(Another excerpt, along similar lines as the most recent previous post.)
[In reflecting upon the ability of the courageous to face death...] we should think not only of those who risk death for a noble cause, but also of those who struggle against suffering and affliction even though death is inevitable. We attribute courage to those who contend with terminal illnesses without despair, who seek to live out the remainder of their lives as best they can, who, as Dylan Thomas urged his father, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” There is of course a way of reading Thomas’ poem such that raging against the dying of the light reflects a refusal to accept one’s mortality (or such that Thomas’ advice reflects his own refusal to accept his father’s mortality). Let us, for now, not read it that way, but rather see Thomas’ poem as a celebration of life, of the idea that even in one’s dying hour, there is life to be lived, words to be said, gestures to be made which can have a significance that death cannot invalidate. To acknowledge that is not to deny death; it is instead to call to mind that one is not yet dead, that dying itself is part of life, and that one can continue to live even as one is dying. In this way, it is possible that dying itself can, in the terms set forth by Callan, take the form of a moral task.
I make these suggestions with some hesitation. What do I know about dying (or, for that matter, suffering, really)? Rather than pushing the argument, again, it is surely better to let those whose examples inspire us speak for themselves. [Note: I make this same suggestion in connection with the idea that I would rather defer to the witness of Viktor Frankl than simply provide a priori arguments that great suffering can be endured with patience.] However, perhaps we can also get some glimpse of how the strengths that inform our ideas about courage, fortitude, and patience are related to the possibility of dying well by considering our desires about death, about what kind of death we would prefer. Perhaps many of us hope that death will come swiftly, unannounced, like a bolt of lightning—that in such a swift death we might avoid the task of enduring a protracted, slow march to death, and thus not have to confront the question of how we ourselves might hold up in the face of such a task. Palliative care can manage pain, we know, but presumably not eliminate it, and reflecting upon the gradual loss of our physical and cognitive capabilities can be frightening, or at least disconcerting. It is in this sense—and not only in the hero’s sense—that we can say that facing death well requires courage. And while “raging” against the dying of the light presents us with heroic imagery, reflecting upon the prospect of a slow death reminds us that this is not the courage of the charge, but rather the courage of endurance and fortitude.
The[se] considerations [...] suggest that growth in fortitude, in courage, cannot be entirely isolated from growth in patience. Here, I disagree with one claim that Callan makes about the blind man he imagines, when he suggests that as long as this man has no patience for the moral task of accepting his blindness, “no amount of courage or fortitude can compensate for the absence of that virtue.”[1] To distinguish fortitude from patience in this way seems to assume that fortitude is primarily toughness of mind or a kind of imperturbability, but then we can ask what it is that underwrites this mental toughness. Then we must either say that fortitude involves a kind of insensibility, which explains why provocations and pains don’t disturb the individual, or that fortitude involves a kind of tolerance of such provocations and pains in which the person really does feel them, but is not unsettled by them or, in other words, maintains him or herself in a state of self-possession. If fortitude is insensibility, then it seems hard to say that this is a virtue, since the insensible person does not actually endure anything—he simply does not feel what most of us would.[2] (Think for example of a person who is incapable of feeling pain.) And in many cases, such insensibility would be crippling rather than enabling. But if, on the other hand, we say that fortitude is a function of one’s ability to tolerate provocation and disturbance, then we seem to be speaking about one of the aspects of patience. What looks to us like fortitude, if not underwritten by the patient tolerance of such adversity, might just be inner deadness. And in that respect, we can agree with Callan that the blind man cannot come to terms with his blindness by simply making himself numb to the psychological pain that the fact of his blindness causes him. This, we might say, is a way of avoiding the problem, rather than confronting it. Coming to terms with his blindness, exposing himself to that psychological pain, will no doubt take courage—to face the fearful. But it should now be clear that since facing what is fearful in such cases is itself an activity that takes place in time, over time, and which cannot be separated from the pain and suffering that such a confrontation may involve, the courageous act itself cannot be undertaken without patience.
[1] Eamonn Callan, "Patience and Courage," Philosophy 68, (1993), p. 526.
[2] REF Scarre and my stoicism paper.
[2] Cf. my discussion of Scarre's (I think failed) attempt to distinguish fortitude and patience in "In Defense of Patience."
Showing posts with label Courage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Courage. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Patience and Courage
At first glance, it might seem that patience and courage are dispositions that tend in different directions, reflecting different strengths. If we are asked to imagine exemplars of each of these virtues, we probably call two very different individuals to mind—the courageous person imposing, heroic, probably male, and the patient person quiet, reserved, quite likely female. (After all, Ancient Greek courage simply was the virtue of manliness (andreia), and the Victorians used to name their daughters Patience.) Some of our images of courage may even positively conflict with some of our images of patience, with the courageous person insisting upon action while the patient person implores him to wait.
In his wonderful paper, "Patience and Courage" (Philosophy 68(266), 1993), Eamonn Callan begins with a sort of thought experiment intended to capture our intuitive--though he thinks mistaken--sense of the relative significance of patience and courage:
Or consider this perhaps surprising remark from Kierkegaard's Purity of Heart: "Is patience not precisely that courage which voluntarily accepts unavoidable suffering? The unavoidable is just the thing which will shatter courage" (p. 173). Interestingly (as the translator notes), the Danish for patience taalmod contains the term for courage (mod). (Literally, taalmod is "enduring courage.")
Kierkegaard connects patience to "unavoidable suffering" and thus implies that courage differs in that in courage we choose to put ourselves in the way of danger and adversity for a noble cause. And he discusses how it may seem then that there can be no virtue in enduring adversity that is unavoidable and which, it seems, cannot be chosen. (If it's unavoidable, then there seems to be no real choice.) Here, he imagines the mocking voice of someone who says that this "patience" is merely "making a virtue out of necessity," and Kierkegaard replies, yes, that's exactly it! His point is that merely being saddled with unavoidable suffering or adversity does not imply that we will, as it were, shoulder that adversity in such a way that we remain committed to the Good. We may despair, or become bitter and resentful, angry at the world. Of course, it may be that since Kierkegaard is a theist, he can assume that there is some way in which any suffering thrown at us can possibly be endured well. Non-theists may not have grounds for the same hope. But let me put that, for now, to the side. (I hope to write a chapter about this issue in the future.)
Callan discusses a case that goes to Kierkegaard's point: a man loses his sight, and vacillates between despair and rage, who thinks that the possibility of a good life has vanished. It is not that he fails to learn how to get around in the world in spite of his blindness, but his life is devoid of all hope and joy because of the deep resentment he has about having become blind. He refuses to accept this unavoidable part of his life. Callan says, "The blind man in my story has no patience for the moral task his blindness has set him, and no amount of courage or fortitude can compensate for the absence of that virtue" (p. 526).
Now here, there are interpretive difficulties, since I suggested above that we might see courage and patience as linked by fortitude. Here we might take Callan to be treating fortitude as a kind of thickness of skin, the stoniness we might ascribe to the Stoic sage: he is in despair, but doesn't show it. I have argued in my essay "In Defense of Patience" (newly revised as of yesterday), that perhaps we should question the idea that fortitude and patience can be pulled apart very far, that we should not reduce fortitude to the external appearance. (Otherwise, we can't distinguish genuine fortitude and endurance from mere psychic deadness.) Callan's point--at any rate--is that the possibility of this man's seeing and seeking Good in his life depends upon his coming to accept his blindness. Why call that patience?
Perhaps what I said about love and patience in a previous post provides part of an answer, especially if we can translate some of what I said about learning to love another person into talk of learning to love one's situation. (This is what Chris Cowley's "Learning to Love" is all about, in Philosophical Topics 38(1), 2010.) Here, we come to accept the distance between our new condition and our previous one, and re-commit to living well (and not merely, as Cowley discusses, "making the best of it").
We can call this patience, but at the same time, I think we can see, pace Callan to some extent, that such a process may in any number of cases also involve the kind of strength we describe as courage. People who are seriously injured and require extensive physical rehabilitation are sometimes praised for their courage in their efforts to endure the problems caused by their injuries, and to re-learn what they can, and to learn how to compensate for the abilities they have lost. Why call this courageous? First, there is the great endurance involved. Second, in such circumstances, we may be tempted to despair, to feel sorry for ourselves, and even be afraid to face our condition, afraid of failing, afraid to learn what our new physical limitations are, and afraid to think about living our lives, or returning to our everyday lives, beset with the problems incurred through our injuries.
