the virtue of courage - doug walton in pdf/87courage.pdf · virtue. it can arise in any situation...

THE RECOVERY OF VIRTUE

The Virtue of Courage

ntelligent human action is goal-directed,but when pain, fear, or danger intrude, it isdifficult to sustain the mental equilibriumto follow through, even if the goal is veryimportant and the action critical. Hence,the need for courage. As Aquinas put it, thevirtue of courage is "to remove any obstaclethat withdraws the will from following thereason."1

Such overcoming of dangers, pain,and obstacles is well illustrated by the fol-lowing incident.

Sgt. John L. Levitow was on a C-47 cargo aircraft flying a night missionover Vietnam in February 1969 when the plane was hit and damaged,wounding all the occupants of the cargo compartment and throwing themagainst the floor or fuselage.2 One crewman had been launching flares,and the explosion threw an ignited flare from his grasp into the cargocompartment. The plane was out of control, and the flare rolled wildlyfrom side to side. Levitow had moved forward to help another badlywounded man, even though he himself was stunned by the blast and hadover forty fragment wounds in his back and legs. Seeing the smoking flare

1. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, (London: Burns and Oates Ltd.,1922), II.-II., Q123, A.3.2. The Congressional Medal of Honor: The Names, The Deeds (Forest Ranch, California: Sharp & Dunnigan,1984); 100 .

Douglas N. Walton, professor of philosophy at the University of Winnipeg, Canada, currently holds a KillamResearch Fellowship and is a fellow of the Netherlands Institute of Advanced Study in the Humanities andSocial Sciences. Professor Walton is the author of many articles on topics in logic and ethics and severalbooks, including Courage: A Philosophical Investigation (University of California Press, 1986).

For kindly sending reports on citations for acts of courage, the author is grateful to the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission and the HonoursSecretariat of the Office of the Governor General of Canada. Thanks to Brian Finlayson for criticisms and corrections.

Douglas N. Walton

DECEMBER 1987 595

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CURRENTS IN MODERN THOUGHTTHE RECOVERY OF VIRTUE

rolling in the aisle, but being unableto grasp it, he threw himself on it.Hugging it to his body, he managed todrag himself to the rear cargo door andhurl it out of the plane. For saving theaircraft and its crew from certain de-struction, Levitow was awarded theCongressional Medal of Honor.3

It was necessary to remove the ignit-ed flare from the aircraft if the crewwere to survive. But to actually carryout this action was very difficult anddangerous. The situation was not onlyunstable and disorienting but high-ly intimidating. The flare was roll-ing around wildly. Levitow was badlywounded and stunned by the explosionof the shell that hit the plane. Becauseof the plane's instability, the only wayhe could control the burning flare wasto hug it to his body.

All these factors suggest both thedifficulty and hazards of the requiredactions as well as the unstable andconfusing nature of the situation. Tocarry out this task required an unusu-al determination of will, presence ofmind, and undeterred practical equilib-rium.

Although there may have been pro-fessional skills or training that helpedLevitow perform this exceptional se-quence of actions, qualities of determi-nation and presence of mind may notbe due to any trained expertise inparticular. And many cases of coura-geous actions that occur in a militarycontext reflect not so much militarytraining or professional skills as thesimple and plain personal qualities ofsomeone who steps forward and doeswhat needs to be done, despite thedanger and difficulty of the situation.So courage is not inherently a militaryvirtue. It can arise in any situationwhere there is sudden danger, catas-trophe, or potential loss of life.

3. Congressional Medal, 100.

The kind of judgment involved inany act of courage is the ability to sizeup a situation and take the necessarysteps to carry out a valuable goaldespite the obstacles posed by a dan-gerous or unstable situation.

MORAL RULES AND VIRTUESOne reason for the systematic ne-

glect of the virtues in modern ethicsstems from the presumption that eth-ics is a purely abstract, analyticalstudy of rules, like truth-telling anddoing no harm, that compromises asystematic set of principles. However,as is often acknowledged, without fullyrealizing the significance of the admis-

sion, some of the most important moralproblems arise when conflicts occur.Notoriously, for example, telling thetruth in a particular situation mayresult in harming someone. DavidRoss's way of trying to cope with theproblem was to make a distinctionbetween prima facie (general) dutiesand duties concerning what to do in aspecific

situation.4 In fact, the impor-tant ethical decisions almost alwaysare problems about what to do in aparticular situation where many gener-

DECEMBER 1987 597

Less maturepeople, of allages, dependheavily on

heroes, "rolemodels," to showthem the way.

