has its own expectations and standards. Conformity can be costly to one's prospects in life. Take the following example: Arlene Blum was born in the United States to an Orthodox Jewish family in 1945. After high school she wanted to go to college, major in chemistry, and see the world. Her aspirations would challenge the time-honored traditions of her family and community. Her culture did not frown on science per se. In fact, many Jews like J. Robert Oppenheimer, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Murray Gell-Mann, and Richard Feynman excelled in science in the twentieth century. However, they are all males. In Blum's culture a woman is destined to be a housewife. Her family expected her to find some Jewish man with sufficient income, get married, and raise children. It was a struggle to make them allow her to attend college, especially to major in science. Her family was concerned that she might not get married because an educated woman might intimidate prospective Jewish men. Fortunately, at some point her family let her pursue her scientific interest. Through persistence and determination, she became a scientist, aside from success in some other endeavor once dominated by men. In her own right, in 2007, she cofounded Green Science Policy Institute, advocating to bring scientific research results into policy decisions to protect human health and the environment from toxic chemicals. ## Moral Courage Moral courage is the right degree of confidence in one's abilities relative to the actual risks and prospective benefits. Deficiency in confidence is cowardice: excess is recklessness. It is the capacity and willingness to face danger, with realistic assessment of the risks involved. The purpose is to gain or preserve some good either for oneself or others, with the awareness that success is not guaranteed. While moral courage may manifest physically (e.g., facing external threats) or psychologically (e.g., facing illness), it is always directed to some good. It can be acquired through study and training. ## Conclusion ## References ## Chapter 8 Virtue Ethics ## Overview This chapter explores Aristotle's notion of virtue and how it relates to happiness or the good life. As a normative moral theory, virtue ethics emphasizes right disposition and character over right action. It highlights the different character traits that are considered virtuous, and the cultivation and exercise of virtues that make a good human being. ## Objectives At the end of the chapter you should be able to: 1. Define Aristotle's concept of virtue; 2. Discuss the significant connection between virtue and human nature, purpose, and function; 3. Explain how virtues are formed and cultivated; 4. State and discuss Aristotle's list of intellectual and moral virtues; 5. Describe real happiness and friendship in Aristotle's view; 6. Examine the criticisms against virtue ethics. ## The Meaning of Real Happiness According to Aristotle, men seek happiness in pleasure, honor, or contemplation. In his view, most men seek happiness in pleasure. He says, "To judge by their lives, the masses and the most vulgar seem — not unreasonably — to believe that the good or happiness is pleasure. Accordingly they ask for nothing better than the life of enjoyment." That is why they give their lives over to food, wine, merrymaking, and other bodily pleasures. Other men think that happiness is found in fame and honor. For Aristotle, this is what "men of affairs" and "cultured people" do. However, it seems that only a few devote their life to thinking, the life of contemplation dedicated to the pursuit of truth and wisdom. For Aristotle, happiness from pleasure and honor is not lasting. It largely depends on external things. For instance, one cannot always derive pleasure from material objects like expensive jewelry and sports cars because they are fleeting and destructible. Also, they may not always be available because they are scarce, or people have no means to secure them. Likewise, happiness achieved through honor depends on the praises and admiration bestowed upon the person by other people. As long as people are satisfied by the person's services, they will continue to give him honor. Once his services do not satisfy them anymore, or he cannot provide what they demand, then they will stop granting him accolades, and they may even resort to blaming him. What then does real happiness mean? How does one attain it? According to Aristotle, what gives man true happiness is that which befits human nature. For man to live the good life, he must function well as a human being. If reason is man's distinguishing characteristic that separates him from plants and animals, then he must develop and cultivate it in order to be happy. Though he has the basic functions of life, which he has in common with both plants and animals, such as nutrition, growth, and reproduction, it is only he who has the ability to think, deliberate, and make decisions. Thus, he must not only develop the basic functions that sustain his biological life, but he must also employ reason in order to know what the good life is and how to live it. ## Happiness and Friendship According to Aristotle, only a beast or a god can live in complete isolation from others.13 However, man does not live alone. He lives with others in the community, meaning he is not self-sufficient, and he can only pursue the good life in cooperation with his fellow men. In fact, it is only in promoting the good life of the community collectively that the members can secure their individual happiness. Though it is not bad to care for one's welfare, it is more noble and important to foster the well-being of the community rather than of an individual. Aristotle writes, "For even if the good of the community coincides with that of the individual, it is clearly a greater and more perfect thing to achieve that of the community; for while it is desirable to secure what is good in the case of an individual, to do so in the case of a people or a state is something finer and more sublime." This explains why men are encouraged to establish genuine friendships and actively participate