"What is Courage?" Why? Radio episode with Ryan Balot.
2:18AM May 15, +0000
Speakers:
Announcer
Jack Russell Weinstein
Ryan Balot
Keywords:
courage
virtue
courageous
idea
notion
person
discussion
democracy
philosophy
sense
plato
greeks
democratic
act
character
today
fear
terms
emotions
cowardice
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The original episode can be found here: https://wp.me/p8pYQY-cj
Why philosophical discussions about everyday life is produced by the Institute for philosophy and public life, a division of the University of North Dakota's College of Arts and Sciences. This season is made possible in part by a grant from the Knight Foundation and the Community Foundation of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks. Visit us online at why radio show.org
Hello, everybody, welcome to Why philosophical discussions about everyday life. I'm your host Jack Russell Weinstein. Today we're talking with our guest Ryan Ballard about the meaning and nature of courage. I'd also like to dedicate this episode to the memory of James Nixon Institute for philosophy of life board member dedicated why fan and donor lover of learning brilliant iconoclast and dear friend, Jay, you will be missed. Many years ago when I was in graduate school, I took a class in which we discussed Plato's account of the desire to learn the Greek word for desire as arrows. So philosophy for Plato is literally erotic, and so is the relationship between teacher and student. In response, someone in the class presented a paper asking whether he himself had ever felt any erotic attraction to his own teachers. He said that he didn't include it that Plato was wrong, philosophy and Eris had nothing to do with each other. Now, there plenty of problems with this approach, but in the discussion that followed, I argued that his paper was misplaced, simply because no one ever really looked at the ancient philosophers for real life advice. The Greeks were historically interesting, I said, but largely irrelevant to our lives today. Others disagreed, including the professor. And it is one of the great ironies of my own life that I've spent my entire career proving myself wrong. The whole purpose of the show is to illustrate that philosophy is essential to our day to day lives. But it is also true that today's world would be incomprehensible to Plato, changes in culture, technology, religion and human knowledge have made the Greek Life obsolete in almost every way. It's not unreasonable to be skeptical about their relevance. If I were to argue for Plato's continued relevance, I'd say two things. First, I would suggest that Plato's questions are more important than his answers, because we're still arguing about the same things that he did. We don't agree on what Justice virtue or goodness are. I'd also say that Plato tried to describe the universal human experience, not just his own culture, and that while values and technologies have changed, human beings haven't, both of these observations will be familiar to anyone who's taken a philosophy course in college. It's, it's how we all defend Plato. But I won't make those arguments. Instead, I'd like to suggest that we learn not just by focusing on what we have in common with others, but by examining what we don't. Change is instructive. Understanding the evolution of ideas is important, in part, because today's beliefs may turn out to be as wrong as many of the Greeks were. If I could go back in time to that seminar, I'd point out that Greek education was quite different than what we have today. Now, without getting into too much detail in Plato's time, men taught boys with the hope that they would become sexual partners. Advanced Education was intertwined with courtship arrows was institutionalized as a way of creating continuity between generations. But our colleges and universities are designed specifically to avoid teacher student romantic entanglements. So much so that we've even stopped talking about the desire to learn, we use the phrase the love of learning instead. For students of Greek, we've replaced arrows with Filia and Agha pay. We've rejected the idea that education is sexual and accepted the fact that learning is a joint project among equals, that knowledge itself should inspire, and that we should stand a gate before the truth. If there is one. The student was never attracted his professors in part because his universities didn't want him to be. Now make these observations not because I want to talk about Plato per se, but because today's topic demands that we attend to the effect culture has on their words and their meanings. We're going to examine the word courage, and we're going to do so with a guest who focuses much of his attention on the classical Greeks. Our idea of courage comes from the Greeks just like arrows does, but it's also changed and today's show is gonna examine how now it's possible that our guests will suggest that we ought to reject what courage means to us and return to the original Greek idea. The show is unscripted and anything can happen, but I doubt he'll do that. Instead, what I anticipate is that we will be introduced to someone who loves the fact that words values and concepts grow as cultures do. And someone who recognizes that there is pleasure and recounting this journey. Pleasure. Hey, donate in Greek, and because Greek words were also often the names of their gods hit donate is also the name of the Goddess of pleasure, the daughter of you guessed it arrows, a god we know by his Roman name Cupid. So even though the context is different, we're back to Plato's claim that philosophy is erotic. And while few people would consider education hedonistic in the way that sex, drugs and rock'n'roll are supposed to be. It's also true that scholars take great pleasure in learning. We lament how little time we get to do research, we want more opportunities to feel good in just that way. All of this is to say that words do not exist in isolation. Concepts are cultural, and they carry their histories with them. Courage and arrows are not simply ideas, they're traditions. And if we want to really know what they mean, we when we reference them, we need much more information than a simple dictionary would provide. We need context, we need to know how they relate to other words, we need philosophy. And we need to compare. And now our guest, Ryan Ballard is professor of political science at the University of Toronto. He's the author of many books and articles, including courage in the Democratic polis ideology and critiquing classical Athens, and a companion to Greek and Roman political thought, Ryan, thanks for joining us on why.
Thank you, Jack.
We're live this evening. So we'd love to have your questions and comments, you can email us at ask yud.edu Tweet us at at why radio show or join the conversation with my intern Darren, in our chat room at y philosophy and public life.org. We're also live streaming video on our Facebook page. So if you prefer to see us in action, Washington comment on facebook.com/why radio show. So Ryan, I want to ask you about the word courage itself. I can't remember the last time I used it people now use the term brave but courage seems so old fashion, our courage and bravery different or by making a mountain out of a molehill?