CURRENTS IN MODERN THOUGHT

al principles could be applicable, butthey tend to conflict with each other inrelation to the situation. Such decisionsare almost always made with highlyimperfect knowledge of the possiblefuture consequences and side effects ofeither one's actions or omissions.

irtues are the diff-erent kinds of of

practical wisdomthat enable a per-son to carry out eth-ical goals, convic-tions, principles,and values in an im-perfect world inwhich the right

thing to do is too often obscure andhard to carry out with judgment andwisdom.5 Such decisions of means andends require experience and maturity.They demand insight and shrewdness.Because the most momentous choicesmay allow little time for reflection,habit is often important. Less maturepeople, of all ages, depend heavily onheroes "role models," or other forms ofguidance from their peers or opinionleaders, to show them the way. Butthey do so at great risk, for even cleverand sophisticated people are often bad-ly misguided and seriously wrong intheir ethical thinking. In fact, everydaydecisions on matters having ethicalimport are so heavily premised on allkinds of popular preconceptions andbiases that even to sort out the realethical reasoning behind an action ordecision in retrospect can be excruciat-ingly difficult, full of uncertainties andproblems.

Ethical maturity may be heightenedby the realization that there are usual

4. Sir David Rose, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Claren-don Press, 1946).

5. See Alasdair McIntyre, After Virtue (London: Duck-worth, 1981).

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ly two sides to an issue, with the resultthat ethical convictions are inherentlyfallible and open to revision and enrich-ment. The problem is to balance thisrespect for opposing points of viewwith the strength of conviction re-quired to take a stand. Not every pointof view is equallymature or defensible,and one cannot avoid commitment tosome point of view if one is to be amature and responsible human being.The very difficulty of knowing whenone is right is itself the best argumentfor allowing individual autonomy andfreedom of individual moral and reli-gious persuasion in a democratic socie-ty as a basis for ethical decision mak-ing.

But where does all this leave us? Itleaves us with the Socratic wisdomthat knowing and doing the virtuousthing is a lot more difficult than apply-ing some indisputable set of ethicalprinciples and then simply picking outthe single action that fits these princi-ples.

Instead, we need to recognize thattrying to do the right thing or the bestone can hope for in a particular situa-tion may demand not only an orderingof priority in one's goals but also ashrewd and perceptive grasp of whatthe situation really is, and where itmay go from here.

Understanding an action as coura-geous involves a teleological frame-work of narrative discourse-a kind ofstory that exhibits a sequence of ac-tions carried out in a particular situa-tion to aim at a goal beyond thatsituation. Our understanding of suchan extended sequence of steps of actionrepresents our comprehension of thecourageous person's commitments inrelation to his own understanding ofthe situation as he saw it. Thus we, asexternal evaluators of the action, baseour understanding of the action on areconstruction of the courageous per-

son's understanding of the situation.This kind of second-person reconstruc-tion is possible because of a sharednarrative context.

For example, suppose we are relat-ing a story about someone who divedinto a dangerous current and, nearlyexhausted, managed to pull out anoth-er person who was unconscious. Thepresumption we reasonably make isthat the first person dived into thewater and swam towards the otherperson in order to save him fromdrowning. These presumptions couldturn out to be wrong in a particularcase. But in the absence of evidence tothe contrary, they may be reasonablepresumptions on the basis of what isknown. By making such presumptionsand stitching them together with theknown facts in the narrative of aparticular case, we reconstruct an un-derstanding of the action, including thegoals and commitments of the agentas they are revealed through the dis-course and descriptions given.

Moral rules that define duties havethe characteristic of being universaliz-able, meaning that they provide guide-lines for what is required, allowed, orfairly expected of any person in aparticular situation. But the ethics ofideals by which we judge actions to becourageous is marked by its very lackof universalizability. An act of courageexpresses a personal depth of commit-ment to dearly held, and sometimesdearly paid for, personal ideals andgoals. The supererogatory quality ofsuch acts of personal commitmentmeans that they are beyond duty, morelike a gift than a required sacrifice orduty.

