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Essay on courage an essential trait in all human circumstances
The definition of courage
Introduction to courage
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In the 1939 movie classic, The Wizard of Oz, the Cowardly Lion is on a quest for the wizard to give him courage. He is afraid of everything and anything. However, in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle believes that courage is possible for all individuals. To gain courage one must have the inner qualities that will guide the courageous. The most important out of these qualities is to come to terms with death itself. Also, there are views of courage that are falsely perceived because they appear to be parallel with one another; nevertheless they are still very different.
One must have many different inner qualities in order to achieve courage. First, one must not be concerned with death; death can be a beautiful thing. Aristotle talks about how the possibility of dying for your country in war can be the utmost and most poetic danger of all. (Aristotle 48) Dying for a country in defense gives one honor because he or she stands firm in a belief regardless of what could happen to them. Aristotle compares this with citizenship. He claims,
Citizens seem to endure dangers on account of the penalties that come from the laws, and reproaches, and on account of honors; and because of this, those peoples seem to be the most courageous. (51)
Citizens here show their courage and do not fear the consequence. The motive here is not fear of the end result being their persecution, but for the good and defense of their self. One must yearn for the honor in the process of being unyielding in a belief. In order for this, one must be the inferior and proceed not because of shame but because of trepidation. (51)
Another inner quality one must encompass to be courageous is to do it in a balanced manner. Aristotle talks about the courageous...
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...ercome my failures, I still strive everyday to be more like Aristotle’s courageous individual. Subsequent to reviewing the inner qualities of a courageous person, facing death (or failures) in honor of something greater, more poetic; and their balanced manner, it is clear that; if you obsess about death or one’s failures, one will never be able to overcome it. Realizing that the most important inner quality is facing death because if one does not, one will never amount to anything more beautiful (in a poetic sense) in their life. When one faces death or a failure, one is accepting the biggest challenge of all. And lastly, I strive to be like Aristotle’s courageous individual because it is in right in between the rash individual, and the coward.
Works Cited
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Joe Sachs. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing R. Pullins Company, 2002.
...mes their fears at their own time. Aristotle’s point is not when to overcome fears, its how to overcome them. Christopher shows various acts of courage, but at his own different time and in his own state of mind. His zealous attitude about Wellington’s murder, causes him to find out things about his family as well as himself. Christopher realizes his own courage and strengths after his journey is over. He realizes that he can do anything he sets his mind to. Aristotle explains overcoming a fear takes real courage and caution. Although, Oak Park is a nice city, there are still horrible people out there. Being cautious of your surroundings but also having the courage to do anything is the key to success when living in Oak Park. The big picture is everything happens for a reason. People never know how strong they have to be, until being strong is the only option.
“The Greek maxim ‘Nothing in excess’” (Hollister 131) illustrates the need for self-control. Every tragic hero ended up committing an act of hubris based on his own fatal flaw. Many of those fatal flaws could have served the man and his country if tempered with self-control. “In the field of ethics, [Aristotle] advocated moderation in all behavior, arguing that emotions and actions (anger and love, eating and drinking) are themselves neither good nor evil and should be neither suppressed nor carried to excess: virtue is the avoidance of extremes, the ‘golden mean’” (Hollister 130).
He uses fear, rashness, and courage to define what makes a man brave or a coward. It is each of these in varying degrees that create the description of a man’s actions. One with too much courage and rashness becomes foolhardy and takes unnecessary risks. One that might have too much fear and not enough rashness becomes the coward. For Aristotle, finding the mean of these values is what give the best measure of the man. If he has this balance then he is working toward the improvement of a situation without regard to himself. This might also be explained as; if a man has just the right amount of courage, rashness, bravery and fear, he will do what it takes to make things better for his fellow men. But, he does not make any actions that serve to create a better impression of himself to his peers. He does the things to “save the damsel in distress” but isn’t doing it to get approval from other men...
Aristotle’s theories on virtue vary vastly from those of his predecessors. As opposed to the views of someone such as Plato, who believed that goodness came from knowledge, Aristotle argued that goodness, was achieved by building virtuous habits. Aristotle stated “The virtue of man will also be the state of character, which makes a man good, and which makes him do his own work well” (qtd. In Great Traditions of Ethics page 29). This means that being virtuous was a personality trait, which would help to do whatever he had to good. Aristotle believed that a morally virtuous person lives his life by choosing his actions according to a “golden mean”. This golden mean is used as the standard to avoid excess and defect; it is an intermediary o...