Well, that's a good question. Because I think that the language in which we discuss these ideas, is tremendously important for our understanding of the concepts. I would say that bravery is something of a more limited idea than courage. Bravery, draws our attention to the physical dimensions of courage. Perhaps bravery consists in or is a good way to characterize a single act, as opposed to a reliable trait of character. I would say that courage, on the other hand, is an excellence of character, that we asked to do quite a lot of work that it's the thing that enables us to overcome fear or uncertainty for the sake of something that's truly admirable, a noble cause, but it can occupy many different domains. For example, the physical, the ethical, the political, the existential, and even the philosophical. So I would mark a difference. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't make too much of that difference, simply with reference to the language, because what we're really interested in is the ideas that that language is used to discuss, you
know, the, all of that information that you just gave, makes card seem like such a hard topic to discuss, and also something that that it's hard to have. I don't know if it's harder to have an intuitive sense, or if it's just harder to articulate that to swing, we got it, we got a couple questions in advance of the show, as as we often do. And both of the people who sent questions in advance included, quotes, one, a reference to Marine, the Marines, which we'll talk about later, and one a quote from a book and that's never happened before. It's never happened that everyone who asked a question advanced felt the need to refer to a larger text. Is this indicative of how complicated our relationship is with with courage that, that we attach it to the romantic that we attach it to the literary that we have all these, the stuff wrapped around the idea?
Well, I think what it's indicative of is the fact that we care about courage so much, that it's essential to view ourselves as courageous or at least not as cowardly coward, cowardly cowardice is one of the worst insults that people can experience. And I think that people may feel indeed a certain degree of trepidation in trying to articulate what courage is. And yet it is such a familiar experience and so essential to living a good human life well,
is, is defining cowardice easier than defining courage, or is it is cowardice just the absence of courage?
That's a great question. I think that I think myself that defining cowardice is easier than defining courage. In fact, I wouldn't Make of defining courage so much as trying to articulate the the questions and ideas that make it up. In the case of cowardice, I think that a be a behavior that is motivated by fear is a good at least starting point for cowardice in a situation where a person should not feel fear, where it's irrational or somehow shameful to feel fear, to give in to those fears, to have one's perceptions or judgments colored by fear, I think that would be a good way to characterize cowardice. Courage, on the other hand, isn't necessarily motivated by a single emotion or idea or elements of practical reasoning, it's, I would say that it's highly contextually dependent. And as I say, we ask it to, to cover a lot of ground, a great deal, or a great range of topics.
The Greeks had a term that they used for these, these ideas that were character illogical, that were, that were so large and cultural, they use the idea of, of a virtue, a human excellence, we don't really have virtues in the same sense in our culture, can you talk a little bit about what the concept of a virtue gives a culture and how we can understand virtues separate from sort of our traditionally you know, there was a time in the in the 19th century when when literature you talked about a woman's virtue right from from the Latin verb to right meaning a woman's virginity, but we don't mean that anymore, either. Right. So what is the concept of virtue do because courage was one of the central virtues right?
Yes, absolutely. So I think that we have a prop something of a problem of translation or just of idiomatic usage. When we use the term virtue it does sound stodgy and Victorian, very old fashioned, it sounds like chastity. It sounds like a constraint on our behavior. And I'm not sure that we have a good way to talk about it. Now, that doesn't sound that way. As you say it is an excellence of character. That's not a very easy, that's a mouthful. That's a very difficult thing to imagine idiomatically. So what I what I would prefer, is to think of the ethical, and to name the virtues, like Courage, or justice, or generosity, or self control, and, and many others, because I think those ideas, say justice, say, prudence, or wisdom, these sorts of things, certainly do have currency in our culture. And in fact, when we think about them and look at uses of them, we see that they have very great power indeed. So that's how I would, that's how I would work with the problem of terminology that you mentioned. A virtue, as you know, in academic philosophy, there is a field of virtue ethics, and the virtues are enjoying a kind of Renaissance. But I don't think it's very easy to talk popularly about them in that way. So I think we have to explain and then to name them and identify them.
So our virtue is something that sort of a general concept that we can get from these notions of moderation and beauty and courage that we get it sort of we go in the other way, that we only generalize it from particulars, or is there a way to sort of get in the 21st century, a notion of what virtue can be in popular culture in in a general understanding?
Well, I think there is a way to get to a general understanding, but what we have to do is to rely on opinions about these things. So if you take an example, I started working on courage, right around the time of 911. And there was a heated public discussion about the courage or cowardice of the terrorists, and also about the American leadership at that time. And I think if we talk about if we make judgments or evaluations about particular situations like that, then I think our, our attitudes toward these enduring ideas become clearer all over again. So for example, Susan Sontag, the writer had made statements about the courage of the terrorists, which she said was a courage being a morally neutral idea. She abhorred what they did, of course, but that was unmistakable. that they exhibited courage. And that provoked a great deal of reaction, and, as I say, a complex and interesting public debate. So I think that I'm not sure that we will ever have agreement on what courage is or how to apply the idea in specific circumstances in a country, let's say, as large as the United States of America. But if we draw attention to the notion and think about what's involved in it, then I think we can have a better informed debate about these particular questions.
You know, it's interesting, this idea that courage could be morally neutral, because for the Greeks, virtues were inherently moral qualities, but they thought of it more in terms of the good life and about character, not the right and wrong thing to do. That's late brings us to Lisa's question. She's one of the folks who included a quote, and she, she wanted to know about the connection between virtue and moral responsibility. And she's she gives this quote from a book by David Mitchell called Cloud Atlas. And she says, he wrote, our lives are not our own, we are bound to others past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth, our future. Think implicit in that is this notion that courage is an inherently a social idea that it brings with us our context, our history, our responsibilities. And so is there in Lisa's question, is courage attached to moral responsibility in the way that we think about it today, a good deed as a courageous deed a bad deed as a cowardly deed? Or is it detached from that more act oriented ethics and only coherent in terms of character development?
