Essays

Both men and woman have intentions and act, so both are capable of virtue. Virtue ethics as a theory of morality has existed, most notably, since Aristotle. Courage is one such virtue and to display this, persons need to experience fear and perceive danger. The circumstances surrounding an act of courage need to be proportionate to perceived risk to avoid the activity becoming an enterprise of foolishness. Also the potential costs associated with the risk must be proportionate to the ends concerning the bravery. These elements associated with courage are undoubtedly equally available to both sexes and in the  sense of equality feminism woman can and have been courageous. However, in light of difference feminism, another facet may need to be added to the modem meaning of courage, as an acknowledgement that virtues are characterised with respect to attitudes held within the context of definition.

A virtue is a prescription of how someone should be. It is a component of character. Aristotle described virtue as being a mean, or average of attitude which could be uncovered via reasoning and displayed through personality and behaviour styles. Courage is said to be an executive virtue.

The virtue of courage contains at least two components. First there must be an internal factor of fear or even phobia. Psychology tells us that fear is an awareness of physiological changes in response to some stimulus or other. These changes include increased respiration, heart-beat, blood-pressure, and higher production of epinephrine (adrenaline). Other changes such as pupil dilation, increased sweating and decreased production of saliva are often present too. This process occurs in a part of the autonomic, non-voluntary, nervous system called the sympathetic division. All healthy humans, male or female have sympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous system and are thus prone to the physiological, and thus the psychological, experience of fear.

Second, there must be an external factor of perceived danger m a circumstance for a courageous deed to be possible. The degree of such will depend on how the individual relates the present circumstance with experiences of past events and situations. For example, if l see a torrentially flooded river an attempt to cross it would be perceived as dangerous because I have seen many such situations on television where lives have been put at risk. This cognitive component is important in danger because I may enter a dangerous situation without realising it and thus act without courage. It could be imagined that an individual has no idea that, to get a culled animal for feeding their family, they may have to walk across a minefield. If the minefield is unknown to the individual then no fear will be experienced because no danger is attached to collecting the prey on the other side ofthe field. So in this case no act of bravery has been committed. Alternatively, it appears, courage can be displayed without any real danger existing.

 Phobias have the component of fear without physical danger. A phobia may be defined as an irrational fear, associated with a stimulus containing no objective hazard. To confront a phobia takes similar courage needed in non-phobic situations because the associated behaviours necessary to conquer the phobia are manifested despite fear or anxiety.

 Phobias may be placed in the objective realm of rightly ordered fears because for the phobic actor, no matter how illogical the response is to the stimulus, all elements of fear and danger still exist. The proportion of fear to actual risk to an unempathetic observer may be unbalanced. But because fear is a subjective emotion, it seems illogical to try and objectively quantify, or comparatively ordinate it with dangers that are also subjectively assessed by the phobic. All of this infers that courage is more attached to overcoming fear rather than danger. Indeed, the dangerousness of a situation is often out of the actor's control. However, fear is not always a controllable phenomenon either, and this is perhaps why when people act against perceived danger, in spite of fear, they are considered courageous. Again it appears that most healthy, rational humans, woman and men alike, are capable of recognizing dangerous situations with the relevant knowledge. Both men and woman also confront phobias, and so in these respects courage does not appear to be a gender specific virtue.

There must also be appropriate self-confidence and a relatively accurate assessment of the risk involved in any action for it to be courageous, rather than foolish. To skydive without training would be risky. A person, who partook in such an activity without worrying about the likely consequences, would be quite foolish. However, the same act carried out by someone who is properly trained can be seen as moderately courageous, at least for the first few times. Once more skill and experience is gained the less fear is likely to be experienced. Indeed, the physiological components once associated with fear may be associated with an experience of exhilaration.

Sensibility is also a factor m courage. It would also be foolish to do something like risk one's life for the sake of something like a TV, because the risk involved, when compared with the outcome, is just not worth it. But, to risk life or injury for the sake of another human being would not be foolish.