Individual Virtues of Character: Bravery

In Book III of his renowned philosophical work Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle makes several distinctions regarding the individual character virtue of bravery. Primarily, he attempts to differentiate between the genuine virtue of bravery and conditions and circumstances in which only the appearance of bravery exists.

First, Aristotle, who considers bravery as the mean between feelings of fear and confidence (Nicomachean 40), acknowledges that even a brave person must feel fear simply because he or she is human. One who does not fear such things as a bad reputation or poverty and sickness, for example, clearly cannot be considered brave, rather they are disgraceful. A truly brave person, however, is one who is able to stand firm against his or her fears, or any frightening conditions, with rationality and confidence “for the right end, in the right way, at the right time” (Nicomachean 41). Consequently, the main focus of the brave person, according to Aristotle, is to aim for the “fine,” or what is itself beautiful (kalos) and deserving of admiration (Nicomachean 328), because “to the brave person bravery is fine; hence the end it aims is also fine” (Nicomachean 41). This is always true of a genuinely virtuous action.

This characteristic is what distinctly separates bravery from the extreme conditions of rashness and cowardice. A rash, excessively fearless person is someone who merely puts on the facade of a brave person, but in actuality could never confront the frightening conditions that a brave person could. In other words, they are all talk and no action. On the other hand, a coward, someone who is excessively afraid, lacks the proper confidence to ever achieve bravery. Even though bravery, rashness, and cowardice all revolve around the same issue, Aristotle believes they have “different states” (Nicomachean 42). Only bravery has the right state needed to perform a brave action.

Aristotle also presents many circumstances that appear similar to bravery, but in fact are not examples of genuine bravery. For instance, he describes how the bravery of citizens seeks to avoid reproach and desire honor, which is something fine, but it is still does not involve doing something for its own sake (Nicomachean 43), therefore, it is not genuine. In addition, he mentions how a professional soldier’s experience and familiarity in wartime can be confused with bravery, however, “they turn out to be cowards whenever the danger overstrains them” (Nicomachean 43). He goes on to explain how hopefulness, spirit, and ignorance can be confused with bravery as well. None of these conditions, however, exemplify genuine bravery because they do not possess the correct intentions or end. Genuine bravery must aim solely at the fine and cannot be achieved through any other motivation or condition.

If I could propose a question to Aristotle I would want to know if he believes that a brave person could help another person to become brave. Aristotle would probably respond by saying that since bravery is a virtue of character, we can only acquire it by ourselves through habituation. People cannot simply learn how to perform brave actions from someone else because it requires our own internal self, not anyone else.