Well, I think that we can certainly talk about courageous acts, and that when we demand that someone take responsibility for something, we we make that demand, we insist on that often, because we're asking a person to do something difficult in a situation of uncertainty or even potential disgrace or embarrassment. And so I think that courage and responsibility are certainly linked in that sense. Now, I would say, though, that it makes better sense to think about courage in general as an attribute of a person's character, ideally, as an enduring or stable disposition, or trait of character, rather than as a one off characterization of an action.
So let me interrupt for just a second. Ron, I apologize. So are you suggesting that a person can't be courageous one day and cowardly the next but they're either courageous, or they're cowardly?
No, I wouldn't say that. But I would say that on a particular day, some somebody can do something that took courage, certainly. But if you were if you were going to admire that person, as a courageous individual. And to get back to Lisa's question, look at that person in the larger context of historical political, etc, responsibility, then I think you would have to look at that person's behavior over time. Because you wouldn't, you wouldn't want to. You wouldn't want to approve of somebody as a person as a carrot, somebody's character in general, simply based on a single action. But yes, I mean, people. The fact of the matter is, we are theorizing and talking at a very abstract level. But the fact of the matter is that from day to day, as we all know, if something bad happens to us on the road, then we might act less generously in the next five minutes than we would have if it hadn't. So we go up and down a fair amount.
This concept of moral approval, can you say? Courage? Can you use courage disapprovingly? Can you can you say out of the side of your mouth with a kind of snide attitude? Oh, yeah, that person's courageous and, and mean it right not not ironically not, you know, suggesting that they're really a coward and you're faking it, but, but you mean that they're, they're, they're courageous, but yet you disapprove of their courage.
I think it's very difficult to do that, actually. Certainly, you can use it ironically and sarcastically that way. But one of the one of the outstanding or salient features of courage is that it's something we cling to. It's something we admire and approve of. And that's why I think again to mention soon, Susan Sontag and The terrorist attacks, there was such an inspired debate because we really care that we are our people, or whatever, our courageous. And as I say, conversely, to call someone a coward is perhaps the greatest of insults. So I don't think so actually.
And that's, of course why people were so upset, because she claimed it was morally neutral. But no one believed that they they assumed that she was complimenting them, because she was using this term that can only be a compliment.
I think you're right. So the problem with courage and a sense is that it's, it's a, it's a virtue and excellence, that we need to keep watch over, because there is no other virtue. If you think about, say, justice, if you think about trustworthiness, or self control or generosity, we don't have to worry about those virtues. But courage is in an unusual position, because it's so readily speaks loudly on its own behalf and overrides the claims of justice. So people who are interested in being courageous can possibly go too far, by by finding situations in which to display their courage when there was no need to do so. So actually, courage is out perhaps a loan among all the excellences of character, that one which, as we all know, can serve evil or unjust ends. And I think that was the problem that Sontag was struggling with. She didn't have a way to talk about that. And I think that probably what she should have said simply is that maybe they were brave. What they did, in one sense, took courage, but we we don't want to in any way approve of their behavior, because what we approve of his courage that is used for the sake of justice or a noble cause.
Is this use of courage in the wrong circumstance? Is that what Aristotle meant by foolhardiness, which he thought was an an excess? Or his full hardiness? Not courage at all. Just, I can't think of the word but just just craziness and ultra risky behavior.
It's a vise In other words, yes, it's a kind of behavior that is, let's say born of ignorance. It is harmful to the person who does it and perhaps to to others. And, yes, I think that what those what those terrorists did was certainly reckless in that sense. Yes. So there's a certain amount of ambiguity. And if you if you think about other kinds of cases, some cases of recklessness are very easy to identify because they harm the individual who's reckless, a teenager who recklessly jumps to his death while trying to complete a daring die from a cliff or something like that. But there are there are these difficult cases in which people do show a kind of determination to achieve their ends and overcome danger and fear and do achieve their ends? And yet we don't admire them this it's a classic problem, called the courage of the villain.
When we come back from the break, I'll ask you about the courage of the villain. I know Kant talks about it explicitly. I'll also ask you directly what courage is and shift the conversation to the Democratic context because I know that that's what a significant amount of your work is on you're listening to Ryan ballot and Jack Russell Weinstein. We're talking about courage on why philosophical discussions about everyday life, we'll be back right after this.
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You're back with why philosophical discussions about everyday life. I'm your host, Jack Russell Weinstein. We're talking with Ryan ballot, and asked him the question, what is courage? You know, with this show in mind, I've been thinking a lot about the uses of the word courage, as I talked about in the beginning of the show, and the uses of the word brave. And I made a mental note to look at how frequently words like this were used on the internet, particularly on Facebook, which we all probably spend too much time on. And one of the things I noticed is that almost entirely every example that I found of someone using the word brave, was referencing a woman who was heavier than average, who was shump, somehow expressing her sexuality or showing her skin on Facebook, that the word brave in the last six months to a year seems to be reserved for a very particular act. Now I can understand why people would consider this brave, someone like that, given our current standards of beauty are is opening herself up to ridicule to insults. There's a lot of discussion now about obesity in this country and about overweight and about fitness and about all of that sort of stuff. But without taking a position on that I found it incredibly interesting. That brave became a category for a very specific act. No one would ever call me brave, because I'm talking to an audience right now live of however 30,000 people is what we estimate, listen to an episode that I give interviews that I stand in front of a classroom, even though public speaking is continually listed as one of the top fears that many people have, no one would call me brave because I decided to raise a child or because I committed to a marriage or even because I wrote in a Vesper today, right, no one would call that brave. Yet there is this specific task that's assigned this term. And yet, it seems to attach to this notion of courage. So Ryan, I guess, with all of this in mind, I want to start by going back to the classical Greek view, for a second, were there very specific acts that everyone in the Greek world knew was courageous, and reference them as courageous, and that it was just it was, it was it was the set of courageous acts, and people just acted on them. And other things were not part of that universe of discussion?