If we think of courage primarily as the (voluntary) facing of fears and dangers, then courage is involved in facing the fears above, but the need for patience is not very far behind. This isn't peculiar to this example, since many courageous acts are extended in time. Indeed, focusing on courageous acts that happen in an instant may obscure that many of our actions are in fact chains of action, stretches of activity, oriented toward some goal. Within such a stretch of time, the difference between a courageous and a rash action may come down to one's ability to wait and endure the anticipation of setting out into "positive" action. (And so, in many sports, great athletes are praised for their ability to "wait for the game to come to them"--not to take bad swings or shots or to throw bad punches. Consider how Kobe Bryant will sometimes bide his time for three quarters only to dominate the final twelve minutes, or Ali's notorious "rope-a-dope" strategy for fatiguing his opponents. [Not that we should exactly recommend Ali's strategy to young boxers, for unfortunately obvious reasons of long-term health.])
So, courage and patience turn out not to be foes, or to show that there is disharmony amongst the virtues. And again, we see how in its quiet, unassuming way, patience reveals itself to be something of a "silent partner" as we seek to develop other virtues and strengths.
In his wonderful paper, "Patience and Courage" (Philosophy 68(266), 1993), Eamonn Callan begins with a sort of thought experiment intended to capture our intuitive--though he thinks mistaken--sense of the relative significance of patience and courage:
Suppose your friends had to ascribe a single vice to you in large measure, along with any virtues that could be coherently combined with that salient vice. Suppose further that the vice had to be either cowardice or impatience. Which would you choose? (p. 523)Callan suspects that "almost everyone would choose impatience without hesitation," because a coward strikes us as an unreliable kind of person, and impatience itself might in some cases be a good thing, e.g. impatience with tyranny and injustice. Callan goes on to argue against this intuitive response, in that it underestimates the need for patience (an idea I have explored in previous posts), and also suggests that a more nuanced thinking about courage and patience shows that these virtues do not essentially conflict. This should not be so surprising if we think, as Aquinas does, of patience as a part of fortitude, and recognize fortitude itself as the core of courage (or, as synonymous with courage). Of course, when we speak of fortitude, we speak of endurance, and talk of courage (or bravery) may seem instead to call to mind the "courage of the charge." But charging, as Tim O'Brien notes in his memoir on Vietnam, is only a tiny slice of bravery--once one has charged into danger, there is much to be endured.
Or consider this perhaps surprising remark from Kierkegaard's Purity of Heart: "Is patience not precisely that courage which voluntarily accepts unavoidable suffering? The unavoidable is just the thing which will shatter courage" (p. 173). Interestingly (as the translator notes), the Danish for patience taalmod contains the term for courage (mod). (Literally, taalmod is "enduring courage.")
Kierkegaard connects patience to "unavoidable suffering" and thus implies that courage differs in that in courage we choose to put ourselves in the way of danger and adversity for a noble cause. And he discusses how it may seem then that there can be no virtue in enduring adversity that is unavoidable and which, it seems, cannot be chosen. (If it's unavoidable, then there seems to be no real choice.) Here, he imagines the mocking voice of someone who says that this "patience" is merely "making a virtue out of necessity," and Kierkegaard replies, yes, that's exactly it! His point is that merely being saddled with unavoidable suffering or adversity does not imply that we will, as it were, shoulder that adversity in such a way that we remain committed to the Good. We may despair, or become bitter and resentful, angry at the world. Of course, it may be that since Kierkegaard is a theist, he can assume that there is some way in which any suffering thrown at us can possibly be endured well. Non-theists may not have grounds for the same hope. But let me put that, for now, to the side. (I hope to write a chapter about this issue in the future.)
Callan discusses a case that goes to Kierkegaard's point: a man loses his sight, and vacillates between despair and rage, who thinks that the possibility of a good life has vanished. It is not that he fails to learn how to get around in the world in spite of his blindness, but his life is devoid of all hope and joy because of the deep resentment he has about having become blind. He refuses to accept this unavoidable part of his life. Callan says, "The blind man in my story has no patience for the moral task his blindness has set him, and no amount of courage or fortitude can compensate for the absence of that virtue" (p. 526).
Now here, there are interpretive difficulties, since I suggested above that we might see courage and patience as linked by fortitude. Here we might take Callan to be treating fortitude as a kind of thickness of skin, the stoniness we might ascribe to the Stoic sage: he is in despair, but doesn't show it. I have argued in my essay "In Defense of Patience" (newly revised as of yesterday), that perhaps we should question the idea that fortitude and patience can be pulled apart very far, that we should not reduce fortitude to the external appearance. (Otherwise, we can't distinguish genuine fortitude and endurance from mere psychic deadness.) Callan's point--at any rate--is that the possibility of this man's seeing and seeking Good in his life depends upon his coming to accept his blindness. Why call that patience?
Perhaps what I said about love and patience in a previous post provides part of an answer, especially if we can translate some of what I said about learning to love another person into talk of learning to love one's situation. (This is what Chris Cowley's "Learning to Love" is all about, in Philosophical Topics 38(1), 2010.) Here, we come to accept the distance between our new condition and our previous one, and re-commit to living well (and not merely, as Cowley discusses, "making the best of it").
We can call this patience, but at the same time, I think we can see, pace Callan to some extent, that such a process may in any number of cases also involve the kind of strength we describe as courage. People who are seriously injured and require extensive physical rehabilitation are sometimes praised for their courage in their efforts to endure the problems caused by their injuries, and to re-learn what they can, and to learn how to compensate for the abilities they have lost. Why call this courageous? First, there is the great endurance involved. Second, in such circumstances, we may be tempted to despair, to feel sorry for ourselves, and even be afraid to face our condition, afraid of failing, afraid to learn what our new physical limitations are, and afraid to think about living our lives, or returning to our everyday lives, beset with the problems incurred through our injuries.
If we think of courage primarily as the (voluntary) facing of fears and dangers, then courage is involved in facing the fears above, but the need for patience is not very far behind. This isn't peculiar to this example, since many courageous acts are extended in time. Indeed, focusing on courageous acts that happen in an instant may obscure that many of our actions are in fact chains of action, stretches of activity, oriented toward some goal. Within such a stretch of time, the difference between a courageous and a rash action may come down to one's ability to wait and endure the anticipation of setting out into "positive" action. (And so, in many sports, great athletes are praised for their ability to "wait for the game to come to them"--not to take bad swings or shots or to throw bad punches. Consider how Kobe Bryant will sometimes bide his time for three quarters only to dominate the final twelve minutes, or Ali's notorious "rope-a-dope" strategy for fatiguing his opponents. [Not that we should exactly recommend Ali's strategy to young boxers, for unfortunately obvious reasons of long-term health.])
So, courage and patience turn out not to be foes, or to show that there is disharmony amongst the virtues. And again, we see how in its quiet, unassuming way, patience reveals itself to be something of a "silent partner" as we seek to develop other virtues and strengths.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Moral Courage for Free
This is for those of you who subscribe to the blog feed (and so might not catch the updated post below): International Journal of Philosophical Studies and Taylor & Francis have made "Moral Courage and Facing Others" open access. Enjoy.
In Print: Moral Courage and Facing Others
Monday, March 12, 2012
Moral Courage Sermonized
Today I gave a talk about moral courage at the local Unitarian Universalist church. After preparing a written talk that distilled some of the main ideas of my paper, "Moral Courage and Facing Others," it occurred to me that reading a paper in this context might rather violate the spirit of "facing others" (since I would have my nose buried in my text). So, I ended up winging it, and it went fine. The discussion was very nice (a church where there's open-ended discussion after the homily, as part of the service?!), and I was thrilled to be invited and glad that I agreed to do it (despite the added pressure of my dean being there).
Here's the text that I worked from, in putting together some more streamlined notes for the talk, for the sake of posterity (I guess). If you've read the long paper, there's nothing particularly new, but some may find it of interest.
P.S. The longer paper, forthcoming in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, should be published in April and should be freely available (I'm told). I will post an announcement as soon as it is available.