When a coworker fell to the bottomof a reactor filled with nitrogen gas onJanuary 31, 1981, Stephen Pomeroyentered the reactor and unsuccessfullytried to drag his friend to safety.6Efforts to revive both men were in

vain. What Pomeroy did in venturinginto danger to help his coworker wasan act that went beyond duty. It wasnot an act that he could reasonably berequired to undertake, given the cleardanger. The virtue of it, despite thetragic outcome, is reflected in thisman's personal commitment to try tohelp, even in this desperate situation.Personal ideals have to be based onone's own life-plan and moral reason-ing, one's own estimate of what ispossible and worthwhile. Because ofthe severe risk involved in an act ofcourage, undertaking this type of actcannot generally be regarded as a dutyor obligation that it's universalizable. It

is up to each of us, individually, in hisown heart.

Acts of courage may involve moralrules of conduct, but because they areso often risky or difficult beyond rea-sonable requirements of duty and arebased on personal commitment, moralrules applying to them are not decisive,controlling, or mechanistically applied.Rather, judgment, skill, and experienceare required, because of the instrumen -

6. Canada, Governor General's Office. Investiture BraveryDecorations, (

Ottawa) 8 September 1983, 1.

DECEMBER 1987 599

An act ofcourage shows

merit beyond therequirements ofexpected dutiesand norms of

conduct.


tal nature of acting virtuously in aparticular

situation. An act of courage

shows merit beyond the requirementsof expected duties and norms of con-duct, because of the strong personalcommitment to highly valued goalsshown by the act.7 But merit is

also

shown in the judgment required to actin a situation of risk and danger thatinvolves balancing competing goals ina particular situation. Obviously oneimportant goal, personal safety, is of-ten at sharp risk of compromise in thecarrying out of many a courageous act.Lack of judgment could mean that theact was reckless or even foolish ratherthan truly courageous.

ince acts of courageare based on per-sonal commit-ments, intentions,and judgmentsrather than onstrictly appliedmoral rules, criticsmay be inclined tosay that such ac

tions are subjective and are not there-fore truly ethical or moral matters. Itmight be alleged then that courage isbased on irrational

fanaticism or on an

elitism that implies that some of us arebetter than others (not strictly equal toall other moral agents).

This criticism has some basis, be-cause acts of courage are based onpersonal commitment; they do showpersonal merit. However; the conclu-sion that acts of courage are purelysubjective

and are therefore of no mor-

al value is erroneous.

COMMITMENT BEYOND DUTY

An action is properly judged cour-

ageous for essentially two reasons:

7. See David Heyd, Supererogation (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1982).

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First, the act must be directed towarda good end, and second, the act must bein the face of great difficulty or danger.These two aspects of any courageousact have to do with the end and meansrespectively.

The second requirement implies thatfor an act to be courageous, the meansof carrying out the act must be in-volved with peril, hardship, or risk. Itis because of this element of danger orrisk that an act of courage revealsthe agent's strength of commitmentto goals that he highly values. The testof commitment lies in the action takendespite the risk.

Deborah MacLean was taken hos-tage in a department store holdup inSummerside, Prince Edward Island, onJanuary 25, 1978. Her assailant held aloaded shotgun to her head as shesat in a chair. When three policemencharged, Maclean grabbed the barrelof the shotgun, deflecting the weaponaway from one of the policemen so thatthe assailant was overpowered withoutbeing able to fire.8 We clearly recognizethis as an act of courage because of therisk of grabbing the barrel of a loadedshotgun from the hands of the assai-lant and because of the intent to pre-vent the death of the police officer bytaking

this action.

But why is an action better if carriedout in a situation of danger or risk? Iftwo actions, A and B, are equally goodor worthwhile to bring about, then whyshould A be judged as more worthy orexcellent simply because it was moredifficult or dangerous to bring aboutthan B? For the utilitarian or theKantian, such a judgment would seemto have no rational basis. For theutilitarian, it is only the good conse-quences or outcome that matters. If Aand B have equally good outcomes,then the fact that A was more danger-

8. Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, Report (Pittsburgh,1979), 19.

ous or difficult to bring about is ethical-ly immaterial. Or if anything, it is anegative factor in the balance. For theKantian, all that matters is conformityto duty. If A and B are equally requiredas moral duties, then the ease or dif-ficulty of their having been broughtabout reflects no additional credit onthe moral agent.