Well, I think the prototype of courage was military valor. And that that I believe, remains true today, facing down fear, and the enemy on the battlefield. This was true since the time of Homer, the epic poet through Aristotle in his famous discussion of courage. And it was a widespread idea that men and only men were soldiers, that men went on to the battlefield. And that was the core of the concept that they had to face the enemy and fight bravely to save their cities. Now, go ahead.
And that and that brings to the David The other question that we got in advance wasn't really a question was a comment. And he and he wrote that courage is not the ignoring of fear. It's the appropriation of fear as as as a secondary idea, and he quoted the Marines that there's a marine sign that says pain is is fear to leaving the body, and yet at the same time, right, what I just mentioned, this notion of of women standing up to express their beauty in front of perhaps a disapproving audience, does that mean that courage is is encouraged was an inherently martial virtue doesn't have to be that now? And is it inherently a manly virtue is courage gendered?
Well, I think that for the ancient Greeks in the minds of many ancient Greeks, it was both manly gendered and martial and that any extension, beyond those fears and beyond men, was seen as legitimate. But even in the ancient world, and certainly today, I think that courage is not a gender term, that certainly women and men alike can exhibit courage. And even again, in the ancient world, democratic Athenians and philosophers certainly began to develop other notions of courage related more to the political, the ethical, even the philosophical. So I think it's it's a much more expansive notion than that rather crabbed and limited notion that was the core of the traditional Greek concept
is courage and ideological concept does it? Does it demand a worldview? Does it man demand a whole system of morality and propriety and even social participation?
I think that courage as an intrinsically admirable excellence of character that is devoted to good, worthy, just etc, ends or goals. In that sense, I think it it does find itself located most naturally within a framework, in other words, that when people use the terminology of courage, they are implying much more about their worldview in a particular judgment than then they may think they are, yes, on the one hand. On the other hand, I think that we've seen a number of ideological uses of courage and one on one of the dangerous or toxic possibilities associated with courage is that courage and cowardice as rhetorical terms can be used to, for example, stir up militarism, for example, in the idea that you are a coward if you don't support a particular war, or you are a coward if you won't join the military or things like that. I certainly think it can be used that way, ideologically, also.
So post September 11, when Congress changed french fries to freedom fries, part of what they were doing was calling France cowardly.
Well, I think they were I think they were not only calling France cowardly, but also suggesting that they didn't value the freedom, that courage is ideally meant to serve. And we're meaning to disapprove of them and cast jobs at them calling them right cowards, but also in the sense that they were not as as interested in freedom. What is what is the opposite of freedom, they were a bit slavish, they were a bit too weak to defend what's most important to them,
as one of the characters in The Simpsons called them, cheese eating surrender monkeys, that they're this, just this this group of people who don't have these other values. And you actually talk quite a bit in your book about how courage is inherently intertwined, especially democratic courage, with freedom and equality. And I want to get to that in just a second. But the the voice in my head, the one that I'm allowed to listen to anyway, is, is is is nagging me and and wants to ask you, what is courage when talking about it for a while? Is that just too simplistic a question to ask what courage is?
No, I think it's it's the it's the all important question here. And I think that I would begin by thinking of it in a traditional way, maybe captured by Hemingway when he said, when he called courage, grace, under pressure, that we have to start with the notion of some sort of sort of confidence or savoir faire or something in situations of danger. But that when we reflect on the notion, and we consider what it means to us and How admirable or how admiring we are of courage, what we have to add to that initial stab at what it means is the idea that it's dedicated to justice or to freedom, as you say, or to civil rights, let's say to these causes that we find worthy of self sacrifice. And that again, as I said, Before, I think it has to be to be the truly admirable thing that it is it has to be an enduring quality of a person, even if particular acts can display courage.
You know, having always quote grace under pressure, also depends on how we take that quote, Grace can be as a simplest, simplistic idea simples wrong word. Grace can be an idea of sort of a way of carrying oneself but grace is also a divine concept, a Christian concept, a religious concept. That implies for many of Christian denominations, a gift from God, something that is is put on somebody that is granted to somebody out of the kindness out of the love that God has, is courage. Does courage have divine elements is courage, either in the Greek tradition or in our tradition in the 18th century? Not that those are the only three options? is courage connected to the gods or God in that way, or is courage and inherently a human trait? That is huge been motivated by human mortal agents?
Well, the way that I think of it certainly is not within a religious framework. And thinking of it as a gift, makes it sound as a gift of God, let's say makes it sound as though it might be a natural attribute, such such as the color of our hair, I have brown hair, brown eyes, some people are born with a kind of funny disposition and others might seem courageous. But in my conception, it's not simply a tendency that you're born with, but rather a developed idea that you yourself have to cultivate through reflection and learning, through exposing yourself and taking risks and things like that. So I think that with that, one thing that considering it a gift of God would leave out, would be the idea that a person actually has to develop himself in order to exhibit these virtues. On the one hand now, I do want to say this, though, that I think religious conceptions, at least in the European tradition, that I'm most familiar with, tend to draw attention to the notion of love. And you started the show by talking about Eros, or certain kinds of love. I think that courage tend to be just as a description about what we love. It shows us what we love, what we care most desperately about. And I think that in that sense, it certainly can fit within a within a religious framework. Certainly, that's how St. Augustine representative, for example,
is that why Joan of Arc is, in my mind, one of the first in my history maybe off but one of the first women who was really depicted as courageous because she's acting in the name of a God for something that she loved.
