The second half of Book III of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics takes a deeper look at two individual virtues. Chapters 6-9 deal with bravery and chapter’s 10-12 focus on temperance. He explains what both bravery and temperance consist of and gives examples of the opposite of bravery and temperance; cowardness and intemperance. He gives his thought on what bravery and temperance is along with what they are not in order to eliminate some of the common misconceptions people may have.
Aristotle defines bravery as a “mean about what inspires confidence and about what is frightening in the conditions we have described; it chooses and stands firm because that is fine or because anything else is shameful” (Ethics 42). This is stating that a brave man is someone who is confident in the situation he is in and will deal with what is at hand and will not turn away from this fear. However, theses fears may be different for individual people, so in order to solidify his stance on what makes up a brave person Aristotle says that someone is “fully brave if he is intrepid in facing a fine death, and the immediate dangers that bring death” (Ethics 41). This is an interesting point that leads to what I think is a potential contradiction. In the definition of bravery he says the man must be confident about what he is fearful of and then he says being fully brave is someone who will not back away from death. From his words here he believes a soldier to have true bravery. His idea is flawed because what if a soldier is not fearful of death or the dangers of the war and is willing to give his life up in order to protect his people? Is he not exemplifying true bravery even though he is not fearful of death?
I think Aristotle would try and take my question and try to place it into one of his conditions that resemble bravery. He would try and see what are the reasons behind wanting to fight in the war, what is the end. He would try and see if I was seeking any honorable gain, he would say this is not true bravery but bravery of citizens. If I did not fit into the first condition he would try to see what other conditions from Book III chapter 8 I fit into.
After talking about bravery Aristotle begins to discuss temperance. He defines temperance as “a mean concerned with pleasures” (45). He then says intemperance people have no control and overindulged in everything. He then says a temperate person “finds no pleasure in what most pleases the intemperate person" (48). Questions then arise out of these statements of whether or not a temperate person can become intemperate or vice versa. What if there is someone who is a health freak and watches everything he has eaten for years decides to eat ice cream for every meal for the next 6 months, is he still considered a temperate person?
Aristotle would say he is not a temperate person in the 6 months he is eating all of this ice cream because he is not observing moderation and is therefore intemperate. However, he may still be a temperate person if he decides after six months to only have ice cream in moderation. He can still be a temperate person even though he feasted on ice cream for 6 months because even though he overindulged he still refrained after the 6 months and that shows he did not give into his pleasures and was able to observe moderation.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
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4 comments:
Based on Chapter 8, a soldier who is not fearful of death or the dangers of war and is willing to die for his people could possibly fall under the category of the experienced soldier, one who is only brave because his/her experience makes them "especially able in attack an defense" (Chapter 8). Even in the case of this soldier being unafraid of death because he/she lost their family in war, inspiring the desire to fight against the enemy for his/her people, Aristotle could argue that this soldier is a "brute", one whose courage is influenced only by pain and by spirit. These individuals would not be called courageous because they are acting out of appetite. What I think Aristotle is trying to get at in this chapter is that any rational person would fear death, what makes them courageous is that he or she would still face it for a noble cause.
I completely agree with what you are saying that Aristotle would try and place the man who did not fear death into a category, such as experienced solider. The point I was trying to make was there are people in the world who live irrational lives, and some of them do not fear death. Since they live their lives against the social norms set by society and do are not afraid of what nearly everyone is fearful of, would Aristotle not consider them to have true bravery just because they do not fear death. I think he would consider them to have true bravery as long as they were not acting out of revenge, committing this act in order for personal gain, or acting just because have extreme confidence based on past experiences.
I think the warrior that went into battle unafraid of death would not be considered brave by Aristotle under any circumstances.
It seems the irrationality of not being afraid of death would be considered ignorance to the Greeks during Aristotle's time. Book III's first chapter talks about how this ignorance is important to whether the person in question would be regarded as brave or not. Aristotle writes that "everything caused by ignorance is nonvolantary."
Because the action was nonvoluntary than it was not done for the "right reasons" that constitute something being virtuous as Aristotle mentions earlier in Nicomachean Ethics. While a warrior that doesn't fear death would seem extremely brave to the logical parts of our brain today, he would seem more uninformed than courageous to Aristotle.
I agree the Greeks would consider the irrationality of not being afraid of death as ignorance. I completely forgot Aristotle and the Greeks view on ignorance from Book III. With Aristotle viewing ignorance as an involuntary act, it would seem my argument for a soldier who is fearless of death would be considered brave. Thank you for adding this vital point about ignorance, because now this gives a more definitive answer to my question proposed in my first posting.
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