On Courage

KURT: Oh, there you are, Socrates! I’ve been looking all over for you! I was hoping to talk to you today about something.
SOCRATES: What a coincidence! Laches and I were just going to go find you, because we wanted to get your thoughts about courage.
KURT: A coincidence indeed! That’s the very thing I was going to ask you about.
SOCRATES: But then it sounds like we are all at a loss about courage, for if you were going to ask us about it, then that must mean that you don’t think you know what it is, either.
KURT: I’m afraid that’s the case, Socrates. I’ve thought for quite some time that I myself was courageous, but now that doesn’t seem to be so.
LACHES: Why, what has happened to make you doubt yourself, Kurt?
KURT: I’d rather not go into the whole story right now, Laches. But were you two together really unable to come to a conclusion about courage?
SOCRATES: Yes, that’s really what happened. You would think that courage, being courage, would stand right out in the open and face us, but instead it’s been hiding from us like a coward.
KURT: Then perhaps I can help you make it stand its ground so that we can all find out what kind of thing it is.
SOCRATES: That sounds like a great idea, Kurt. What do you think, Laches? Shall we give it another try?
LACHES: Definitely.
SOCRATES: So then, where should we start, Kurt? Could you perhaps tell us what you used to think courage was, and then explain to us why you now think that’s wrong? That seems to me like as good a place to start as any.
KURT: Let’s do that. I used to think that courage is not being afraid of anything, but running straight in and approaching danger with confidence.
LACHES: And you no longer think this is courage, Kurt? Why not? It seems quite appropriate.
KURT: Well, I still think that perhaps this is part of what courage is, but it now seems insufficient to me. For example, I’ve often heard it said that courage is a part of virtue, and that virtue is doing good things.
SOCRATES: Yes, I’ve heard something quite similar, Kurt, and I won’t quibble about any minor differences in the definition. But how did this turn you away from your first definition of courage?
KURT: Isn’t wisdom also part of virtue? But it seems to me that sometimes running into danger with confidence is not a wise thing to do. In fact, quite recently I put some of my close friends in danger because I wasn’t careful.
SOCRATES: Ah, I think I understand what you mean. I think it’s likely that confidence is a large part of courage, but it isn’t the only part, because courage without wisdom isn’t virtuous. Is that right?
KURT: Yes, that’s exactly what I was thinking. But then I’m left wondering again what courage is. It seems that true courage must be tempered by wisdom, but then how is courage different from wisdom? Or, maybe more exactly, is wisdom superior to courage? But I thought both were supposed to be parts of virtue.
SOCRATES: Those are good questions, Kurt. I don’t have any answers yet, but perhaps if we keep talking we can figure something out. I would certainly think that wisdom and courage are both parts of virtue, along with temperance and justice, but it’s a hypothesis that I’m willing to discard if it seems that we must. However, let’s keep it for now, and see where it takes us. Then, we must assume that wisdom is not superior to courage, but that it only works with courage, right?
KURT: That seems right to me.
SOCRATES: Alright. Now we must see how wisdom works with courage. I think that some people would call wisdom and courage opposites—or don’t you think so?
LACHES: I don’t see how, Socrates. Who would say that?
SOCRATES: Isn’t wisdom sometimes called prudence, as well? Because wisdom looks toward the future, intending to provide for whatever may come.
LACHES: I guess that’s true. What of it?
SOCRATES: But prudence is often seen in a bad light, for that’s where the word “prude” comes from: someone who takes prudence too far. Isn’t that right?
LACHES: I think I see now what you’re saying.
SOCRATES: So in this case, people think wisdom is the opposite of courage, because those who are overly prudent, if we may say so, run away from dangerous situations because they are trying to be as safe as possible, while those who are courageous seem to rush into situations without taking proper forethought. I think this is what Kurt said that he did, and so endangered his friends.
KURT: That’s what happened.
SOCRATES: So we can see that these two things seem to be opposed. But I think we’ll be right in saying that both of these are improper extremes, the one of extreme wisdom turning into cowardice, and the other of extreme courage turning into foolishness. Now, we think that this is not what either wisdom or courage are supposed to be, but that when we find what they are supposed to be, then we can perhaps see how they work together.
KURT: Agreed.
SOCRATES: I think we ought still to say that, though wisdom and courage are not opposites, they are certainly complementary, in that they do different things and sort of make up for each others’ weaknesses. Does that seem so?
LACHES: It does.
SOCRATES: Now, wisdom has to do with the mind and with knowledge, right?
KURT: That seems to be the case.
SOCRATES: Then I think we can say that courage has to do with the body and with actions?
LACHES: Obviously.
SOCRATES: But wait. Doesn’t wisdom, using knowledge, help us to see how we ought to act? So doesn’t wisdom cross over with courage there?
LACHES: What of it?
SOCRATES: It makes me wonder if perhaps courage crosses over in the opposite way, so that it is primarily related to the body and actions, but also applies somehow to the mind and knowledge.
KURT: I think you may be on to something, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Let’s not stop now.
LACHES: Where can we go next? I have no idea how courage crosses over into wisdom.
SOCRATES: I don’t know if this is the right way to go, but I have a thought. Are there ever times when we act on something against our better judgment, in a way, but the outcome is better than if we had followed what seemed to be the wiser course?
KURT: That seems right.
SOCRATES: And don’t we call this sort of thing “acting on instinct”?
LACHES: That’s what I would call it.