Well, I think that, that she got a lot of attention, because everybody agreed that the causes that she was fighting for, were good. But I think that what when if they picked out her courage in particular, that what they were picking out was her why's it well informed determination to carry out her will sort of to impose her will on the reality that she confronted in the service of this cause that everyone admired.
Lisa asks, Why courage sometimes fails? Is that a philosophical question? Or is that a psychological question having to do with one person's individual circumstances is there have there been lengthy discourses and theories about the about why courage fails? People like there are, for example, many philosophers, most famously, Descartes, spend a lot of time talking about why people make mistakes. Why why why people get knowledge wrong. Is there the same sort of discussion about courage failing? Or is it just this person in this instance, didn't have the character didn't have the will didn't have the the other unified virtues and therefore they just couldn't do it?
Well, I think there certainly are discussions of failure or failure of nerve let's say in many literary representations of failures of courage. On the one hand, I think that as democratic centuries became more familiar in the modern world over the last couple of centuries, people who are not used to democracy tended elitist and so on tended to think that democracies degraded the possibility of courage, that is that ordinary people were not up to the task and explained it that way. On the other hand, I think that one thing you see is that ins in stories told by soldiers who return from from warfare like Tim O'Brien, a famous American
poet and writer wrote The Things They Carried, among other things,
exactly. What you find is that when you when you get closer to the manifold circumstances in which failures of nerve occur, you find a great deal of complexity. So for example, there are stories about soldiers who shook so much they could hardly stay on the front lines in World War Two or Vietnam. But their fellow soldiers came to admire them For the almost heroic efforts that they made to overcome this seemingly natural endowment of fear, so I think you have a certain amount of complexity once people really start looking at cowardice in that way.
So let's shift the discussion to this notion of democratic courage. We've talked about Marshal courage. We've talked about courage as a character trait. What happens to courage once we start talking about it in terms of politics, and certain terms of making an argument and standing up before the Senate, in terms of voting either for what's right or for your convictions? Depending on which tradition of democracy you adhere to? What is democratic courage different in type than the other kind of courage? Or is it just an application of a general idea?
Well, I think it is an application of the general idea that I was talking about. But democracies in my conception, provide particular resources to socialize the virtue of courage to make it less the preserve of individual heroes, and more available to ordinary people. And the way that they do that is in part through open and free discussion and deliberation, in which people think through their conceptions of courage and the ends that courage will serve such as freedom or justice or liberation of others. And then with in combination with their fellow citizens, carry those ends into practice. And I think that, on the one hand, therefore, democracy, equalizes courage by making it available to all citizens, and it recognizes the courage of all citizens, for example, in our own famous Vietnam War Memorial, and in the ancient Athenian funeral oration, and monuments like that, that recognize all people and not individuals. But the key here, again, is the notion that courage with the advent of the ancient Athenian democracy became a more intellectual notion. People began to think and talk about it, and think through its demands, and they used their more intellectual outlook on courage to distinguish themselves say from non Democrats, such as the Spartans or Persians, whom they viewed as motivated by inauthentic types of courage.
So, we have a question from Eric who wants to who asks whether or not courage requires a particular instigating event, something threatening something dangerous is can you be courageous in a democratic context? without there being a need to be courageous is just voting courageous? Or do you have to stand up against the masses? You were talking about? Facilities and Pericles ERATION? Do you have to be part of a major event or is just reading the newspaper when you don't feel like it an act of courage?
Well, I think I would want to reserve the terminology of courage for something I admire more than simply reading the newspaper when you don't feel like it. On the one hand, but I don't think it requires a particular event like you might, you might think that the most prominent examples of courage in US history have come about at these transformative moments, such as the Civil Rights era. On one hand, you might think that but on the other hand, I think that given the world we live in with all of its Threats and Dangers, as well as with the tendency of democracies to produce a kind of conformity. I think that we are always we always have these possibilities available to us to sort of liberate ourselves from the conformism of ordinary life and to confront all the dangers and uncertainties that we just do confront every day as human beings. Is,
is courage, a prerequisite for a healthy democracy? Do does a democracy have to be a collection of courageous citizens or does a democracy just need either some courageous folks or a courageous people when courage is required? I mean, to what extent right There's this whole discussion now and has been for the last few decades of the Democratic virtues and and the virtues in a liberal democracy. But Courage isn't necessarily in that discussion. So should courage be a prerequisite for democracy? Is it is it? Is it a necessary but not sufficient condition? I guess is the phrase I'm looking for to be a citizen in a democracy?
Well, I think it is, you're quite right to say that there's been a lot of discussion recently about the liberal virtues and that courage does not tend to figure into those conversations. I think that that's because of philosophers anxiety over the toxic expressions of courage that I was discussing a while ago, that courage can take over and turn itself into violence and militarism and imperialism. And that's what people have been concerned about. But if you look back to the origins of democracies, for example, in the United States of America, or in ancient Athens, you will discover that the people who are founding these societies, all the citizens, in fact, were thinking of their activities, their act of founding, as a display of courage that shook off old traditional norms and provided a new world in which they would, they would want to and would have to think for themselves. And I think that, in that sense, if you look back to the American founders, for example, shaking off the idea that the world is simply necessary or fated, or the product of force and constraint that is taking control for ourselves of our own political destinies. I think that actually is a great act of courage, and to be true to democracy in which citizens are equal, and in which they take on the, the burdens, as well as the the greatness of self determination. I think that those those kinds of activities do require courage.
We only have a couple minutes left. But I want to ask you about this notion of freedom that you mentioned in the book, in particular, because it relates to life and culture in North Dakota and some stuff that's going on in the background, you make the point that the Greeks are not only interested in free discussion, but they're interested in frank discussion. And particularly in the Upper Midwest, there is a pressure not to rock the boat not to complain, not to say things that are going to offend. I feel like in our culture, being frank being direct in person as opposed to on the internet, where everyone is, but but but in person, this notion of frankness has not gotten the attention that it deserves. How does frank discussion relate to what you were just talking about in this and this accepting responsibility for the new is frankness, an essential component of free speech and as a courageous, or is it just blunt and rude and sometimes appropriate and sometimes not?