The Hero: "Often, for undaunted courage, fate spares the man it has not already marked."
...not theirs to fight. It is essential that the Tragic Hero accepts his necessary doom. It completes the hero. “I know my hour is come...Farewell to thee...I shall have glory by this losing day” (205).
Therefore, for Aristotle the soul was morally, which is where we are given the right reason. He believes that, “there are two parts of the soul, one rational and one irrational (Aristotle, 145).” The rational part, which is how he believes we should do our actions upon, consists of possessing reason, part that can think and command, and intellectual virtues, which are virtues that come from time and experience. Courage is a moral virtue. When having courage, you either have too much fear, which makes you a coward, or you have too little fear, which makes you’d be considered rash or fool hardy.
courage as manifested in ways others act; and (4) respect for individuality of the human
One of the most common aspects of a true hero such as Odysseus is the possession of the willingness and self-control that is required to endure both physical and mental hardships. Moreover, some even go to say that it is this willingness and self-control that truly defines ones heroism (Ames 4). The rational behind this statement lies in the observations that not only must a true hero overcome their desires completely (Ames 4), but suffering in general provides opportunity for human distinction (Ames 2-3). If Odysseus proves that he has been able to overcome his desires and endured massive amounts of suffering, he can be classified as a hero.
Aristotle's ethics consist of a form of virtue ethics, in which the ethical action is that which properly complies with virtue(s) by finding the mean within each particular one. Aristotle outlines two types of virtues: moral/character virtues and intellectual virtues. Though similar to, and inspired by, Plato and Socrates’ ethics, Aristotle's ethical account differs in some areas.
Through books one to three in Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes between pain and happiness, clarifying the endless war that men face in the path of these two extremes. Man’s quest for pleasure is considered by the self-conscious and rational Aristotle; a viewpoint traditionally refuted in contemporary, secular environments.
There are many heroes in this world, whether it’s a fireman or a doctor. A hero is defined based on their courage, nobility and strength. In contrast, there are tragic heroes. According to philosopher, Aristotle, the definition of a tragic hero is one that is of greatness and dignity but, despite their greatness, makes an error, otherwise known as the hero’s “tragic flaw” or “hamartia” which leads to his downfall. In William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, the main protagonist and round character, Macbeth starts as a man of greatness and dignity. His assumed loyalty to the country and king earns him respect from a variety of men and the title “Thane of Cawdor.” But, unfortunately because of his tragic flaw he is corrupted by his overwhelming ambition and destroys himself and the natural order of man. Macbeth transitions from the savior of his country, “Bellona’s bridegroom”, a “brave” and unbeatable man to a man of endless brutality. Macbeth is the epitome of a tragic hero.
In his classic work "Poetics" Aristotle provided a model of the tragic hero. According to Aristotle, the tragic hero is more admirable than the average person. This results in the tragic hero being admired by the audience. For the audience to accept a tragic ending as just, it is crucial that the tragic hero be responsible for their undoing. At the same time though, they must remain admired and respected. This is achieved by the tragic hero having a fatal flaw that leads to their undoing. One of literature's examples of the tragic hero is Achilles from Homer's The Iliad. However, Achilles is different from the classic tragic hero in one major way - his story does not end tragically. Unlike the usual tragic hero, Achilles is able to change, reverse his downfall, and actually prove himself as a true hero.
The virtues defined by Aristotle consist of two extremes or vices, the excess and the deficiency. The mean or the intermediate between the excess and the deficiency is the virtue. One virtue Aristotle explains is bravery, with its vices being rashness and cowardice. Each aspect of these is contrary to the others, meaning that the intermediate opposes the extreme. Similarly, one extreme opposes the mean and its other extreme. The implications of this are that the excess opposes the deficiency more than the mean. This causes the mean to sometimes resemble its neighboring extreme. Obtaining the mean involves the challenge of being excellent. The challenging part, however, is “doing it to the right person, in the right amount, at the right time, for the right end, and in the right way” (Nicomachean Ethics 1109a28-29:29). Fortunately, one can steer themselves to the mean if one is conscious of the extreme they are naturally inclined to go towards. Since everybody is uniquely different the means by which one steers themselves in the right direction is different for each individual. In addition, Aristotle names three requirements for an action to be a virtue. First one must be cons...
about what is feared and what is not to be feared is what I'm calling courage."