But courage is a supererogatoryquality of

actions, meaning that a cour-

ageous act is one that is freely under-taken beyond the requirements of duty.Such an act is correctly judged coura-geous if it required a perseverence orrisk beyond what would be reasonablyexpected or required in normal condi-tions. It is this willingness to incuradditional risk or danger that revealsthe special, supererogatory commit-ment of the inner person through thecourageous act. It is an extra com-mitment, revealing a person who hassomething more to give than the rest ofus should reasonably expect on a "fairshare" basis.

Acts of courage are taken in the faceof danger and therefore can turn out ina way contrary to utilitarian calcula-tion of goods and benefits. When thisoccurs, however, the act is no lesscourageous.

Kevin Walsh was among the firstpolice officers to answer a call that awoman had jumped off a bridge intothe Anacostia River. He and anotherofficer jumped in. The strong cur-rent overwhelmed them and Walshdrowned. Friends afterward comment-ed bitterly that he had given his life toattempt to save a former mentalpatient intent on suicide who diedanyway.9 Walsh's wife Judith, motherof his three children, said he wouldhave disagreed: "He had the passion ofa missionary and he really wanted tobe able to help people whether it was

9. "A Celebration of Heroes," Newsweek, 6 July 1987, 62f.

something minor or more important."10

In this case the consequences turnedout badly for everyone, but that did notdetract from the courageousness of theact, which was revealed in the virtuousintentions and strength of commitmentof this police officer.

It is important to recognize thatdifficult and dangerous actions can bemore meritorious because we live in aworld where disasters, uncertainties,and obstacles can frustrate the bestintentions. Therefore, it may take ef-fort, ingenuity, even risk or sacrifice tocarry out good intentions. Any humanaction starts from a premise of uncer-tain knowledge. Nature can be highly

capricious, sometimes unexpectedly un-cooperative, and even vicious. The ov-ercoming of real difficulties, therefore,is often necessary to bring about some-thing good. Consequently, action re-quired to achieve a good end is itselfinstrumentally

good (virtuous).

However, there has been a strongbias in recent ethical thinking towardsthe presumption that it is only the endor goal that can be good in itself and

10. "A Celebration," 63.

DECEMBER 1987 601

Lack of judgmentcould mean that

the act wasreckless or even

foolish ratherthan truly

courageous.


that merely instrumental goals are ofno serious importance in morality. Butthis is a kind of fallacy or shallowthinking.

For example, an argument thatseems to be presumed in much recentthinking begins with the propositionthat peace is good; therefore if every-one agrees that peace is good, then thatis the end of any moral discussion ofpeace and war.

hat this presump-tion of the issue ov-erlooks is that themeans of maintain-ing peace in an un-stable and danger-ous world may it-self not only involveeffort and risk butalso difficult nego-

tiation and shrewd judgment. Carryingout an end that all agree is good mayitself be replete with side effects, judg-ments that conflict with other goalsor about alternative means and judg-ments of what is possible in an uncer-tain situation. These "secondary" judg-ments are very often not at all morallyneutral or insignificant. They are re-plete with assumptions that require theweighing of strengths of potentiallyconflicting commitments. Even in anuncertain and dangerous world, how-ever, the committed and moral personmust take up some line of action oromission. That such actions are basedon convictions that may, in hindsight,be subject to error, should not force themoral person into a stance of quietismor "Do nothing at all-never takerisks."

Hence, the real moral problem ishow to have peace in an unstable anddangerous world alongside other im-portant goals like freedom and dignity.This is a problem of means as well as

60 2 THE WORLD & I


ends; it should not therefore be dis-missed as morally trivial.

JUDGMENT AND PRACTICALWISDOM

Even though courage is manifestedin outward action, it is essentially aninner virtue, meaning that a coura-geous action can only be understood ascourageous through an understandingof the agent's intentions and of theagent's personal knowledge of the situ-ation. To understand an act as coura-geous, we have to make reasonedpresumptions about the goals of theperson who carried out the act andabout how the person perceived the lineof action as a means to the realizationof these goals. Thus courage is stronglytied to the inner biography of a person'sintentions, ideals, and personal percep-tion of a situation.