Well, I mean, I think that the contextual judgment is probably necessary. But in general, in general, I would say that we could use more frank, that is blunt speech, that may feel a little bit rude only because there are so many constraints. And there's a kind of attitude toward new ideas, I think, particularly toward Rocking the Boat toward saying something or thinking something uncomfortable. There's an attitude that really discourages that. And I believe that democracies were designed, specific, almost specifically to encourage people to say what they actually think is true. And that's a very great thing to do. But But does it require courage? I think that we all know that it does. It takes a great deal of energy and self assertiveness of a wonderful sort, to be the first to think for yourself, and then to be able to say it in a in a respectful way to others.
I'm really interested in what you just said about finding the appropriate way to ask these Frank questions. Because just as in the classical Greek world, the notion of virtue was a dominant moral category in the 18th century and during the American founders, particularly on the English side, particularly the Scottish philosophers were very concerned with propriety. They were very concerned with acting the right way in the right circumstance, according to manners where manners were Mmm, a moral category. Is there a conception of courage that fits that 18th century model where courage is a kind of justified social approval? Adam Smith says people don't just desire to be praised. They deserve to be praised worthy. Is there an 18th century conception of courage that is particular to that kind of discussion, as opposed to the classical Greek virtue model? That of course they saw themselves as the inheritors of?
Well, that's a very interesting question. I would say that, in the in the ancient Greek world, even though there there were aristocratic formalities, of course, in a certain sector of society, that what you found, especially in the democracies of ancient Greece, was a kind of informality, a kind of readiness to be different readiness to pursue one's own pleasures and interests, and so on that that deeply disturbed those who propounded a more aristocratic vision of the virtues. And so, I mean, I think that just the very notion that that person should desire to be praiseworthy, I think that's, you know, readily extendable to a variety of social contexts and so on. But I think that in more democratic centuries, as we've moved on, for example, that the formalities have dropped away, for the most part. And that, to a large extent that that's good, because we have begun to take on our own forms, our own forms of expression, say in music and the arts. And the kinds of the variety of human creativity, for example, that you find has been amazing, has been explosive. And I think it's one of the wonderful products of this kind of political experimentation. So
there's been a movement in the last few decades, particularly amongst Critical Thinking theorists, to extend the discussion, from just critical thinking to both carrying thinking and creative thinking. Certainly, courage has to be critical, self critical, for obvious reasons, you want to be courageous in the right way, in the right circumstances, I think we can understand how courage is caring. And there's sort of two interpretations of what caring means in this what caring means you do it with care, but also caring means social, but you just brought up creativity. And that brings up an interesting questions about courage in particular and virtues in general. is courage, a creative act, or virtue, divergence, have creative elements? Does it come from the same part of the human experience? That music, that art, that narrative storytelling that writing that that comes from? Or because it's character illogical for the Greeks at least? Are there no creative aspects? I? And I want to rephrase the question just a little bit, because because I'm sort of figuring out as I'm asking it, but but we often talk of creative acts as themselves being courageous that this artist was was courageous in doing this thing and pushing the boundaries and exposing themselves in a certain way. Does it work the other way around? Is courage. is courage, a creative act in any sense?
Well, I think that it is I mean, I think that insofar as courage is a performative virtue that in other words, in each situation in which person finds himself so you mentioned parenting a while ago. I think that we are all making things up as we go along. And that different situations demand different kinds of appreciation, and understanding and intelligence. And as a result, I think that we in a sense, when we embody courage, we are simply making it up as we go along. And in that sense, it's very creative. Because a person a person who has a sort of sterile character trait that is not adaptive, let's say two different scenarios, will not be able to, to perform or to behave excellently in these scenarios will not be praiseworthy, as you say are worthy of admiration. But I also want to say something else about this, that when I'm talking about creativity just now and referring to Parenting, I think that there is something extraordinary, often about the ordinary. And I think that's a very democratic concept. So I am happy myself, to attribute courage to those who do the hard work, let's say, of parenting, or of maintaining a job, maintaining friendships, that sort of thing. These are very difficult things. And ordinary people do them all the time. And it takes courage. So that in other words, courage, particularly in a democratic understanding, should not be viewed simply as the attribute of heroes or of outstanding or exceptional individuals. We are all creative, I think, as we go. And that's the kind of every day creativity which is which is still admirable and central to courage
is I referring to Aristotle, in part, because I know him in Plato, the best, although you in your work, refer to the full expanse of classical Athenian philosophers. But Aristotle ends up writing when he writes in his ethics, about the habituation of the virtues. And he implies that if you are truly a courageous person, that courage will never be difficult, that courage is just what you do. And you don't even necessarily have to reflect on it, it's who you are. And Plato does something similar of a not as explicitly with with his account of the harmony of the soul, which we don't have to get into. But you just talked about the everyday difficulties of life. And I know you have children as well. And so you, you know, as many of our listeners do, how difficult being a parent can be, even though it is such an ordinary thing. Do you think that courage in those contexts, is the heiress to tilian notion that courage is just an act of character? It's habituated, and it won't, it isn't difficult because it's what you want? Or does modern democratic courage have to have an element of effort an element of difficulty? In the American ethos, we value things that people have to try harder for, we tend to value less the things that become easy. Do you think that courage has to be effortful and difficult? Or is it just something that is who we are, and we act that way, without without much will?
