Conclusion: It takes a certain kind of character to be brave and temperate.
Premises:
- An important way to tell if someone is brave or not is how they act when surrounded by danger (1115a).
- A person is not brave and does not have a strong character if they run when faced with danger (i).
- Danger is not necessarily being poor, sick, or having a bad reputation, it is more about death and the dangers that surround death that determines if someone is brave (1115a).
2. Everyone fears things, but a brave person embraces their fear, and for the right reason because their aim is to be virtuous (115a).
a. If someone does not fear anything than they are mad, even someone who is brave is still fearful (1115b).
b. Someone who is brave can not be overly confident about frightening things because then they would be rash (1115b).
c. Acting tough is not brave, cockiness will not get people to think someone is brave (i).
3. The more virtuous a person is, the harder it is for them to be brave (1117b).
a. The more virtuous a person is, the happier their life will be (1117b).
b. Therefore, it would be harder for the virtuous person to be brave in a dangerous situation because losing everything would
would be painful (1117b).
c. Therefore, the virtuous person is even bracer because he is willing to sacrifice everything (1117b).
4. A temperate person does not find pleasure in the pleasures of an intemperate person, they think it is wrong (1119a).
a. A temperate person only indulges to a moderate degree (1119a).
b. The character of a temperate person does not like certain pleasures more than they are worth (1119a).
c. A temperate person would not want to self-indulge because they know that would go against their beliefs and character
(i).
d. To refrain from indulging in pleasures makes someone temperate, and that restraint takes a certain character (i).
Premise 1 really helped me better understand that there is, in fact, a connection between a brave person and fear because there are actually things that brave people do fear. However, although you do mention that the brave person is "still fearful" (2a) and that the brave person "embraces their fear" (2) I think that a minor, but very important detail was left out. It is important to mention the fact that he who is brave fears, but fears the "right" things, for the "right" reasons, in the "right" time, and in the "right" way and still manages to to act with confidence (1115b). This factor of preciseness when it comes to fearing anything is critical to the brave person since it is fearing something in this exact way that allows a brave person to fear and still remain brave.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your argument when it comes to temperance and finding the right balance between pleasure and pain. However, I am a bit confused when it comes to the connection between your bravery premises. In Premise 2, you say brave people embrace theirs fears because "their aim is to be virtuous." In Premise 3, however, you say "the more virtuous a person is, the harder it is for them to be brave."(117b) It seems to me that becoming virtuous is the goal of being brave in Premise 2; and being virtuous is an obstacle and therefore a mean in Premise 3. Altogether I am wondering whether in terms of bravery, is virtue an end or a mean? Or is bravery a means to happiness and being virtuous is simply an advantageous part of one's character?
ReplyDeleteAs Rebecca stated, there is a contradicting rationality between Premise 2 and 3. I agree with Premise 2, but I’m having a little trouble following the correlation between virtue and bravery in Premise 3. As we discussed in class, the telos in virtue ethics is happiness; likewise, we established that happiness through intellectual virtue is the most fulfilling and is the mean between a life of excess and deficiency. According to your premise, however, bravery sounds like an activity greater than virtue. My question is: Do you mean that the virtuous person fears bravery? In Premise 3b, you state, “it would be harder for the virtuous person to be brave in a dangerous situation (1117b).” Consider commenting about bravery in a non-virtuous person to strengthen the argument that bravery is “harder” for a virtuous person.
ReplyDeleteHi Ali,
ReplyDeleteI really like what you posted, particularly premise 2. To reiterate and expand on what you said, I believe that Aristotle is saying that to be courageous does not mean that you lack all aspects of fear (as you said so yourself, this is impossible because we all fear something). Rather, courage comes from the act of being brave when fear is what is expected. For example, the soldiers who can be absolutely certain that they will not die in a particular battle, yet choose to fight anyway, do not display true courage no matter how dangerous the feat they face. It is the soldiers who are unsure of their ends, who choose to put their life and their fate in the hands of the enemy, that are truly brave and courageous. In other words, by embracing our fear and overcoming it, we display courage. Thank you for the helpful information you provided!
Maggie R
Hi Ali,
ReplyDeleteI really like what you posted, particularly premise 2 and 3. To reiterate and expand on what you said in premise 2, I believe that Aristotle is saying that to be courageous does not mean that you lack all aspects of fear (as you said so yourself, this is impossible because we all fear something). Rather, courage comes from the act of being brave when fear is what is expected. For example, the soldiers who can be absolutely certain that they will not die in a particular battle, yet choose to fight anyway, do not display true courage no matter how dangerous the feat they face. It is the soldiers who are unsure of their ends, who choose to put their life and their fate in the hands of the enemy, that are truly brave and courageous. In other words, by embracing our fear and overcoming it, we display courage. Thank you for the helpful information you provided!