This means that there is a specialkind of thinking, or reasoning, involvedboth in carrying out a courageous ac-tion and in evaluating the action, afterthe fact, as courageous. This kind ofthinking is goal oriented and knowl-edge based. To say that an action wasgoal oriented is to say that there was aline of action from an initial, knownsituation toward some final state, theprojected outcome of the action. To saythat an action was knowledge based isto say that the agent began with someset of facts and principles that comprised the particular situation of theaction, as he saw the situation at thetime. The action is the sequence ofsteps that the agent took to link up theinitial situation, as he saw it, to thegoal. A courageous action is one wherethe action was appropriate to theagent's carrying out his highly com-mendable and worthwhile goal, despitehis realization of the dangerous, pain-ful, or difficult

nature of the action.11

After his boat had capsized, LloydPatterson was thrown into cold water

near Fort Bragg, California, on March11, 1978, and erratic currents beganmoving him out to rough waters.James Ponts, a teacher aged thirty-seven, launched a dinghy and startedrowing some nine hundred feet to Pat-terson, passing through several break-er lines. According to the account givenby the Carnegie Hero Fund Commis-sion, "After a number of tries, duringeach of which the dinghy was blown offcourse by strong winds.13

Ponts succeed-ed in throwing a rope to Patterson.With difficulty Ponts then rowed backto shore, towing Patterson by means ofa rope."12 The description of the se-quence of actions reveals the ingenuity,presence of mind, and persistence ofPonts in a very dangerous and unstablesituation.

We are told that Ponts made "anumber of tries," and encountered dif-ficulties. The dinghy was blown offcourse by the strong winds.13 This in-formation enables us to understandPonts' goal in this situation, and be-cause we can understand what he wastrying to do, we can appreciate both thedanger of the situation and the worthof his goal. By tying this understandingtogether with the sequence of actions ina narrative discourse, a coherent recon-struction of a courageous action can befilled in. We see the goal, we see thedangerous situation, and we see theoutline of the sequence of steps Pontscarried out in his determined attemptsto realize that goal. We can also appre-ciate his strong commitment to helpingsomeone in trouble, and we are movedby a description of the acts that re-vealed his commitment. Here then areall the ingredients of a courageous act,tied together in a narrative discourse

11. Douglas N. Walton, Courage: A Philosophical Investiga -tion, ( Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1986).

12. Carnegie Hero Fund Commission, Report (Pittsburgh,1979), 210.

13. Report, 1979, 210 .

that characterizes this type of act.The kind of judgment involved in

practical wisdom is not necessarily pro-fessional skill or trained expertise, al-though these may be involved.. It is thekind of judgment that calls fr a rea-soned assessment of risk and doing thebest one can in a dangerous situation,even an unfamiliar one. But each par-ticular situation is unique, and dangeris notoriously hard to judge. Luck andhappenstance may be involved. How-ever things turn out, a courageous actis one where the person who acted tooka severe risk where there was a reason-able chance of successfully carryingout the highly worthwhile outcome.

The conclusionthat acts ofcourage are

purely subjectiveand are therefore

of no moralvalue is

erroneous.

Many lives are lost every year inhighway accidents where the victim ispinned inside a vehicle and dies in thefire when the vehicle burns. Despite theclear and terrible danger posed by thepossibility of an exploding fuel tank,some truly inspiring rescue attemptshave been made by individuals whohappened to be at the scene of anaccident.

The following incident is recorded bythe Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.In this situation, Moses G. Adams was

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CURRENTS IN MODERN THOUGHTTHE RECOVERY OF VIRTUE

AMERICAN ETCHINGS 0F THE 19TH CENTURY, EDITED BY FRANCINE TYLER, NEW YORK, 1984

The Life Line, byWinslow Homer

604 THE WORLD & I

left unconscious in his pickup truckfollowing a collision with a train. At thescene also was Lewis Herbert Chase.

Adams, 36, was unconscious in hispickup truck, pinned to his seatamidst flames. Chase, 50, railroadconductor, ran to the track andthree times entered it in unsuccess-ful attempts to free Adams. De-spite increasing flames and intenseheat, Chase entered the truckagain, freed Adams, and pulled himfrom it. Adams was hospitalizedfor his burns; Chase sustained mi-nor burns. Both men recovered.14

In this case, fortunately, both menrecovered. In other cases, one orboth-- the victim or would-be rescuer--died.