Here's the text that I worked from, in putting together some more streamlined notes for the talk, for the sake of posterity (I guess). If you've read the long paper, there's nothing particularly new, but some may find it of interest.
P.S. The longer paper, forthcoming in International Journal of Philosophical Studies, should be published in April and should be freely available (I'm told). I will post an announcement as soon as it is available.
Wednesday, March 07, 2012
Thinking for Oneself & Not Caring What Others Think
There’s a quality that we could call “independence of thought” which seems to be often regarded as praiseworthy. We refer to this quality as “thinking for oneself,” and it seems that one who shows independence of thought must not be too beholden to what others think. We say we want students, for example, to learn to think for themselves rather than to parrot back what they have been taught (or to merely repeat what they’ve read on Wikipedia, etc.). To think for oneself might thus be connected to what writers (and musicians and composers) call “having a voice.”
To think for oneself, to have the courage to follow one’s own thoughts and to explore them, may involve not being too concerned with what other people think. The independent thinker has to follow his or her own leads, and something like intellectual integrity involves not rejecting one’s own conclusions or convictions just because others disagree. So there’s a sense in which the independent thinker should not care—too much—about the opinions of others. The tricky part here is that if the independent thinker is to remain grounded in reality, since his or her own paths of thought could lead to mere fantasy or delusion, he or she has to care—to some extent—about the opinions of others. This has the air of a paradox.
It’s clear enough that someone who doesn’t care at all what other people think is not what people have in mind by independence of thought, because someone who doesn’t care at all would seem to be a sociopath or psychopath. And from a Wittgensteinian perspective, the notion of completely independent thought would seem to be necessarily incoherent for the same reason that a truly private language is incoherent. (Feminist critiques of the Cartesian method approach similar conclusions—we learn to think in a social context, and so our patterns of thought could never be entirely free of that social origin.) So is the notion of independent thought really just an illusion, thoughtless praise of a condition that, if it could be attained, would just be a kind of insanity?
I suspect that the answer has something to do with finding one’s “voice,” and having the courage to speak for oneself, to speak one’s mind (even if one should also bear in mind that one’s mind is shaped by others). And so perhaps the language of “not caring what other people think” is misleading. We need to care about what other people think, at least some people, and at least some of the time, or else we risk losing touch with reality. But we need not to care so much that we are afraid to speak or to explore thoughts other than the ones that the people around us happen to think. So, again, independence of thought may just be another way of talking about intellectual courage. Marilyn Frye, in “In and Out of Harm’s Way: Arrogance and Love,” draws a connection between courage and imagination which is probably worth thinking about in this connection:
I wonder then whether a person who claims not to care what other people think could really coherently care about his or her own thoughts, and perhaps even whether—assuming this claim not to care isn’t just a lie or a self-deception—such a person could think clearly at all.
To think for oneself, to have the courage to follow one’s own thoughts and to explore them, may involve not being too concerned with what other people think. The independent thinker has to follow his or her own leads, and something like intellectual integrity involves not rejecting one’s own conclusions or convictions just because others disagree. So there’s a sense in which the independent thinker should not care—too much—about the opinions of others. The tricky part here is that if the independent thinker is to remain grounded in reality, since his or her own paths of thought could lead to mere fantasy or delusion, he or she has to care—to some extent—about the opinions of others. This has the air of a paradox.
It’s clear enough that someone who doesn’t care at all what other people think is not what people have in mind by independence of thought, because someone who doesn’t care at all would seem to be a sociopath or psychopath. And from a Wittgensteinian perspective, the notion of completely independent thought would seem to be necessarily incoherent for the same reason that a truly private language is incoherent. (Feminist critiques of the Cartesian method approach similar conclusions—we learn to think in a social context, and so our patterns of thought could never be entirely free of that social origin.) So is the notion of independent thought really just an illusion, thoughtless praise of a condition that, if it could be attained, would just be a kind of insanity?
I suspect that the answer has something to do with finding one’s “voice,” and having the courage to speak for oneself, to speak one’s mind (even if one should also bear in mind that one’s mind is shaped by others). And so perhaps the language of “not caring what other people think” is misleading. We need to care about what other people think, at least some people, and at least some of the time, or else we risk losing touch with reality. But we need not to care so much that we are afraid to speak or to explore thoughts other than the ones that the people around us happen to think. So, again, independence of thought may just be another way of talking about intellectual courage. Marilyn Frye, in “In and Out of Harm’s Way: Arrogance and Love,” draws a connection between courage and imagination which is probably worth thinking about in this connection:
"There probably is really no distinction, in the end, between imagination and courage. We can’t imagine what we can’t face, and we can’t face what we can’t imagine" (in The Politics of Reality, Crossing Press, 1983, p. 81).The intellectually courageous person, the independent thinker, must, in some sense, be willing to go to the brink. Maybe part of the difference between such a person and the insane person is that the courageous person is able to come back and cares enough about “what other people think” to attempt to communicate it to others, in ways that can be reasonably expected to create some level of understanding.
I wonder then whether a person who claims not to care what other people think could really coherently care about his or her own thoughts, and perhaps even whether—assuming this claim not to care isn’t just a lie or a self-deception—such a person could think clearly at all.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Robert Papazian Essay Prize
Good news! My paper "Moral Courage and Facing Others" was selected as the winning entry for the Robert Papazian Annual Essay Prize on Themes from Ethics and Political Philosophy. It will appear as the lead article in the International Journal of Philosophical Studies 21(2), and be freely available, around April 2012. More info about the prize (and Robert Papazian) here.
I've agreed with the IJPS editor to take down, for now, my penultimate draft of the paper. But I suppose anyone dying to read it could email me, or whet his or her appetite on this less formal essay I recently drafted, which covers a few similar ideas: "The Courage of Conviction." (Some earlier discussion of this essay here.)
I should thank here (and you will be thanked in the paper, too) the following people whose online comments and feedback on earlier posts and drafts about courage helped me in various ways: Joshua Kortbein, Duncan Richter, Rob Sica, and Tommi Uschanov. Thanks!
I've agreed with the IJPS editor to take down, for now, my penultimate draft of the paper. But I suppose anyone dying to read it could email me, or whet his or her appetite on this less formal essay I recently drafted, which covers a few similar ideas: "The Courage of Conviction." (Some earlier discussion of this essay here.)
I should thank here (and you will be thanked in the paper, too) the following people whose online comments and feedback on earlier posts and drafts about courage helped me in various ways: Joshua Kortbein, Duncan Richter, Rob Sica, and Tommi Uschanov. Thanks!
Monday, December 12, 2011
On the Idea that Courage is Fearing the Right Things...
LVI
A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.
from Stephen Crane's The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)
I think I know exactly what Crane is talking about. I think it has, in part, to do with anger.
A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.
from Stephen Crane's The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)
I think I know exactly what Crane is talking about. I think it has, in part, to do with anger.
Friday, November 04, 2011
The Courage of Conviction
Here's the next essay in the series of (what a colleague of a colleague calls) "quasi-popular" essays I aim to write on many of the issues I've discussed on this blog and in some of my other work:
The Courage of Conviction
As always, comments appreciated.
The Courage of Conviction
As always, comments appreciated.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Failure
What if I take a stand, and fail? What if nothing changes, or I only end up looking like a fool? What if I am wrong? (There's an interesting discussion about this latter question in connection with some comments Parfit makes about how he has wasted his life if his view of ethics is wrong.)
Duncan Richter raises worries about failure in connection with taking a morally courageous stand (here and here). For example:
I was reading last night about Bob Taft (the President's son) (in JFK's Profiles in Courage). In 1946, with himself in position for a Presidential run in 1948, Taft made a speech at Kenyon College called "Equal Justice Under Law," in which he said the following about the war crimes trials in Europe, ten days before the convicted war criminals were to be hung:
The [correction: Austrian-born] writer Jean Améry, who was tortured by the Nazis (and who chose the path of resentment over that of forgiveness), once said, "I'd rather be a witness than be convincing." I don't think he's saying that being convincing doesn't matter. Rather, the primary point is that of being a witness. I think we can only understand what Taft is doing (unless we think he was just some kind of raving egomaniac) in those terms. I think we could see politicians who vote their conscience, against all unpopularity and knowing in advance that they are on the losing side, in this way. (Some of them, at least.)