Well, I think that when Aristotle is talking the way, the way, you mentioned, when he is suggesting that our psychological makeup is such that all of our emotions and ideas and reasoning and so on, are firing like pistons correctly in alignment. I think that he doesn't, he doesn't necessarily mean that it's that it's easy for a person to stand up in the face of death, he means that he has a kind of harmonious that is aligned soul that enables him to do that very reliably, and even in a sense, if possible to gain a measure, let's say of self respect from doing so that might be a kind of pleasure that he takes in doing so. But I think that yes, that courage requires effort that is very difficult to imagine somebody using the word without referring somehow to determination, or even, it's not only boldness, it's not only daring, in the face of danger, but sometimes it is endurance. Sometimes it is the endurance of suffering, like a courageous cancer patient, for example, who has a kind of inner fortitude. And I think in that case, the effort that's involved is in maintaining one's sense of dignity, let's say or the will to live. All of these things are effort effortful and deserve recognition. Now, I don't I don't say that Aristotle himself elaborated the concept in that way. But But I do think that what I'm saying is, is consistent, at least with the general platonic conception of courage, I think Aristotle was doing something a bit different, but it's consistent with what I'm saying, I think, is,
is there still attachment at all to the Greek conception of the unity of the virtues and what I mean by that? Is there a lot of Greek philosophers who believe that you can't be courageous without being moderate? You can't be moderate without being beautiful. You can't be beautiful without being just you can't be just So without being temperate, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, yet we tend now to talk about courage in isolation. Do you think that the Democratic, contemporary democratic traditions or or or the the variety, the 18th century, the 19th century, that there's any attachment to this notion of the unity of the virtues? Or do we think of courage as a discrete atomistic character trait?
Well, I do think that the idea of the unity of the virtues has been very difficult to maintain in recent centuries, certainly since the American founding and onward, and that very few would hold to it today. On the one hand, certainly, I also think that when people think of courage as a completely independent or discrete virtue, they run they run the risk of dissociating courage from the framework of justice or freedom, etc, in which it makes sense. So I would say that personally, I believe that the notion of the unity of the virtues has a great deal of power in the following way, that if you think that say the highest virtue of an individual or or a democracy is its its practical wisdom, its ability to its sort of situational appreciation, its clarity about what is right or what is best and so forth. That the other virtues such as courage or justice, fair mindedness, or generosity, and so on, in a sense, follow from that kind of controlling wisdom about our situation, and we will never we're talking about ideals that we will never reach. But I think it's important to have these ideas in mind, because we can at least realize what we may be aspiring to.
I think that's a that's a great point. And I guess I have to ask, to what extent is courage and ideal? And to what extent is it realizable? I mean, we all know, acts of courage. We've all seen them heard of them, many of us have engaged in them, but we are talking about ideals. So to what extent are we creating expectations that no one really expects us to see? And to what extent are we creating requirements and that if we don't fulfill them, not only are we morally reprehensible, but we disappoint the people who care about us? Or who need us or who or who are watching us?
Well, I think that it's not as though we are creating these things and then imposing them on other people like our listeners, for example, today, we all we all already believe in the importance of courage. And the question is too laid bare, what is essential to courage, what its demands are what it requires, so that we can avoid feeling a kind of shame in ourselves, if we don't, if we don't act well, if we don't act in a way that that we can respect. And again, I think that it's important not to think of courage as an exceptional quality of heroes, but actually to, to be clear about it on the one hand, but also to recognize that it is an ordinary feature of life that ordinary people typically exhibit in living their lives well. So in that sense, it's not so aspirational as to be crushing of our attempts to to cultivate the virtue.
Are you more courageous since you started studying courage? I mean, does that just the knowledge of what courage is and and the examination of it does? It does? Does? Does the inquiry have an effect on your character? Mean, to a certain extent, right, there are people who think, incorrectly, I might add, that moral philosophers should be more moral than anyone else. And even if they should be more moral, we know for a fact that they are not right. Yes, we, we, you know, we expect we expect our knowledge, our inquiry, our research, to have some impact on us. So are you more courageous? Because you've spent the last decade or so studying courage? Well,
that's a very good question. I've wondered about that, too. And one of the humorous answer would be that the audience is asked to wait 15 years from my autobiography. But in lieu of that, I would say that thinking about these things has made me definitely made certainly made me understand myself better. And it's made me recognize that the more risks that I take, the more confidence in the face of danger and thoughtful about these issues I can be. And in that, in that sense, actually, I really have learned something about how to live my own life. One other thing too, I've learned that when I think about fear, of course, there are good fears and bad fears, reasonable fears, and unreasonable fears. And I think that I've learned that by looking at my own fears or other people's fears, by talking about them and thinking about them, I think we can reduce their hold on us. And that is often a good thing, because fear tends not only to inhibit us from acting, but also to reduce the clarity of our thinking.
You know, it's interesting that you say that, because, of course, what this suggests is that there's another continuity between contemporary democratic life and the Greek life, which is the virtue, although I don't think the Greeks would call it that of self awareness. Right. The Delphic Oracle demanded that people know thyself, and we in the Democratic even in the me generation that has now I guess, the last generation, there's a sense that you have to not only be true to yourself, but know who you are, in order to know who to be true to. So is, is that a continual theme? That self critical investigation is a kind of courage. And it's a kind of moral expectation that if you don't know yourself, if you aren't self aware, if you don't have a sense of of who you really aren't what you're striving for that you are, you're cowardly, at least in your in respect to how you deal with yourself?
Well, I think myself that Self knowledge is probably the greatest legacy, that ancient Greek as a concept that ancient Greece has given us that the importance of self knowledge. And what I mean is that self knowledge is, it's not a static thing, I don't think it's very easy to know yourself in a complete and definitive way that we're always projects, we're always unfolding ourselves. And when we learn about ourselves, typically, it can be extremely painful. Typically, we are not the people that we thought we were. And coming to understand one's own, particularly one's own limitations, I think is a very great good, because it does a thing that philosophy can help us do, which is, if it can't help us to be better people, if it can't help us to be just generous, kind and courageous at all times, at least, it can help us to avoid huge mistakes, at least it can help us to avoid, say, acting on the basis of fear or things that we don't admire about ourselves, we can get clear about ourselves. And I think that is a strategy very helpful path, let's say toward leading a more flourishing life.