In any dangerous situation, it maybe hard for anyone to try to calculateor quantify the degree of risk. Becausepersonal abilities in different situationsalso vary widely, it may not be so easyto judge whether a risk was reasonableor foolish for someone else to take in aparticular case. In the instance above,the fact that Chase entered the burningtruck three times in unsuccessful at-tempts to rescue Adams suggests thatChase was fully aware of the danger.He was trying very hard to do the besthe could in a situation that was ex-tremely dangerous. It was highly prob-lematic whether either of the menwould survive.

Sometimes an act is all the morecourageous because the situation was atricky or unfamiliar one for the res-cuer. Such conditions not only makethe job more dangerous but they de-mand presence of mind in an intimidat-ing situation that is not familiar andtherefore all the more problematic.

Socrates in the Laches (192c) asked

14. Carnegie Hero Fund Commission Annual Report (Pitts-burgh,1982), no. 8592.

the question: Who is the more coura-geous, the skillful diver who performsa rescue or the person who performsthe same act but has no skill in diving?Like most Socratic questions, the an-swer is by no means straightforward.In many cases, the one who has no skillseems the more courageous, for thelack of skill adds to the danger anddifficulty of the rescue. But each situa-tion is unique. In some cases, the un-skilled diver could succeed due to blindluck when he took a foolish risk, or wasnot aware of the real danger. Or inother cases, because of risks beyondanyone's control, the skilled diver couldbe taking as much of a risk to effect a

rescue as anyone who would have at-tempted to do so.

John Patrick Sullivan, a 53-year-old-fire fighter, was on his way home fromvisiting friends in Westchester Countyon April 21, 1986, when he spotted anoverturned truck.15

The truck had col-lided with a car. Sullivan saw flamesspreading from the engine to the cab ofthe truck. As flames spurted aroundthe truck, he leaped onto its side and

15. Sheldon Kelly, "Highway Inferno!" Reader's Dig-est (April, 1987), 76-80 .

DECEMBER 1987 605

Acts of couragecan turn out in away contrary to

utilitariancalculation of

goods andbenefits.


pulled two young boys, then a woman,and a man out of the truck. Secondsafter he managed to get the last personout, the truck was engulfed in flames.Sullivan then went to the crushed carand managed to force the jammed dooropen, pulling out the badly injuredcrash victim just before the truck ex-ploded, showering the whole area. withburning debris.

ater, receiving acommendation forhis action, Sullivanmodestly insistedthat his instinctsled him to the fireand that his yearsof training gov-erned his actions.But a woman who

had witnessed the incident had elo-quently testified to his courage whenshe said to him at the scene of theaccident with tears in her eyes: "You'rethe bravest man I've ever seen. Godbless you."16 It was more than profes-sional skill that was being honored inthese words. It was a tribute to thecommitment of a man who was notonly able but also willing to take meas-ured but very real and significant per-sonal risk for a goal he felt was worthit. His actions expressed not only hisskill and practical judgment but alsothe strength of his personal commit-ment to aiding the victims of the acci-dent.

FACING A DIFFICULTSITUATION

Acts of moral courage are based onconvictions, on a person's assessmentand knowledge of a particular situationthat may be controversial and subjectto differing interpretations. This is typ-

16. Key, 79.

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ical of personal goal-directed reasoningbased on knowledge of a particularsituation, often containing many pre-sumptions concerning patterns of ac-tion that are typical, expected, andconventional at any particular junctureof tradition and narrative discourse.