Maggie R
I agree with many of your points and I find your premise to be equally clear. During my reading of this text, I felt that a strong case was made against being overly confident as a sign of bravery; "cockiness" as you put it was definitely a nice translation into layman's terms. I had a difficult time locating your argument outline's "virtue-bravery" contrast in the text. The text reads, "The truer it is that he has every virtue and the happier he is, the more pain he will feel at the prospect of death." (1117b) Does this truly mean that it is harder for a virtuous man to be brave? Or simply, he has more to lose? The text continues, as you noted, though, to say that "he is no less brave for all that; presumably indeed he is a ll the braver, because he chooses what is fine in war at the cost of all these goods." (1117b) Maybe he simply has more to lose, rather than willing to sacrifice everything.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good assessment however I have two questions/orders for clarification. The first is about fear: does a person act cowardly if he decides in accordance with fear to back away from danger or are there some certain situations where these calculations are acceptable? For example, on the battlefield someone might run away which would be cowardly however if someone is challenging a much weaker opponent to a fight, would the weaker person be a coward for not accepting the challenge? Is there not some level where wits, patience, and reason would inform a person to pick and choose his battles? I think for Aristotle, some (maybe even most) situations call not for bravery but for calm demeanor and calculations of ability. My second point is that you don't really explain the true virtue of bravery as it relates to the extremes. Aristotle specifically states that one shouldn't be rash, but that bravery often looks like rash behavior and often lingers on the rash extreme in the natural order of what it means to be a brave person. This is an important point to make simply because it informs those who seek to be virtuous by means of bravery what their actions should look like.
ReplyDeleteI believe you are correct with just about every premises you have, however, I think there are some areas where more clarity is needed. In premise 1, sub-premise b, you should explain the difference between what you state isn't constitutive of bravery, and why that is (what kind of death and what dangers surrounding death, constitute bravery?). I believe you did a wonderful job with premise 2, and believe only slight clarity is required for premise 3. I am intrigued by your statement that a virtuous person finds it harder to be brave because more is at stake, but wouldn't a virtuous person already have a predisposition to act bravely? Lastly, I think premise 4 was well done up until your final sub-premise in which it seems you make a hypocritical statement- in sub-premise a you state a temperate person indulges in pleasures to a moderate degree, while in sub-premise d you state the refraining of indulging in pleasures makes someone temperate. I believe if you simply edited sub-premise d to pertain to overindulgence, and the ability (and more importantly, use) of restraint from overindulgence, things would be more clear.
ReplyDeletePremise one was definitely very helpful in understanding what bravery truly is. However, I would have liked a little more clarification in premise two when you say people need to be brave for the "right reason." How do we know the right reasons from the wrong ones? It also would have been helpful to show what types of people are not brave other than just the cocky, tough guy type of individual. Aside from bravery, I think you very clearly explain temperance, and went into great detail about it. However, I do agree with Tyler when it comes to the contradicting sub-premises A and D. I do get what you're trying to say though and the overall point is definitely well put! Your outline is great though and perfectly detailed!
ReplyDeleteI think your outline was very helpful in understanding the message behind bravery and temperance and how that is connected to character. It is very interesting to talk about that second premise of the relationship between fear and bravery. One often assumes that bravery is the lack of fear, but really, as you stated in your outline, the control of fear is bravery which the results in being virtuous. I was just confused about your third premise where you talked about how a more virtuous person will have a harder time being brave. If the goal of being brave is to be virtuous and the more brave you are the more virtuous you are, then why are you not brave if you are virtuous. In my mind, it would only make sense that a very virtuous person would not shy away from a situation because of the risk, but make the correct decision because he already has these virtues to judge his decision. That is the only part of the outline that confused me. The topic is very interesting and I enjoyed reading about it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that bravery is built through facing your fears. It is only logical to think that one cannot be brave until they face fear and conquer it, eventually coping with whatever it was they were afraid of; through this comes bravery. I also strongly agree that acting tough is not a form of bravery. Arrogance or cockiness is a symbol of the weak, masking their feelings behind a false sense of courage. However, I don’t know if a brave person still has a fear once they face it. I feel that a person may have to embrace their fear in order to successfully get over it, but once they conquer their fear, the fear no longer exists.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the beginning. Maybe you can make more clear the difference between a virtuous person and a brave person? Because if brave people want to be virtuous, and being brave can be a characteristic of being virtuous, are the two different people not the same thing? And it seems that in order to become this "virtuous" person, one needs to be more brave than just a brave person, and a brave person is being brave to become virtuous, so wouldn't that mean he's just as brave as a virtuous person? I didn't understand this in the text, and I still don't understand it. But I highly agree with the rest of your outline, it actually clarified that part of the text for me!
ReplyDeleteIn class Professor Vaught spoke about your point in 1B, and how if he were to save people from a spider that would not be an act of true bravery. This confused me a little bit, because saving someone from a spider (if it was poisonous which I assumed it was) is willingly approaching death. I mean, maybe the argument was because the spider came to him, he did not go out to find the spider, this was not bravery. Anyway, I was wondering if anyone could help me understand this more. I guess my main question is, if a person were to jump into an ocean to save a person from man-eating sharks, would that be a brave act? What is the difference between willingly going to war, and jumping into the water and saving someone from sharks? If there is no difference, then what is the difference between saving someone from sharks and saving someone from spiders? Your arguments are great, Ali! It really helped me understand the text better, thank you!
ReplyDelete