Still, what if I fail? It takes moral courage to stand up, but the "being heard" part is only partly something one controls. One cannot force others to hear. And so there will always be a chance of failure. When I first read Duncan's comments, I was inclined to say that too much concern about practical failure might reflect an excess of pride in the sense that the person who fears failure too much is perhaps not just afraid of failure, but too proud to risk looking like a fool. Or perhaps too self-conscious. But bearing witness isn't about oneself. It is, in some ways, about the world as a whole. And perhaps in some ways about taking the chance that one's witnessing will penetrate the public consciousness, perhaps only to be better understood by later generations. (So, then, one might bear witness for the sake of posterity.)
Per Bauhn, in The Value of Courage, talks about the "courage of creativity" as a form of optimism, bolstered by the acquisition of practical and creative skills, which allows one to overcome the fear of failure. So I think that Duncan is right to suggest that a wise person might have a greater chance of success in being heard than someone lacking in the wisdom of creativity. This is something important we might keep in mind as teachers, that we need to teach our students how to express themselves, how to have a voice which they can apply to their own projects and battles, so that they can come to know how to speak for themselves. I might then counter Duncan's worries by suggesting that if I have honestly and fully spoken for myself (and acted accordingly), then that is all I can do. The rest, as the Epictetus would say, is not up to me.
Duncan Richter raises worries about failure in connection with taking a morally courageous stand (here and here). For example:
Now, someone might think that it is enough to try your hardest, but I'm not so sure about this. Wouldn't a saint or a genius (think of someone like Socrates) somehow know or see how to express the right way to view the situation, and hence to make the injustice manifest to everyone? At the very least such a person might become a martyr. What if your efforts are simply laughed off, or brushed aside? Isn't that a kind of moral failure on your part? Maybe not, but I think it might weigh on your conscience.I think it would weigh on me. Would it weigh on my conscience? Perhaps to the extent that I thought I had gone about things wrongly, e.g. taken the wrong route. But the difference between being a martyr and a laughing-stock may just be perspectival. (I have students who seem to think Socrates was a fool.) In my paper on moral courage, I talk about how the notion of a "lost cause" is vague, and that in some cases, the cause may be primarily internal. This might be connected with what Duncan says about being honest. Did Anscombe think that she could halt Oxford's awarding of the honorary degree to Truman? Perhaps she had to think that there was at least a chance. I'm not sure. The point of speaking out might just be to speak out, not to be a silent dissenting minority (though in part because one often doesn't know in advance what kinds of heart-stirrings speaking out might effect).
I was reading last night about Bob Taft (the President's son) (in JFK's Profiles in Courage). In 1946, with himself in position for a Presidential run in 1948, Taft made a speech at Kenyon College called "Equal Justice Under Law," in which he said the following about the war crimes trials in Europe, ten days before the convicted war criminals were to be hung:
I question whether the hanging of those, who, however despicable, were the leaders of the German people, will ever discourage the making of aggressive war, for no one makes aggressive war unless he expects to win. About this whole judgment there is the spirit of vengeance, and vengeance is seldom justice. The hanging of the eleven men convicted will be a blot on the American record which we shall long regret.The constitutional basis for Taft's position was simple, that the war crimes trials "violate the fundamental principle of American law that a man cannot be tried under an ex post facto statute (viz., in this case, a crime against humanity). Whatever one makes of Taft's position (though I think he makes an important point), the timing of it was prudentially ludicrous (given his political aspirations), and there was no chance saying these things would halt the hangings. Why do it? Wasn't Taft destined to fail?
In these trials we have accepted the Russian idea of the purpose of trials--government policy and not justice--with little relation to Anglo-Saxon heritage. By clothing policy in the forms of legal procedure, we may discredit the whole idea of justice in Europe for years to come.
The [correction: Austrian-born] writer Jean Améry, who was tortured by the Nazis (and who chose the path of resentment over that of forgiveness), once said, "I'd rather be a witness than be convincing." I don't think he's saying that being convincing doesn't matter. Rather, the primary point is that of being a witness. I think we can only understand what Taft is doing (unless we think he was just some kind of raving egomaniac) in those terms. I think we could see politicians who vote their conscience, against all unpopularity and knowing in advance that they are on the losing side, in this way. (Some of them, at least.)
Still, what if I fail? It takes moral courage to stand up, but the "being heard" part is only partly something one controls. One cannot force others to hear. And so there will always be a chance of failure. When I first read Duncan's comments, I was inclined to say that too much concern about practical failure might reflect an excess of pride in the sense that the person who fears failure too much is perhaps not just afraid of failure, but too proud to risk looking like a fool. Or perhaps too self-conscious. But bearing witness isn't about oneself. It is, in some ways, about the world as a whole. And perhaps in some ways about taking the chance that one's witnessing will penetrate the public consciousness, perhaps only to be better understood by later generations. (So, then, one might bear witness for the sake of posterity.)
Per Bauhn, in The Value of Courage, talks about the "courage of creativity" as a form of optimism, bolstered by the acquisition of practical and creative skills, which allows one to overcome the fear of failure. So I think that Duncan is right to suggest that a wise person might have a greater chance of success in being heard than someone lacking in the wisdom of creativity. This is something important we might keep in mind as teachers, that we need to teach our students how to express themselves, how to have a voice which they can apply to their own projects and battles, so that they can come to know how to speak for themselves. I might then counter Duncan's worries by suggesting that if I have honestly and fully spoken for myself (and acted accordingly), then that is all I can do. The rest, as the Epictetus would say, is not up to me.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Aristotle on Courage and Revenge
Here's something I ran (back) across while looking over Aristotle's chapters on courage in Book III of Nicomachean Ethics:
This paper by Krisanna Scheiter is very helpful in clarifying what Aristotle means by revenge and what its function is (and that Aristotle would have thought that revenge can take immoral forms). However, she argues that the primary function of revenge (and suggests that this can be seen in Aristotle) is to "right a wrong and to ensure that we are not treated unjustly in the future" (2). I'm not sure how well this fits with Aristotle's claim above that the brave person acts "for honour's sake," since this would suggest that the brave person who engages in an act of revenge does it to restore (protect?) "honour."
Scheiter marks a clear distinction (for Aristotle) between punishment (done for the sake of the wrongdoer, to improve him) and revenge (done for the sake of the wronged, to ensure that they will not be wronged by this person again). So perhaps the idea is that revenge sends the message that one isn't to be f*cked with--and perhaps one's honor is bound up with that 'not-to-be-f*cked-with-ness'. (This would seem to suggest that revenge would only be appropriate when the wrongdoer hadn't already figured that out and/or the person remains a threat. Otherwise, there's no honor, or presumably bravery, in exacting it.)
One interesting point she makes toward the end of the paper is that, "on Aristotle's account, revenge does not have to be severe or violent in order to be effective." That makes me wonder whether there could be a form of "revenge" which, at the same time, doesn't violate Socrates' claim (in Crito) that it's wrong to wrong another, even if we have been wronged (and maybe even if it is violent). It seems this way because it seems like "revenge" here is something like preemptive self-defense. But then it doesn't exactly seem like what we might normally call revenge.
Apply to your favorite cases. Discuss.
Passion also is sometimes reckoned as courage; those who act from passion, like wild beasts rushing at those who have wounded them, are thought to be brave, because brave men also are passionate; for passion above all things is eager to rush on danger, and hence Homer's 'put strength into his passion' and 'aroused their spirit and passion and 'hard he breathed panting' and 'his blood boiled'. For all such expressions seem to indicate the stirring and onset of passion. Now brave men act for honour's sake, but passion aids them; while wild beasts act under the influence of pain; for they attack because they have been wounded or because they are afraid, since if they are in a forest they do not come near one. Thus they are not brave because, driven by pain and passion, they rush on danger without foreseeing any of the perils, since at that rate even asses would be brave when they are hungry; for blows will not drive them from their food; and lust also makes adulterers do many daring things. (Those creatures are not brave, then, which are driven on to danger by pain or passion.) The 'courage' that is due to passion seems to be the most natural, and to be courage if choice and motive be added.The mention of revenge is what first caught my eye, then I had to go back and re-read the first paragraph. (This discussion is of one of five "semblances" of courage Aristotle discusses.) Then I notice the line that such passionate action seems "to be courage if choice and motive is added." This would make it seem that a more pre-meditated form of "revenge"--what we might properly think of revenge, rather than an unreflective striking back--is, or at least seems, courageous.
