A short spoken micro-chapter by Brian Johnson explaining Aristotle’s account of courage as the virtuous mean between two vices: cowardice (deficiency) and rashness (excess). The talk clarifies that courage is not absence of fear but prudent action in the presence of fear, and ends with practical advice to acknowledge fear, judge prudently, then act.
Hi, this is Brian with another mini chapter from A Philosopher's Notes. This one's called Aristotle's Courage. First thing to know is that it's not about having no fear. It's about having courage. There's a big difference. Aristotle puts it brilliantly. He describes a virtuous the middle path between the vice of deficiency, not having enough of a virtue, and the vice of excess, having too much of a virtue. In his handy dandy model, we've got the virtue of courage, the. The noble quality that gives us the mojo to move ahead in the face of fear. We're freaked out, but we go for it anyway. Now, if I'm a bit of a tough guy about it and have too much courage, I'm going to suffer from a vice of excess that Aristotle calls rashness. I might just jump out of an airplane without a parachute or something equally unwise. On the other hand, if I'm overwhelmed by fear or have too little courage, I'm going to have a vice of defeat. In other words, I'm a coward. So the trick is to allow ourselves to feel the fear, check in to see what the most prudent course of action is, and then go ahead and do what needs to be done. Which, of course, might be not jumping out of that plane. So here's to the virtuous mean. Thank you, Aristotle, for that. Look at courage for virtuous mean. That's the middle path between the vice of deficiency, not having enough of a virtue, and the vice of excess, having too much. So let us honor our fear. It's not about getting rid of all of our fear. It's about taking the action necessary in the face of fear. Hope you enjoyed. Have an awesome day. Here's to getting our courage on.