I have to admit that I never really thought about it in such stark terms. But I'm inclined to agree with you that this is the great legacy of the classical Greek world, this this notion of self knowledge. And so I guess the last question, which you may not have an answer for, is, is there anything else? Is there anything else that we need to know about courage that you haven't mentioned that I haven't brought up? Is there a particular aspect of courage that no one ever asks about that you wish people would? Would? You know, if I don't understand why they're not asking this question? Is there some aspect of of the inquiry that we've missed, that you think is key to really conceptualizing what courage is either then or now?
Well, I think that one thing that has been left out of account in many people's concept of courage or writing about courage, is the role of the emotions and what role for example, not only fear will play but also shame, let's say or anger or other kinds of emotions and what what role these emotions play in our lives more generally. And I suppose that my, my take on this question is to say that the emotions are kind of kind of powerful children within us that are shot through with ideas and beliefs and they they indicate They point us toward something important that can be educated. You can, your emotions can change and should change, the more you look at yourself. But they're not to be avoided, let's say they are not simply things to be overcome, but they're things that can be cultivated feelings and so forth, that can be cultivated for the sake of acting courageously, but also serving the ends of justice or freedom or democratic rights and so on.
Well, this is this is a very 18th century notion. It's not it's not the content legacy, but it's the other one. It's the Hume it's the Smith, it's the Scots and, and the Greeks saw emotions as things that needed to be contained by the intellect and the will, or harmonized at least and controlled by the will. The Scots really thought that you could develop emotions in this particular way. So is would you then consider courage part of the phrase now that we use emotional intelligence? is courage, part of emotional intelligence? Or is it rational, a product of rationality? Or is it? Is it a different category? Where in the sort of in the contemporary map of the human psyche? Do we find courage?
Well, it's a very good question. When people speak of emotions, or emotional intelligence, I wouldn't want to separate that to such an extent from rationality. I think the Greeks were leaders, let's say within the European tradition in understanding that emotions have reasons of their own, that there is a kind of unified self. And so I suppose what what I would say is that the the notion of the harmony of the soul or the cultivation of the emotions is something that the Greeks as well as the Scots, but not content, not the contents and constant legacy and so on, that they that they are very strong on. And you know, honestly, now that we've been talking about the emotions, Could you could you become so emotional that I need you to just quickly repeat your last question?
Sure. The question is basically, given how we think about the human mind these days, whether the map were in the map is is,
is courage? Well, I think that I think we should look at it. However, we anonymize the soul, let's say, or the psyche. However, we divided up for analytical purposes, the way that I would understand courage is as a kind of orientation, a kind of turning in a sense, toward the light, let's say, seeing things in the correct light. It's an attribute of ourselves as an entirety. In fact, not even only of our psychology, of course, but our bodies, we we have come to understand, as you know, that our bodies and our minds are so intimately intertwined in ways that we had never thought of before. But there is a kind of also a muscle memory that is related to courage and a, a correct orientation, I think. So, I would say that it's more like, it's more like a turning of the self toward what is right, toward clarity and toward, you know, leading a flourishing life.
And so, despite the adrenaline response, despite the shaking, despite all of that, courage, if I hear you, right, still contains are still at the kernel of what we would have to consider to be noble courage is a kind of nobility, or at least an important piece of it.
I think courage is a kind of nobility that is available to all people, even those who are not born noble. But yes, it is a kind of admirable, worthwhile, you know, disposition that we can embrace. And I think that that's the thing that's, that's most important for people to realize.
That is, I think, both a moving and a useful way to end the conversation, because all of our listeners now, both have the injunction and also realize the option that they can be courageous if they want, regardless of where they come from, or who they are. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us on why. Thank you, Jack. It's been great. You've been listened to Ryan Ballard and Jack Russell Weinstein on why philosophical discussion of everyday life. I'll be back with a few thoughts right after this.
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You're back with why philosophical discussions about everyday life. I'm your host, Jack Russell Weinstein. You know, whenever we have a conversation like this, I'm really faced with this difficult task of how do we talk about something so abstract? How do we talk about something that's so large? Courage is a virtue in classical Athens. But we don't have this notion of virtue in the same way. So how do we manage all of these different factors? The answer, I think, is to start with examples. But it's also to start with role models. And that's something that Ryan and I really didn't have a chance to talk much about. The Greeks loved role models, they love to sense that here's a courageous person, act like him in their instance, although we would say her as well. Act as if they as if you were they and then eventually it will become a part of you. This is also that notion of development, that's essential that you build courage up yourself over time. Courage is a character virtue, because it's something that you create for yourself and that you are largely responsible for, but it's social, it depends on your circumstances, and it also influences other. We need to have a new conversation about courage, we need to have a conversation in the Democratic context and in a global context. Because, as Ryan's example of Susan Sontag suggested, we really don't seem to know what we're talking about. We've just stuck in political categories. You're listening to Ryan ballot and Jack Russell wants to in on why, as always, it's an honor to be with you.
Why is funded by the Institute for philosophy and public life Prairie Public Broadcasting in the University of North Dakota is College of Arts and Sciences and Division of Research and Economic Development. The music is written and performed by Mark Weinstein and can be found on his album Louis soul. For more of his music, visit jazz flute weinstein.com or myspace.com/mark Weinstein philosophy is everywhere you make it and we hope we've inspired you with our discussion today. Remember, as we say at the institute, there is no ivory tower.