As the movement to impeach Pres-ident Andrew Johnson progressedthrough 1847, it became increasinglyapparent to Sen. Edmund G. Rossthat the case was unfairly prejudicedagainst the president and that evidencein favor of the president had beenarbitrarily excluded.17

In the end, how-ever, a groundswell of popular pressurerose against Johnson, and the Republi-cans needed one more vote that onlyRoss could provide to unseat the presi-dent. Ross was a staunch Republicanwho personally disliked Johnson; more-over, he recognized that he had a lot tolose by not giving in to this tremendouspopular pressure to vote with his party.Nevertheless, he felt that the case forimpeachment was based on insufficientevidence and that to bow to partisanpressures would risk malting Congressinto an instrument of narrowly parti-san autocracy. When he voted againstimpeachment, however, public opinionrejected him as a "traitor." Accordingto the account given by J.F. Kennedy,"When he returned to Kansas in 1871,he and his family suffered social os-tracism, physical attack, and nearpoverty."18 It was only much later thatRoss came to be praised as a coura-geous man who took a lonely standagainst

mob rule knowing that it would

mean his political deathMoral courage involves the determi-

nation to stick to valued convictionseven in the face of tremendous moraland psychological pressures, even if thesituation might not be immediately

17. John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage (New York: Har-per & Row, 1956).

18. Kennedy, 121.

dangerous in a physical way. In othercases, where injury or risk of personaldestruction is directly evident, we of-ten speak of courage in more physicalterms like "guts" or "grit." Yet the twokinds of courage are often inseparablycombined.

We often think of courage in war-time as the kind of physical couragerequired to cope with imminent dan-ger. But there is also a strong elementof moral conviction involved. Take thecase of an SS soldier on the easternfront in the Second World War whoheld a position by staying to his gun tothe end despite overwhelming odds.Though this soldier and his comradesmay have truly thought his actioncourageous, we are inclined to withholdthe term "courageous" because his ac-tion supported a regime and philosophythat we condemn as evil.

In acting in a way one thinks to becourageous, therefore, there can bemoral as well as physical risks. For allactions in risky and unstable situationsare based on goals and convictions thatmay turn out to be mistaken, wrong, ormisevaluated in a particular situation.Following the popular opinion of thetime in setting one's goals and convic-tions can sometimes be as dangerous asdissent. Judgment can be problematic.

Courage is not a very pleasant orenviable virtue in some respects, be-cause it requires being in a difficult ordangerous situation to be exercised. Inthe following case, a U.S. Air Forcefighter pilot found himself alone, facinga large formation of enemy fighters, ina situation where his duty would havebeen to attack the enemy if possible.

Lt. Col. James H. Howard was theleader of a group of P-51 Mustangfighters supporting a bombing run overOschersleben, Germany, in January,1944, when his force was attacked byGerman fighters, causing him to losecontact with his group." Returning to

the bomber formation, he found thatthe bombers were being attacked bymore than thirty German aircraft andthat he was the only plane in sight onhis own side. Howard chose to attackthe German formation alone. He con-tinued to attack the enemy fightersfor over thirty minutes, destroyingthree of them, and probably destroy-ing and damaging others during theengagement.20

In this case, it would seem correctenough to describe the situation bysaying that Howard did fulfill therequirements of duty in a difficult andextremely dangerous and intimidat-ing situation. However, the skillful

and determined manner in which hecarried out his hazardous task dem-onstrated a performance beyond evenwhat might normally be expected inthe situation. At any rate, whetherthe action is best judged as meetingthe requirements of duty in a badsituation or as an act beyond duty, itwas courageous and must have beenvery moving to any of the bomberpilots who witnessed it. Howard was

19. Congressional Medal, 346.20. Congressional Medal, 346.

DECEMBER 1987 607

Moral courageinvolves the

determination tostick to valued

convictions evenin the face oftremendouspressures.


awarded the Congressional Medal ofHonor for his actions on this day.

ecause courage isan outcome of dan-ger and risk, thewish to be coura-geous or the un-critical emulationof heroic "role mod-els" can be foolish.It is better thatone be able to

work for and realize worthwhilegoals without the dangers of floods,fires, wars, and other catastrophesand disasters. Courage is a kind ofgood that arises out of somethingbad, and it would be preferable not tohave these bad things to deal with atall. That is not the human situation,however. Unfortunately, the adventof modern technology has not madecourage obsolete, but has made cour-age and judgment more necessarythan ever.

COURAGE AND ALTRUISMCourageous acts are often for the

purpose of saving life, and altruism istypically part of any courageous act.Altruistic intent is not, however, es-sential to courageous action. For ex-ample, a scientist may make a greatsacrifice and effort to contribute toknowledge even though he has physi-cal disabilities; yet his goal does notnecessarily have to include helpingothers per se for his actions to qualifyas courageous.