in the life and activities of the community. What then is genuine or real friendship? For Aristotle, real friendship is based on goodness. It develops by promoting the good or welfare of one's friend for that friend's sake. A true friend is one who "loves the other for what he is, and not for any incidental quality." By contrast, in a friendship based on utility or pleasure, one loves a friend not for what he is but for his usefulness. In other words, one uses a friend to one's advantage. Friendship of this kind is not lasting since the relationship endures only as long as the friend is useful or pleasant. Once the friend ceases to be useful or pleasant to the person, their relationship is dissolved. Only real friendship thrives and lasts in life. Man, according to Aristotle, must use his reason in order to make good decisions on how such friendship can be achieved and maintained for one cannot be truly happy in the absence of real friendship "even if he had all the other good things" in life. ## Intellectual and Moral Virtues Developing one's abilities is connected with the good life. It calls for self-knowledge. By examining his nature, man discovers his abilities. These activities originate in the soul. According to Aristotle, the soul is the principle of life. It enables man to perform various activities, such as eating, sleeping, playing, and studying. The soul has two parts: First, the rational part is divided into the speculative intellect and the practical intellect. The latter's function is to discover and know principles and facts, while the former is used to apply those principles and facts in making decisions and solving problems. Second, the irrational part is composed of the desiderative part and the appetitive part. The former is responsible for a person's desires and wants, whereas the latter is responsible for the person's drives, instincts, and needs. Aristotle thinks that cultivating the rational and irrational parts leads a person to acquire intellectual and moral virtues, respectively. Intellectual virtues are cultivated and acquired through habit and training. Virtues are dispositions that develop a man's character and attitude. They are traits that make man into a fully developed person thereby making him attain the good life. As Aristotle explains, virtue is "the disposition that makes one a good person and causes him to perform his function well, ­­­­  or if there are more kinds of virtue than one, in accordance with the best and most perfect kind." The main intellectual virtues are understanding, science, and wisdom for the speculative part, and art and prudence for the practical part. Understanding is knowledge of first principles and self-evident truths. Science is the virtue that enables man to draw conclusions based on and derived from first principles. Wisdom is knowledge of things in their ultimate explanations and causes whereby all principles, truths, and conclusions are synthesized into a unity or coherent whole. Art is knowledge of how to produce and make things. Prudence is knowledge of how to perform actions in the right way and how to make good choices and decisions. Moral virtues are acquired through habit guided by prudence, which sets limit and control to the irrational part. The moral virtues in the list of Aristotle are courage, liberality, magnificence, temperance, magnanimity, proper ambition, patience, truthfulness, wittiness, friendliness, modesty, and righteous indignation. A moral virtue is "concerned with feelings and actions" and it is the mean between two extremes: the vice of excess and the vice of deficiency. For instance, courage is a moral virtue; its deficiency is cowardice, and its excess is rashness. Another moral virtue is modesty; its deficiency is shyness, and its excess is shamelessness. According to Aristotle, man should have these feelings "at the right times on the right grounds towards the right people for the right motive and in the right way." Thus, moral virtues refer to dispositions involving right emotions, right motives, right reasons, right relations, and right actions. For illustration, Rosalind Hursthouse's example of an honest person is very helpful. According to Hursthouse (and she is quoted here lengthily for richness and vividness of her description): We think of honest people as people who tend to avoid the dishonest deeds and do the honest ones in a certain manner — readily, eagerly, unhesitatingly, scrupulously, as appropriate. They hasten to correct a false impression their words have led you into which would be to their advantage; they own up immediately without waiting to see if they are going to be found out; they give voice to the truth everyone else fears to utter; they are concerned to make sure you understand what you are signing or agreeing to do for them. We expect a reliability in the actions that reflect their attitude to honesty, too. We expect them to disapprove of, to dislike, and to deplore dishonesty; to approve of, like, and admire honesty; and so we expect them in conversation to praise or defend people, real or fictitious, for their honesty, to avoid consorting with the dishonest, to choose, where possible, to work with honest people and have honest friends, to be bringing up their children to be honest. Where relevant, we expect them to uphold the ideals of truth and honesty in their jobs; if they are academics, to be resistant to fashion and scrupulous in their research; if they are teachers, to resist pressure to teach what they do not believe, or if they are doctors, to defend the importance of trust between doctor and patient, or if in business, to resist sharp practice and argue for honesty as the best policy. And this spills over into emotions we expect from them. We expect them to be distressed when those near and dear to them are dishonest, to be unresentful of honest criticism, to be surprised, shocked, angered (as appropriate ) by flagrant acts of dishonesty, not to be amused by certain tales of chicanery, to de despise rather than to envy those who succeed by dishonest means, to be unsurprised, or pleased, or delighted (as appropriate) when honesty triumphs. Finally, we may not actually expect, but may notice, if we are fortunate enough to come across someone thoroughly honest, that they are particularly acute about occasions when honesty is at issue. If we are less than thoroughly honest ourselves, they put us to shame, noticing, as we failed to do, that someone is obviously not to be trusted, or that we are all about to connive at dishonesty, or that we are all allowing someone to be misled. The mean in every person is not the same. There are persons, for instance, who are naturally confident, and so their mean and the effort they need to exert in order to acquire the virtue of courage is not the same as those who lack that natural confidence. *Virtue then is “a purposive disposition, lying in a mean that is relative to us and determined by a rational principle, and by that which a prudent man would use to determine it.”