In this essay I will be describing the virtue of bravery. I will first define whatAristotle thinks virtue is, explain the virtue of bravery, and then finally reflect this virtueon my personal experience in the Shaw neighborhood.
Aristotle breaks down virtue into four aspects which are: a state that decides inmean, consisting in a mean, the mean relative to us, which is defined by reference toreason(1107a). He also states that there are two kinds of virtue: one of thought orintellect and one of character or actions. He also states that virtue is a state of characterAristotle uses several examples to define a the bravery virtue. He say that ashumans we fear all bad things such as, bad reputation, povery, sickness, friendlessness,and death. However he says that these things do not concern a brave person.
Fearing thisthings are not all neccesarily bad though. Fearing something like a bad reputation is goodand shows that you are decent and properly prone to shame, unlike if you do not fear thisyou have no feeling of disgrace. Someone who has no fear of this might be consideredbrave by some people. However there are some things that are wrong to fear such aspoverty or sickness, things that are caused by ourselves, people who do not fear thesethings are not considered brave.
Sometimes someone who is not fearful of things causedby ourselves may be considered brave when compared to someone who is cowardly inwartime or someone faced with losing money(1115a 10-25). Aristotle also comes to theconclusion that a brave person is only concerened with death in the finest conditions. These kind of deaths are found in war and circumstances when it is honored by cities andAristotles next step is to define a brave persons state of character. He asks thequestion, What does a brave person find frightening? He answers with, a brave person isfrightened by the same things any human can find irrisistible, but the difference is that hewill stand firm against it until the end, and he is not frightened by things which are are notirrisistable.
Hence whoever stands firm against the right things and fears the right things,for the right end, in the right way, at the right time, and is correspondingly confident is theAristotle then explains that a brave person aims at what is fine. What is fine to abrave person is bravery. Therefore the end is fine, since each thing is defined by its end. A brave person shows what bravery is by standing firm and through his actions.
A brave person who goes to excess is one who is excessively fearless. They areexcessively confident about frightening things, making them rash. Sometimes this personmay be a boaster and a pretender to bravery. A rash person will act that they are fearlessand appear to have qualities of the brave person but they never stand firm against anythingfrightening. A rash person wishes for dangers to come, but when they do he cowers, but abrave person is eager in action and keeps quiet until then.
A brave person that has deficiency is a coward. He fears the wrong things in thewrong way. He has a deficiency in confidence and he is afraid of everything, while thebrave person is hopeful which is one of the ends of confidence. Hence the coward, the rash person and the brave person are all concerned withthe same things, but have different states related to them; the others are excessive ordefective but the brave person has the intermediate and right state.
(1115a 5-7)Aristotle then distinquieshes between some misconception of what most peopleassume bravery is, when in all actuality these are not genuine bravery; bravery of citizens,experience and expertise, emotion, hopefulness, ignorance. He says that citizens bravery comes first because they stand firm against dangerswith the aim to avoid legal problems or gaining honors. He also says the bravest seem tobe, those who hold cowards in dishonour and do honour to brave people.(1116a 20-23)He states that a lot of the time this class of people are compelled to be brave because of their superiors, when they should be brave when it is fine and not just when they areThe second experience and expertise he explains is a so-called state of braverybecause in the example of the soldier who .