Men, then, as well as beasts, suffer pain when they are angry, and are pleased when they exact their revenge; those who fight for these reasons, however, are pugnacious but not brave; for they do not act for honour's sake nor as the rule directs, but from strength of feeling; they have, however, something akin to courage. (NE, III, Ch. 8)
This paper by Krisanna Scheiter is very helpful in clarifying what Aristotle means by revenge and what its function is (and that Aristotle would have thought that revenge can take immoral forms). However, she argues that the primary function of revenge (and suggests that this can be seen in Aristotle) is to "right a wrong and to ensure that we are not treated unjustly in the future" (2). I'm not sure how well this fits with Aristotle's claim above that the brave person acts "for honour's sake," since this would suggest that the brave person who engages in an act of revenge does it to restore (protect?) "honour."
Scheiter marks a clear distinction (for Aristotle) between punishment (done for the sake of the wrongdoer, to improve him) and revenge (done for the sake of the wronged, to ensure that they will not be wronged by this person again). So perhaps the idea is that revenge sends the message that one isn't to be f*cked with--and perhaps one's honor is bound up with that 'not-to-be-f*cked-with-ness'. (This would seem to suggest that revenge would only be appropriate when the wrongdoer hadn't already figured that out and/or the person remains a threat. Otherwise, there's no honor, or presumably bravery, in exacting it.)
One interesting point she makes toward the end of the paper is that, "on Aristotle's account, revenge does not have to be severe or violent in order to be effective." That makes me wonder whether there could be a form of "revenge" which, at the same time, doesn't violate Socrates' claim (in Crito) that it's wrong to wrong another, even if we have been wronged (and maybe even if it is violent). It seems this way because it seems like "revenge" here is something like preemptive self-defense. But then it doesn't exactly seem like what we might normally call revenge.
Apply to your favorite cases. Discuss.
Moral Courage and Facing Others (Take Two)
Draft here. Abstract:
I've become increasingly interested in the question of revenge (there are a couple mostly passing references to this in the paper), so I might try to do some more thinking about courage and revenge soon. Stay tuned.
[UPDATE: Minor changes/fixes made 8.11.11. Thanks, DR.]
Moral courage involves acting in the service of one’s convictions, in spite of risks of social punishment. I suggest that moral courage also involves a capacity to face others as moral agents, and thus in a manner that does not objectify them. A moral stand can only be taken toward another moral agent. Often, we find ourselves unable to face others in this way, because to do so is frightening, or because we are consumed by blinding anger. But without facing others as moral subjects, we risk moral cowardice on the one hand and moral fanaticism on the other.Comments appreciated, though several people who comment here have already helped a lot, so thanks for the ideas, examples, and references!
I've become increasingly interested in the question of revenge (there are a couple mostly passing references to this in the paper), so I might try to do some more thinking about courage and revenge soon. Stay tuned.
[UPDATE: Minor changes/fixes made 8.11.11. Thanks, DR.]
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Facing Others As Subjects (and failing to do so)
Anscombe:
This is not to say that dragon-slaying is not courageous. But that is what we might call physical courage. By moral courage I mean the courage of the person who takes a moral stand in the face of other moral subjects (or agents). What I am trying to track with this restricted, and somewhat technical construal of moral courage is that it can be hard to face others as moral subjects, because it is tempting and all-too-easy to demonize and objectify those who threaten our our sense of what is right and good. And with that comes both a risk of recklessness, in the form of easy justifications of violence against the objectified other, and of cowardice, in the form of a failure to fully face those particular others who, because they are scary, foreign, or threatening, we cover up with abstractions. When we objectify those we oppose, we flee from their particularity as individual subjects. It is often hard not to do this.
I have long been puzzled by the common cant about President Truman’s courage in making this decision [to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]. Of course, I know that you can be cowardly without having reason to think you are in danger. But how can you be courageous? Light has come to me lately: the term is an acknowledgement of the truth. Mr. Truman was brave because, and only because, what he did was so bad. But I think the judgement unsound. Given the right circumstances (e.g. that no one whose opinion matters will disapprove), a quite mediocre person can do spectacularly wicked things without thereby becoming impressive. ("Mr. Truman's Degree," 1956)Nagel:
...let me try to connect absolutist limitations with the possibility of justifying to the victim what is being done to him. If one abandons a person in the course of rescuing several others from a fire or a sinking ship, one could say to him, "You understand, I have to leave you to save the others." Similarly, if one subjects an unwilling child to a painful surgical procedure, one can say to him, "If you could understand, you would realize that I am doing this to help you." One could even say, as one bayonets an enemy soldier, "It's either you or me." But one cannot really say while torturing a prisoner, "You understand, I have to pull out your fingernails because it is absolutely essential that we have the names of your confederates"; nor can one say to the victims of Hiroshima, "You understand, we have to incinerate you to provide the Japanese government with an incentive to surrender." ("War and Massacre," 1972: 137)And why could one not? I'm nearing completion of a full version of my thoughts on "moral courage," and the short of it is that where one shows moral courage by facing others in a moral struggle, one must face them as particular moral subjects. If I objectify those against whom I struggle, then they are no longer moral agents--and more importantly, particular persons--in my eyes. And so the idea that I might be engaged in a moral struggle against them no longer makes sense. We don't take moral stands against mere objects, or monsters. And where our justifications objectify the other, they could only accept our so-called justifications by objectifying themselves (that is, by seeing their own individuality as not mattering from the moral perspective).
This is not to say that dragon-slaying is not courageous. But that is what we might call physical courage. By moral courage I mean the courage of the person who takes a moral stand in the face of other moral subjects (or agents). What I am trying to track with this restricted, and somewhat technical construal of moral courage is that it can be hard to face others as moral subjects, because it is tempting and all-too-easy to demonize and objectify those who threaten our our sense of what is right and good. And with that comes both a risk of recklessness, in the form of easy justifications of violence against the objectified other, and of cowardice, in the form of a failure to fully face those particular others who, because they are scary, foreign, or threatening, we cover up with abstractions. When we objectify those we oppose, we flee from their particularity as individual subjects. It is often hard not to do this.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Greatness?
From The Gay Science, Sec. 325:
I don't know enough about Nietzsche's life to speculate much about the psychological motivations for this kind of statement, though my general impression is that he was a generally civil, gentle, and frail man. Perhaps there was some self-loathing here?
Whether we want to agree that what he describes is a feature of greatness, he is at least right that we do not like to look at suffering, and it is furthermore difficult, as Gaita has said, to see the humanity in another who is suffering greatly from some affliction. There is a greatness of soul in the person who can see that. (Gaita would say that it takes a saint to see it in the hardest cases, but that seems rather different from what Nietzsche has in mind.)
But what about Nietzsche's seemingly terrible point about inflicting suffering? I think it is connected to the point about, for to "hear the cry of this suffering" could be read as hearing the cry of a fellow human (or even fellow creature). It might seem that Nietzsche's great man is capable of being utterly heartless.
On the other hand, it might seem that he has a point to make that connects to what I've suggested about facing others: if genuine moral courage involves facing others as subjects, and should the stand one takes cause others to suffer (either physically or psychologically), then it is one thing to avoid facing those effects of one's actions by objectifying (or demonizing, etc.) those one opposes, and something different to remain steadfast in one's aims, while recognizing the humanity of those one opposes. As Duncan Richter has recently noted, it will be tempting to see those one opposes in abstract, objectifying terms. This, I suspect, makes it easier to justify doing terrible things to them, because this objectification allows one to act without facing the particularity (and distinct humanity) of those others. One might think that this is where the Nazis failed, though I'm not sure how plausible this is, and such a sweeping suggestion is an abstraction itself.
So, maybe Nietzsche is thinking that it is only if one can honestly face the other as a fellow human that one shows greatness. We could understand such an honest facing as being fully alive to their suffering--to how bad it is, not "alive" in the sense of enjoying it. In many cases, I would guess that being fully alive to it would force us to stop what we are doing, and in many cases, that might be the point (even Nietzsche's point). But then Nietzsche leaves open that one's cause could be worthy enough to overrule this empathetic engagement. And this would be part of saying "Yes!" to everything, as Richter notes (in the post above). At the moment, I can't think of a way of describing such a situation that wouldn't still leave it seeming terrible--"I'm sorry, but this is what I must do..." or, "I know you are suffering, but you deserve it..."--but perhaps that's Nietzsche's point. This is related, among other things, to revenge, and I hope to return to that topic soon (in connection with moral courage).