* To be virtuous, a person must always strive for perfection and excellence. According to the British philosopher Julia Annas, cultivating a virtue is like acquiring and learning a skill. Unlike some skills, virtue is neither routine nor mechanical that automatically predisposes a person to a virtuous act. Virtue, as Annas suggests, is dynamic. Acquiring a virtue presupposes the need to learn and the drive to aspire. Also, the philosopher Bernard Williams is of the opinion that "virtues are always more than mere skills, since they involve characteristic patterns of desire and motivation. "25 To illustrate this, he says: "One can be a good pianist and have no desire to play, but if one is generous or fair-minded, those qualities themselves help to determine, in the right contexts, what one will want to do." One can only acquire the intellectual and moral virtues through education and practice since they are not acquired immediately. If a person is able to cultivate those virtues, then he functions well as a human being. Only then he can live the good life. As Aristotle tells us: "One swallow does not make a summer; neither does one day. Similarly neither one day nor a brief space of time makes a man blessed and happy." ## Criticisms of Virtue Ethics Much of the strength of virtue ethics as a normative moral theory hinges on character formation and moral education. There is a need to know how virtues are formed in the life of its possessor. Questions as to how virtues are acquired, how they are cultivated, what circumstances are conducive to their formation, and what way is effective in training or educating a person to become virtuous become important because they provide insights about issues or problems raised against virtue ethics. One of the criticisms of virtue ethics is its inability to guide actions. It provides no definite rules for moral behavior. However, those rules only work if the moral agent has the character and disposition to follow them. The formation of virtues rather than obedience to rules is fundamental in virtue ethics. For instance, one cannot simply tell schoolchildren not to waste water from the drinking fountain if they do not know why it is not allowed. They need to be told that there is a scarcity of water and that without water living things, including humans, will not survive. Knowing the reason for conserving water, they will see the value of the rule and be motivated to follow it. Their constant rule-following will strengthen and reinforce the motivation until it is internalized and eventually becomes a habit. Later on the schoolchildren will acquire the virtue of being not wasteful. The habitual disposition and performance of an act with the right reason, motivation, and emotion are what is meant by virtue. Once virtues are acquired, it is not difficult to see why a virtuous person cannot follow the rules. In fact, virtues themselves become the rules. Regarding the example, the rule would be "Act so as not to be wasteful," or "Act as a person who is not wasteful would act." Another criticism is that virtue ethics is self-centered. It focuses on the agent's character and not, for example, on the duty he owes to another or the promotion of another person's benefit. It is basically about acquiring virtues for the agent's well-being or flourishing. However, not all virtues are self-regarding (e.g., courage and perseverance); some are "other-regarding" (e.g., kindness and compassion and seriousness of the criticism then becomes suspect. Also, virtues do not always benefit the possessor. The world is so complex that sometimes circumstances beyond his control preclude a direct relation between goodness and happiness. He acts virtuously not only because he wants to be happy (although we would be cynical if we deny it because we naturally desire it), but also because he recognizes through rational capacity that there are other values independent of his own happiness. This is not to deny the possibility of conflict between one's happiness and the value that one ascribes to things other than oneself. Even if this conflict exists, it does not always follow that one always gives preference to one's own happiness and disregards things that have value. Sometimes one is willing to make sacrifices to preserve and promote the value of things. For example, some people devote themselves to environmental protection without always thinking about the personal costs, whether physical (e.g., health and money) or psychological (e.g., frustration and social rejection). Although being "heroic" could be viewed as an exception rather than the rule because of the overdemanding nature of the engagement, it is sometimes necessary to avoid moral complacency and decadence as a result of mere compliance with the minimum moral standard. According to the American philosopher Mary Ann Warren (­­­­  19­­­­  46–2010), the heroic character is one of the moral ideals that "create space for supererogation, encouraging individuals to move beyond conformity to minimum standards of acceptable behavior, towards exceptional goodness, heroism and saintliness." There have always been people of such character in history, their extraordinary and exemplary lives often inspiring and encouraging many others.