On the other hand, the SS sol-dier mentioned in the previous sec-tion may have had the intention ofhelping others, yet we withhold theterm "courageous" to describe his de-termined fight against his opponentsin combat.

Courage is different from self-

608 THE WORLD & I


sacrifice for various reasons. One rea-son is that self-sacrifice can be fool-ish, but a truly courageous action cannever be foolish, even though there isa fine line, in some cases, betweenthe courageous action and the foolishrisk. Courage involves practical wis-dom, an estimate of what is possibleand worth risking in order to carryout a worthwhile goal in a difficult,dangerous, or risky situation.

Curiously enough, a courageous ac-tion can be based on an error orincorrect knowledge, provided thatthere was a justifiable reason for theerror at the time.

When Lt. Col. Leon R. Vance wasleading a bomb attack over Wim-ereaux, France, in June, 1944, hisplane was hit by fire that killed thepilot.21 Vance's right foot was hit andalmost severed. Applying a tourni-quet to his leg, he led the formationover the bombing ran, even thoughonly one of the four engines of theplane still functioned. On the returnto England, realizing the plane wouldnot make it, he ordered the crew tobail out. Believing that one of themcould not jump, Vance decided toditch the plane in the water in orderto give this man a chance to sur-vive. Because Vance's foot had be-come lodged behind the copilot's seat,even though it was still attached byonly a few tendons, he had to landwhile operating the controls lying onthe floor and looking out the sidewindow. After landing, the sinkingplane exploded and blew Vance clear.He was rescued and survived. Itturned out that he was the only crewmember left in the plane. All theothers had been able to bail out.

Vance was awarded the Congres-sional Medal of Honor for his decisionto "ditch the aircraft in order to give


the crew member he believed to be onboard a chance for life."22 Not only thisgallant decision but Vance's entireconduct in skillfully carrying it outdespite excruciating pain and danger-ous conditions was an inspiring act ofcourage.

Curiously, although we rightlythink this sequence of actions is anexample of the highest courage, it wasbased on a premise that turned out tobe false: Vance's belief that a crewmember was still aboard was false.But it was a belief that was based onreasonable, even if inconclusive, evi-dence at the time when Vance had tomake his decision. Therefore, it wasnot a foolish or incorrect presumptionin light of Vance's knowledge of thesituation, incomplete though it was. Indangerous situations, often part of thedanger is incomplete knowledge. Thereasonable person is not required to beomniscient, but only to act on a sensi-ble estimate of the situation in light ofthe knowledge available at the time.

Evaluating an action as courageousinvolves judgment and reasoning be-cause it requires a reconstruction ofthe agent's intentions and commit-ments as he saw the situation at thetime. Evaluation and commemorationof acts of courage by an individual orgroup also reflect their values andjudgment.

In most instances a courageous actdoes involve altruism, a risk or loss tooneself in order to help someone else.In a secular and commercialistic socie-ty, currently obsessed with individualrights and personal comfort, it is wide-ly questioned whether nonindividualis-tic actions of this sort still have anymeaning, value, or satisfaction formost people.

What is overlooked here is thatwith maturity comes the realization


that a personal sense of fulfillment issynonomous with a feeling of havingcontributed something worthwhilethat will count or carry on after onedies. Though for many it may nolonger mean a favorable accounting ina personal ledger on judgment day, anact of courage still clearly marks ameasure of one's contribution in life,an important one. A courageous act isa gift, given at great risk or cost to thedonor; it therefore demonstrates thegiver's commitment to something oth-er than himself, to something largerthan himself.

An important career or fame maybe the current way to seek this kind of

satisfaction, but ultimately unless itcan be justified as a real and genuine-ly worth-while contribution to otherssuch a quest is illusory and unsatisfy-ing. On the other hand, a real act ofcourage is always deeply worthwhile;it enhances the human dignity of thecourageous person and those whostand with him; it confirms an innerwillingness and resolve to make acontribution despite risk, sacrifice,and effort. In the end, these are allthat count for much.

DECEMBER 1987 609

Following thepopular opinionof the time cansometimes be as

dangerous asdissent.

judgment can beproblematic

the virtue of courage - doug walton in pdf/87courage.pdf · virtue. it can arise in any situation...

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