What belongs to greatness--Who will attain something great if he does not feel in himself the power to inflict great pain? Being able to suffer is the least; weak women and even slaves often achieve mastery at that. But not to perish of inner distress and uncertainty when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of this suffering--that is great; that belongs to greatness.Rob Sica brought this passage to my attention when I first introduced the notion that facing others as subjects is an essential part of moral courage, the taking of stand for one's moral convictions. This is no doubt one of the "terrible" moments in Nietzsche's work--that is, roughly, the sort of thing that the Nazis would have liked.
I don't know enough about Nietzsche's life to speculate much about the psychological motivations for this kind of statement, though my general impression is that he was a generally civil, gentle, and frail man. Perhaps there was some self-loathing here?
Whether we want to agree that what he describes is a feature of greatness, he is at least right that we do not like to look at suffering, and it is furthermore difficult, as Gaita has said, to see the humanity in another who is suffering greatly from some affliction. There is a greatness of soul in the person who can see that. (Gaita would say that it takes a saint to see it in the hardest cases, but that seems rather different from what Nietzsche has in mind.)
But what about Nietzsche's seemingly terrible point about inflicting suffering? I think it is connected to the point about, for to "hear the cry of this suffering" could be read as hearing the cry of a fellow human (or even fellow creature). It might seem that Nietzsche's great man is capable of being utterly heartless.
On the other hand, it might seem that he has a point to make that connects to what I've suggested about facing others: if genuine moral courage involves facing others as subjects, and should the stand one takes cause others to suffer (either physically or psychologically), then it is one thing to avoid facing those effects of one's actions by objectifying (or demonizing, etc.) those one opposes, and something different to remain steadfast in one's aims, while recognizing the humanity of those one opposes. As Duncan Richter has recently noted, it will be tempting to see those one opposes in abstract, objectifying terms. This, I suspect, makes it easier to justify doing terrible things to them, because this objectification allows one to act without facing the particularity (and distinct humanity) of those others. One might think that this is where the Nazis failed, though I'm not sure how plausible this is, and such a sweeping suggestion is an abstraction itself.
So, maybe Nietzsche is thinking that it is only if one can honestly face the other as a fellow human that one shows greatness. We could understand such an honest facing as being fully alive to their suffering--to how bad it is, not "alive" in the sense of enjoying it. In many cases, I would guess that being fully alive to it would force us to stop what we are doing, and in many cases, that might be the point (even Nietzsche's point). But then Nietzsche leaves open that one's cause could be worthy enough to overrule this empathetic engagement. And this would be part of saying "Yes!" to everything, as Richter notes (in the post above). At the moment, I can't think of a way of describing such a situation that wouldn't still leave it seeming terrible--"I'm sorry, but this is what I must do..." or, "I know you are suffering, but you deserve it..."--but perhaps that's Nietzsche's point. This is related, among other things, to revenge, and I hope to return to that topic soon (in connection with moral courage).
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Some Good News for Moral Courage
Situationist critiques of character (as discussed in Appiah's Experiments in Ethics appeal to psychological research to challenge the idea that there are general, stable character-based dispositions. A classic case is the phone booth study (Isen and Levin (1974)), in which individuals who found a dime in a phone booth nearly all helped a person who dropped a pile of papers, whereas those who went dimeless almost never helped. So, kindness, it would seem, is contingent on situation (and perhaps mood) rather than any kind of stable character trait as kindness. One can contest these sorts of critiques on various grounds--perhaps genuine character is the exception rather than the rule, for example, and so it shouldn't be surprising that the behavior of most people varies more radically.
So here's the good news I discovered for moral courage, in a paper from The Psychology of Courage: Modern Research on an Ancient Virtue. If we take mood to be the factor affecting helping behavior in the phone booth study, Niesta, Greitemeyer, Fischer, and Frey (2008) (cited in Osswald, Greitemeyer, Fischer, and Frey, in the volume linked above) found that mood does not affect morally courageous intervention. This may be because the perception of a greater wrong is more strongly motivating than just the perception of something, as it were, amiss. That seems right. (This sort of action, unlike helping behavior, involves incurring substantive risks to oneself in order to intervene in the unjust (etc.) treatment of another.) The article in which the study is cited doesn't say what proportion of subjects intervened in the courage situation, and that might be worth knowing, too, for other reasons.
Some less good (though perhaps not shocking) news from the article is that while people are typically quick at recognizing situations that would seem to call for a (morally courageous) intervention, "people feel less competent to intervene than in other prosocial incidents." That's important, insofar as confidence is essential to courageous action (and where calling the police isn't a viable option...) I wish I could read German, as the authors have several works in their native language, and conduct workshops that aim to equip people with reasonable strategies which at the same time minimize risk to self (in part by finding ways to involve others in the intervening action).
So here's the good news I discovered for moral courage, in a paper from The Psychology of Courage: Modern Research on an Ancient Virtue. If we take mood to be the factor affecting helping behavior in the phone booth study, Niesta, Greitemeyer, Fischer, and Frey (2008) (cited in Osswald, Greitemeyer, Fischer, and Frey, in the volume linked above) found that mood does not affect morally courageous intervention. This may be because the perception of a greater wrong is more strongly motivating than just the perception of something, as it were, amiss. That seems right. (This sort of action, unlike helping behavior, involves incurring substantive risks to oneself in order to intervene in the unjust (etc.) treatment of another.) The article in which the study is cited doesn't say what proportion of subjects intervened in the courage situation, and that might be worth knowing, too, for other reasons.
Some less good (though perhaps not shocking) news from the article is that while people are typically quick at recognizing situations that would seem to call for a (morally courageous) intervention, "people feel less competent to intervene than in other prosocial incidents." That's important, insofar as confidence is essential to courageous action (and where calling the police isn't a viable option...) I wish I could read German, as the authors have several works in their native language, and conduct workshops that aim to equip people with reasonable strategies which at the same time minimize risk to self (in part by finding ways to involve others in the intervening action).
Friday, May 27, 2011
Moral Courage and Facing Others (Draft)
Here's a draft of a short paper on some of the thinking I've been doing about moral courage. The thesis:
(Note: I just realized that the final footnote is incomplete. I'll post an amended draft shortly. Update 5/29/11: footnote fixed. Update 5/31/11: some further revisions and notes included.)
Rather than seeking to place direct constraints on the content of those convictions and commitments that can be served with moral courage, I suggest that, whatever one’s convictions and causes, moral courage requires facing one’s adversaries in a manner that does not objectify the other. This account allows us to recognize moral courage even in those whose causes we do not share, but does not go so far as to imply that any sort of action taken in the service of one’s cause reflects moral courage.Comments (and counterexamples) greatly appreciated.
(Note: I just realized that the final footnote is incomplete. I'll post an amended draft shortly. Update 5/29/11: footnote fixed. Update 5/31/11: some further revisions and notes included.)
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Facing Others
Moral courage is the form of courage exhibited by someone who acts well, in the face of danger, in the service of one's convictions--the "courage of conviction." We can distinguish moral courage from the merely physical courage of someone who enters into dangerous action (while aware of the risks and perhaps fearful, but not uncontrollably so, of them) in that the morally courageous person acts in defense or pursuit of something of central value to him or herself. (At the same time, moral courage may often involve significant physical courage.)
It is easy to praise moral courage (and courage in general) when its manifestations square with our own expectations and values. Thus, Socrates, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., are for us obvious exemplars of moral courage. But then we turn to cases like the 9/11 hijackers, suicide bombers, Scott Roeder (the man who murdered Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider), and other "fanatics," and it becomes clear that if these individuals are also morally courageous--they seem to have had the "courage of conviction"--then moral courage can motivate behavior that we feel ought to be condemned.
