Courage (also called bravery or valor) is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, hardship, death or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, discouragement, or personal loss.
“First, in feelings of fear and confidence the mean is bravery (andreia). The excessively fearless person is nameless…while the one who is excessively confident is rash; the one who is excessively afraid and deficient in confidence is cowardly.“
— Aristotle
Fear and confidence in relation to courage can determine the success of a courageous act or goal. The confidence that is being discussed here is self-confidence; Confidence in knowing one’s skills and abilities and being able determine when to fight a fear or when to flee from it. The ideal in courage is not just a rigid control of fear, nor is it a denial of the emotion. The ideal is to judge a situation, accept the emotion as part of human nature and, we hope, use well-developed habits to confront the fear and allow reason to guide our behavior toward a worthwhile goal.
Civic courage is described as a sort of perseverance – “preservation of the belief that has been inculcated by the law through education about what things and sorts of things are to be feared.”
Thucydides, a 5th Greek historian said; “The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.”
Our Founding Fathers understood the virtue of courage. What a pity that so many of our citizens, and particularly our public servants have lost sight of it.