big time
Right in the middle! This is the place Aristotle respects. In the book Nichomachean Ethics, Aristotle does his best to explain what the many virtues of the world are. To Aristotle, the virtue courage is "a mean with respect to fear and confidence"(68), but more specifically, "a man who fearlessly faces a noble death and any situations that bring a sudden death"(69-70). This is certainly consistent with his philosophy that all virtues are simply the correct middle between any excess and deficiency. There do, however, arise many complications with the definition of courage. What may seem like courage might not be. Consequently, Aristotle sets the bounds that courage must result from reason, must not be confused with duty, and is only measurable in unexpected situations. If outside these bounds, then actions cannot be classified courageous. Though I feel that Aristotle has for the most part hit true courage on the button, he is wrong to label no action courageous if it is not in his bounds. The trouble with Aristotle's analysis is that it destroys courage by ruling out any situation where it possibly could exist, by not considering different degrees of emotions that lead to different human dec
Aristotle is absolutely right that true courage can only be found within these bounds. If a citizen comes back dead from war, there is the high likelihood that he might not have been acting courageously when he died. He certainly could have been forced by an officer to fight or have been too scared of the stigma that society would put on him to run away. If either was the case, then the soldier didn't act with true courage. Temper likewise is fair to criticize. Anyone who is terribly consumed by emotion is not acting in the way that their natural reason would guide them. In this sense angry people are not themselves and their actions to not warrant the credit of the label "truly courageous". As follows, experience, optimism, or ignorance are also effective issues to argue upon. If someone is charging hard and going beyond what normal men would attempt, then they just might know something the rest don't. In the case of ignorance, they might not be acting as they truly would. Either way, it can't be disputed that it would take "a sudden situation"(75) to see if there was no experience, optimism, or ignorance that gave a man a false expression of courage before the sudden situation arose. Aristotle's definition of true courage is solid; it truly can only be measured in non-citizens that are in sudden situations and acting with complete reason. I would be very upset with Aristotle's definition of courage if I were a soldier. He would give me no credit where it could certainly be due. True I may not act with complete reason, I may have a little experience and optimism, but in most cases
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Approximate Word count = 1074
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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