In a previous post I raised some questions about whether "sneaking around" or otherwise attacking one's foes at moments of ordinary human vulnerability can be reasonably described as courageous. I want now to frame this more specifically in terms of moral courage. If Socrates, Gandhi, and King are to be taken as paradigms of moral courage, then I would suggest that an important feature of their actions has to do with the manner in which they each faced their adversaries. Namely, they faced them as one subject to another subject. They did not objectify, or otherwise circumvent a direct confrontation with the will of the other. This was not a matter of giving their adversaries a "fighting chance," but rather a matter of acknowledging the subjectivity of those who would oppose their values and convictions. The following is part of what I say about this in an essay I'm working on:
When one acts for the sake of a cause, one expresses value to others; one’s actions are addressed to others as an expression of that value. But if one objectifies the other, then one treats that other as something unable to receive that expression of value. Objectification precludes the possibility of facing the other, because objects do not have a face (in this sense). The person who refuses to acknowledge the reality and subjectivity of the other, and refuses out of fear, or who circumvents an open confrontation with those others, as subjects, is thus a kind of coward.
If this is right, then it indicates why "fanatics" who treat their foes as dispensable (as mere means) cannot be regarded as morally courageous. Such individuals incur danger in the service of their causes, but they fail to "act well" in the service of those causes because they act against their foes in ways which seem, to me at least, to be incompatible with an honest facing up to those others whom they harm and often destroy. Thus, as above, in one sense, their actions may involve cowardice. In another sense, their actions are reckless.
It is easy to praise moral courage (and courage in general) when its manifestations square with our own expectations and values. Thus, Socrates, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr., are for us obvious exemplars of moral courage. But then we turn to cases like the 9/11 hijackers, suicide bombers, Scott Roeder (the man who murdered Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider), and other "fanatics," and it becomes clear that if these individuals are also morally courageous--they seem to have had the "courage of conviction"--then moral courage can motivate behavior that we feel ought to be condemned.
In a previous post I raised some questions about whether "sneaking around" or otherwise attacking one's foes at moments of ordinary human vulnerability can be reasonably described as courageous. I want now to frame this more specifically in terms of moral courage. If Socrates, Gandhi, and King are to be taken as paradigms of moral courage, then I would suggest that an important feature of their actions has to do with the manner in which they each faced their adversaries. Namely, they faced them as one subject to another subject. They did not objectify, or otherwise circumvent a direct confrontation with the will of the other. This was not a matter of giving their adversaries a "fighting chance," but rather a matter of acknowledging the subjectivity of those who would oppose their values and convictions. The following is part of what I say about this in an essay I'm working on:
When one acts for the sake of a cause, one expresses value to others; one’s actions are addressed to others as an expression of that value. But if one objectifies the other, then one treats that other as something unable to receive that expression of value. Objectification precludes the possibility of facing the other, because objects do not have a face (in this sense). The person who refuses to acknowledge the reality and subjectivity of the other, and refuses out of fear, or who circumvents an open confrontation with those others, as subjects, is thus a kind of coward.
If this is right, then it indicates why "fanatics" who treat their foes as dispensable (as mere means) cannot be regarded as morally courageous. Such individuals incur danger in the service of their causes, but they fail to "act well" in the service of those causes because they act against their foes in ways which seem, to me at least, to be incompatible with an honest facing up to those others whom they harm and often destroy. Thus, as above, in one sense, their actions may involve cowardice. In another sense, their actions are reckless.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Sneaking Around
I've been trying to write a little bit about courage. (Some initial thoughts here and here.) It's a messy topic. The puzzle of the moment has to do with the relationship between fear, danger (and risk), and action. In particular, it would seem that a courageous act is one knowingly performed in the face of some risk or danger to oneself. Often, this involves confronting the source of the risk or danger (and thus, the possible cause of fear), as in the case of confronting a bully.
Suppose instead that I tie the bully's shoelaces together while he's napping, and then he gets his comeuppance later on when I'm not around (or am watching in the bushes). This doesn't strike me as a courageous act. It's certainly not as courageous as directly confronting the bully (assuming I could at least make my point, with fists or words, before he pummels me). But on the other hand, the sneaky act does involve some risk and danger. The bully could wake up. I could get caught.
There are plenty of other cases where the element of sneakiness might seem to problematize attributions of courage. Terrorist acts, for example. Or, by contrast, the killing of bin Laden. Now, in both those cases, there is no doubt a great deal of risk to the operatives (and in the case of suicide bombing, one knows in advance that one is making the ultimate self-sacrifice). A recent point made by Jean Kazez about how we should feel about the bin Laden deal--that we are happy about things only under some particular description or other--might be relevant here, too. Participating in the raid on the compound where bin Laden was hiding might have required some courage, but the actual killing of him might not have been. (I'm not thinking here about whether killing him was the right, or best, thing to do, just where to locate the courage of the Navy Seals, if anywhere.)
The bully and bin Laden cases share, I think, at least that the object of one's action was a direct and specific adversary. Terrorism cases lack that feature, insofar as the targets are non-specific. They are also themselves not a direct threat to the agent who acts (if we think of terror bombings on civilian populations). But all three share the element of sneakiness (and, if you want, guile and opportunism). And being sneaky means that you are, as it were, going behind your adversary's back, not giving that person (or group) a fighting chance. Of course, I don't think bin Laden was owed a fighting chance. (Whether he should have been killed is not a question I'm prepared to address.) I also don't think a terror bombing would be more courageous if the civilians were warned ahead of time (however that might work).
Somewhere in his (good) book on courage William Ian Miller talks about the style of courage, and perhaps my gut feeling here is that sneaky acts lack the right kind of style. Even if they involve taking great risks, they don't involve the kind of direct confrontation with the other, as a subject, that an old-fashioned fight involves. And in the case of terrorism, the object(s) of one's would-be brave act usually aren't themselves the source of one's fear (which would be the fear of being caught, or of dying, etc., though they might be very abstractly linked to some larger fear, say, of an "evil empire" of which they are anonymous citizens).
What I'm trying to work out is how to express the dependency of courage--particularly, courageous acts--on the nature of the object (or recipient) of one's acts and of what one does to that object. Some of this is obvious: kicking a person who is already down is not courageous (even if one had fought courageously up to that point). Similarly, then, killing innocent people is not courageous, even if the preparations required what Aristotle would have called a semblance of courage. Then: storming the compound where bin Laden hid took courage, but killing him was not itself courageous. (I.e. that is not what makes what the Navy Seals did courageous, if it was courageous.)
Of course, we could just say in some cases, "What they did took courage, but it was also horrible," and I sort of get that. An act may be other things in addition to courageous. But there are certain things that one might be able to do by sneaking around which, even if risky, seem too underhanded to count as courageous. (Again, in the bin Laden case, I would just say that the issue of courage is mostly irrelevant to the particular description--the killing of bin Laden--that is of most interest to most people.)
Suppose instead that I tie the bully's shoelaces together while he's napping, and then he gets his comeuppance later on when I'm not around (or am watching in the bushes). This doesn't strike me as a courageous act. It's certainly not as courageous as directly confronting the bully (assuming I could at least make my point, with fists or words, before he pummels me). But on the other hand, the sneaky act does involve some risk and danger. The bully could wake up. I could get caught.
There are plenty of other cases where the element of sneakiness might seem to problematize attributions of courage. Terrorist acts, for example. Or, by contrast, the killing of bin Laden. Now, in both those cases, there is no doubt a great deal of risk to the operatives (and in the case of suicide bombing, one knows in advance that one is making the ultimate self-sacrifice). A recent point made by Jean Kazez about how we should feel about the bin Laden deal--that we are happy about things only under some particular description or other--might be relevant here, too. Participating in the raid on the compound where bin Laden was hiding might have required some courage, but the actual killing of him might not have been. (I'm not thinking here about whether killing him was the right, or best, thing to do, just where to locate the courage of the Navy Seals, if anywhere.)
The bully and bin Laden cases share, I think, at least that the object of one's action was a direct and specific adversary. Terrorism cases lack that feature, insofar as the targets are non-specific. They are also themselves not a direct threat to the agent who acts (if we think of terror bombings on civilian populations). But all three share the element of sneakiness (and, if you want, guile and opportunism). And being sneaky means that you are, as it were, going behind your adversary's back, not giving that person (or group) a fighting chance. Of course, I don't think bin Laden was owed a fighting chance. (Whether he should have been killed is not a question I'm prepared to address.) I also don't think a terror bombing would be more courageous if the civilians were warned ahead of time (however that might work).
