I used to not think much of courage as a virtue. After all, isn’t it courageous to drive 50 mph over the speed limit despite being nervous about driving – or to rob a bank despite being next to a police station?
Don’t soldiers show courage fighting, even when fighting for the more evil side?
It takes courage to become a boxer (because you’re likely to have your face pummeled by a powerful person), but is that a good trait to encourage?
What made me rethink courage was witnessing many cases where people did bad actions not out of greed, anger, or envy but due to a lack of courage.
They could:
#1. do the right thing, which would be hard, fear-inducing, painful, awkward, or socially discouraged; or
#2. do something a bit immoral that would be much easier and more pleasant.
More often than would be ideal, I’ve seen people choose #2. For instance, by:
• Not challenging a person they have responsibility for when that person acts badly
• Enabling someone who is acting immorally (leading to more people being harmed)
• Not defending a friend who needs defending
• Exiting a situation that’s uncomfortable when the right thing to do is to have a conversation and work to resolve it
• Not admitting that they’ve done wrong, and instead disengaging or becoming defensive
• Engaging in the bad behavior that those around them have normalized, causing it to become further normalized
Of course, nobody is perfect; everyone slips up at times. But witnessing good people do these not-good things caused me to realize: courage is not a stand-alone virtue; it’s an enhancer of other virtues. Courage is like salt, not like rice; it’s the sauce, not the potatoes.
Consider:
1. The Wise Critic
Honesty + Courage = telling difficult truths that it’s important for others to hear.
Honesty without courage is still good and valuable, but you’re limited to telling easy truths.
2. The Protector
Compassion + Courage = protecting other people even when it is dangerous and difficult, such as when saving someone from a bully means risking being bullied yourself.
Compassion without courage is great, but it’s limited to certain kinds of help.
3. The True Friend
Loyalty + Courage = being on the side of your loved ones and those you are grateful to, even when it comes at significant personal risk.
Loyalty without courage is still really nice to have, but it limits the extent of that loyalty.
4. The World Changer
Justice + Courage = fighting against the status quo to make the world better and fairer.
Justice without courage is great at small scales, but courage is often needed to create widespread change.
5. The Investigator
Truth-seeking + Courage = uncovering what is true regardless of what you wish were true or what you get rewarded or punished for finding.
Truth-seeking without courage leads to truer beliefs, but only in domains where truth isn’t too inconvenient.
6. The Hero
Goodness + Courage = standing up against immoral behavior, even when that behavior is socially condoned or carried out by the powerful.
Goodness without courage is a wonderful quality, but it doesn’t effectively combat evil.
Courage can make good behavior better and bad behavior worse.
That’s why it’s not a virtue by itself. But a lack of courage limits one’s ability to do good. Don’t seek courage for its own sake. Cultivate it because it enhances your other virtues.
Many people do bad things not because they are bad people but because they lack the courage NOT to. Seek courage because it allows you to do the right thing in difficult situations.
Here is how others have put related ideas about courage:
“…courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions.”
-C.S. Lewis
“Courage is the most important of the virtues because, without it, no other virtue can be practiced consistently.”
-Maya Angelou
“Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.”
-Samuel Johnson
“Who but a man of infinite courage could have dared to think those thoughts? That is the characteristic of great scientists; they have courage. They will go forward under incredible circumstances; they think and continue to think.”
-Richard Hamming
(Hat tip to @CallHimMoorlock and @alexisgallagher on Twitter for pointing me to some of these quotes.)
On a personal note, I’ve become more courageous over the years. I still have plenty of room for improvement, though, and it’s something I’d like to continue to work on.
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This piece was first written on February 13, 2022, and first appeared on this site on February 3, 2023.
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