Somewhere in his (good) book on courage William Ian Miller talks about the style of courage, and perhaps my gut feeling here is that sneaky acts lack the right kind of style. Even if they involve taking great risks, they don't involve the kind of direct confrontation with the other, as a subject, that an old-fashioned fight involves. And in the case of terrorism, the object(s) of one's would-be brave act usually aren't themselves the source of one's fear (which would be the fear of being caught, or of dying, etc., though they might be very abstractly linked to some larger fear, say, of an "evil empire" of which they are anonymous citizens).
What I'm trying to work out is how to express the dependency of courage--particularly, courageous acts--on the nature of the object (or recipient) of one's acts and of what one does to that object. Some of this is obvious: kicking a person who is already down is not courageous (even if one had fought courageously up to that point). Similarly, then, killing innocent people is not courageous, even if the preparations required what Aristotle would have called a semblance of courage. Then: storming the compound where bin Laden hid took courage, but killing him was not itself courageous. (I.e. that is not what makes what the Navy Seals did courageous, if it was courageous.)
Of course, we could just say in some cases, "What they did took courage, but it was also horrible," and I sort of get that. An act may be other things in addition to courageous. But there are certain things that one might be able to do by sneaking around which, even if risky, seem too underhanded to count as courageous. (Again, in the bin Laden case, I would just say that the issue of courage is mostly irrelevant to the particular description--the killing of bin Laden--that is of most interest to most people.)
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Courage & Facing Death
A recurring point of emphasis in my teaching partner's (Helen Bennett's) discussion of Antigone (in our Honors Humanities course) was that one way in which Antigone "missed the virtuous mean" had to do with the way in which she evinced disregard for her own life. Not that her family life was great, obviously (you've heard of her dad, Oedipus, right?). But if you read the play, there's something to the idea that she's being (or speaking) a bit reckless (even though she was doing the right thing in trying to bury Polyneices).
At the end of his discussion of courage, Aristotle claims that a courageous person is properly pained by the prospect of his or her own death:
At the end of his discussion of courage, Aristotle claims that a courageous person is properly pained by the prospect of his or her own death:
the more he [the courageous person] is possessed of excellence in its entirety and the happier he is, the more he will be pained at the thought of death; for life is best worth living for such a man, and he is knowingly losing the greatest goods [by sacrificing his life in war], and this is painful. But he is none the less brave, and perhaps all the more so, because he chooses noble deed of war at that cost. (NE Bk. III Ch. 9)This forces Aristotle to hedge a bit on his prior claim that the exercise of virtue is always pleasant to the virtuous person, "except in so far as it reaches its end." What I found really striking here, in connection with my previous thinking about courage here, is what Aristotle then says about the "best soldiers" perhaps being people who aren't quite fully courageous (or virtuous or happy, in his sense):
But it is quite possible that the best soldiers may be not men of this sort but those who are less brave but have no other good; for these are ready to face danger, and the sell their life for trifling gains.This isn't something you'd want to put in the recruitment literature, but given what Silke says about the background story of many suicide bombers (see p. 183 and the citation of Kushner 1996), Aristotle's remarks have some plausibility. Of course, there's also something off-putting about this (even if it is a dark truth) when one thinks about it in connection with, for example, the reasons young people might choose to go into military service. But I'm not sure what else to say now about that.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
Courage & Terrorism
In "Courage In Dark Places: Reflections on Terrorist Psychology," Andrew Silke suggests that terrorists can display courage. The background for this claim is what Silke describes as the tendency to see members of terrorist groups as brainwashed fanatics--crazy people--who have no feelings and so on. Almost everything Silke says against this kind of common caricature seems fine. But the discussion of courage leaves a great deal to be desired. First, Silke offers no clear account of what a virtue is besides a "feature." Silke's definition of courage specifically is pretty thin:
But from here, Silke questions "whether courage warrants consideration as a virtue in and of itself" (p. 195). The answer seems obvious: not if that's how you characterize courage. Or perhaps: it has no moral value in the absence of other virtues. (To be fair, this question has been discussed by some philosophers, too, but I'm not yet in a position to discuss that.) This is where the failure to consider what a virtue is reveals the relative shallowness of Silke's discussion of courage. Is courage a one-off deal? How stable must the disposition to act in the face of fears be?
I think it is a legitimate question whether we could/should withdraw ascriptions of courage because the person is acting upon a mistaken/misguided judgment or commitment. How far can one deviate in good judgment before this makes the ascription of courage problematic (and not just uncomfortable)? I'm just starting to think about this, so input will be quite appreciated.
One other thing that bugs me about Silke is the extent to which he emphasizes how "normal" terrorists are psychologically. This leads him to say: "it remains true that our enemies are capable of all the qualities of humans. They can be cruel or gentle, malicious or considerate, selfish or generous, stupid or intelligent. They can also be courageous or cowardly" (p. 195). On a few of these, I want to ask: to whom? Bat-Ami Bar On makes a powerful case, in "Why Terrorism Is Morally Problematic," that because terrorism involves terrorizing (often innocent) people, it is an inherently cruel practice. If she's right, then qua terrorists (or freedom fighters, if you prefer), terrorists cannot be "cruel or gentle."
My sense is that a lot more work needs to be done on (3) above. Or at least, an Aristotelian approach would have to say more than "nevertheless." The point above about cruelty raises a question about whether it makes sense to say that a person who employs inherently immoral means can be said to have acted with, or exhibited, courage. Recall that in Aristotle's thought, the first requirement of virtuous action is that you have to know what you're doing. And if it's true that what terrorists do is cruel, and if they are unable to see (or acknowledge) that--which some of what Silke discusses would seem to confirm (since there's a lot of abstraction away from the humanity of the targets)--then this might be a clue to why it seems problematic to attribute courage to them.
1. the individual perceives risk and danger in a given situation or behavior;Now, I've been teaching and thinking about Aristotle, and so my first problem with this definition of courage is that it doesn't say anything about "false" forms of courage--viz. rashness. Without that, as Silke acknowledges, the claim that terrorists can exhibit courage is unremarkable, since all that needs to be shown is that they satisfy the three conditions above--which he shows is often the case.
2. the individual experiences fear and anxiety in relation to this perceived risk; and,
3. the individual nevertheless enters the situation or proceeds with the behavior (p. 184)
But from here, Silke questions "whether courage warrants consideration as a virtue in and of itself" (p. 195). The answer seems obvious: not if that's how you characterize courage. Or perhaps: it has no moral value in the absence of other virtues. (To be fair, this question has been discussed by some philosophers, too, but I'm not yet in a position to discuss that.) This is where the failure to consider what a virtue is reveals the relative shallowness of Silke's discussion of courage. Is courage a one-off deal? How stable must the disposition to act in the face of fears be?
I think it is a legitimate question whether we could/should withdraw ascriptions of courage because the person is acting upon a mistaken/misguided judgment or commitment. How far can one deviate in good judgment before this makes the ascription of courage problematic (and not just uncomfortable)? I'm just starting to think about this, so input will be quite appreciated.
One other thing that bugs me about Silke is the extent to which he emphasizes how "normal" terrorists are psychologically. This leads him to say: "it remains true that our enemies are capable of all the qualities of humans. They can be cruel or gentle, malicious or considerate, selfish or generous, stupid or intelligent. They can also be courageous or cowardly" (p. 195). On a few of these, I want to ask: to whom? Bat-Ami Bar On makes a powerful case, in "Why Terrorism Is Morally Problematic," that because terrorism involves terrorizing (often innocent) people, it is an inherently cruel practice. If she's right, then qua terrorists (or freedom fighters, if you prefer), terrorists cannot be "cruel or gentle."
My sense is that a lot more work needs to be done on (3) above. Or at least, an Aristotelian approach would have to say more than "nevertheless." The point above about cruelty raises a question about whether it makes sense to say that a person who employs inherently immoral means can be said to have acted with, or exhibited, courage. Recall that in Aristotle's thought, the first requirement of virtuous action is that you have to know what you're doing. And if it's true that what terrorists do is cruel, and if they are unable to see (or acknowledge) that--which some of what Silke discusses would seem to confirm (since there's a lot of abstraction away from the humanity of the targets)--then this might be a clue to why it seems problematic to attribute courage to them.
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