SOCRATES: But when we act on instinct, we haven’t taken time to think through the action and make sure that it’s the best course, have we? So when we act on instinct, we aren’t acting wisely.
LACHES: I would say the same thing.
SOCRATES: And yet we see that in this case, as we’re supposing, acting wisely would bring about a worse result than acting on instinct.
KURT: Why does this happen, Socrates? For I thought we agreed that wisdom was a good thing, and even that it was part of virtue. Then how could wisdom be bad?
SOCRATES: Well, perhaps we haven’t got the right idea of wisdom yet, Kurt. All the same, let’s keep going on this line, because I think we may make a discovery here. If not, we can always go back through our discussion and find the place where we went off course, and start again from there.
KURT: Alright, let’s continue, then.
SOCRATES: We’ve said that sometimes the wise action would not be the best one, but I’ve had another thought. Could we instead say that the action we think is the wise one would not be the best? Because we may be wrong about which action is best.
KURT: I like that thought a lot better. Sometimes, then, we may think that an action is wise, but it is only our own failures in wisdom that lead us to think so. But I still can’t say I understand how courage then results in a better action than what we think is wisdom.
LACHES: Perhaps we need to look at what instinct is.
SOCRATES: That’s a good idea, Laches, but I can’t say I know where to start. Kurt, you seem to have some experience of instinct. Do you think you can explain it?
KURT: I’ll try, Socrates, though I don’t know if I can get the words out. I feel like one needs to understand instinct by instinct, as it were, and not by wisdom, but if we can gain any understanding of instinct through discussion, I’ll try to make it happen.
SOCRATES: That’s only fair.
KURT: Instinct, then, seems to be a real understanding of something, and in that sense is a lot like wisdom, but it is perhaps obtained and acted out in a different way than wisdom usually is. In fact, I think that instinct could even be said to be a sort of wisdom.
SOCRATES: I don’t think that can be right, Kurt, at least if we’re right in saying that instinct is part of courage. For then we would no longer have wisdom and courage both as parts of virtue, but courage subservient to wisdom. I thought we wanted to avoid that idea at all costs, unless it turns out unavoidably to be true.
KURT: You’re right, Socrates. I’ll try to be more clear in what I mean. I think perhaps it would be best to go back to the idea that wisdom and courage are counterparts, and that each acts where the other is weak, in tandem, as it were. Wisdom, then, knows some things, and courage knows others, and in different ways; and just where wisdom fails, courage picks up.
SOCRATES: That may be the case, but I still think it’s lacking. Wait: what if we’re thinking of knowledge itself in the wrong way? I’ve had a sort of thought before that knowledge is actually a higher thing than wisdom, in the way that we’re talking about it, and that knowledge is really a part of virtue itself, not like wisdom or courage is a part of virtue, but more fundamentally.
LACHES: Could you explain more, Socrates? I think I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not sure yet.
SOCRATES: Let’s see. I think I would have to say that virtue is more than simply knowledge itself. Perhaps we could say that knowledge is a building block for virtue? That is, knowledge is necessary, but it is not the sum of virtue. Rather, virtue, or “being good,” consists in applying knowledge in the right ways and at the right times. This is the practice of moderation, courage, wisdom, and justice.
KURT: Great, Socrates. I like where your thoughts are going. But can you tie this back in to courage?
SOCRATES: I’m getting there. Have patience! Wisdom, then, is not the having of knowledge, but a certain way of how to apply the knowledge we have. Courage is a different way. And I think that by distinguishing wisdom from knowledge, we are able to put wisdom back on a level with courage, but appropriately this time, and not as if we were forcing wisdom and courage into places where they don’t belong.
KURT: So, we’ve said then that courage has to do with instinct, and that instinct is a sort of having of knowledge which is different from the having of knowledge that is wisdom. But I guess we’ll have to change this a bit. We’ll say that instinct is the applying of knowledge that we already have, but in a different way than wisdom. Except, this doesn’t yet seem quite right, either.
SOCRATES: How so, Kurt?
KURT: Well, I want to know how we acquire the sort of knowledge on which instinct acts. I can understand where the knowledge comes from that wisdom uses, but what about courage? When we talk about beasts acting on instinct, we don’t think that they have knowledge in the same way that we have knowledge, do we? So is theirs the same kind of instinct as ours, or something different? And if it’s the same, then does instinct really act on knowledge, or not?
SOCRATES: What a flood of questions! I don’t know how I can answer them all. I think you’ll have to help me.
KURT: Of course, if I can.
SOCRATES: Let me see. I think the same as you do about beasts, that they don’t have knowledge in the same way that we do, for we can’t see that they think about the good, or about mathematics or music or their own history, or anything like that. Of course, it’s possible that they do, and we just can’t communicate with them on these matters, but all the same, I doubt that they do these things.
KURT: Agreed.
SOCRATES: But I think they do think about their families, or at least that many of them do; for we see that many beasts travel in herds or packs, like wild dogs or lions or even some kinds of birds. And one of the most obvious ways in which men are courageous is in defending those they care about, especially their families. Doesn’t this seem to be so?
KURT: It does. But please go on, Socrates. I want to see what else you have to say about this.
SOCRATES: Isn’t this enough? For if there are some ways in which the knowledge of beasts is like our knowledge, mightn’t that be the sort of knowledge which is applied by instinct?
KURT: It might be, but I want to make sure. I’d also like to see if there are any other kinds of knowledge on which our instinct acts, that might be distinct from what beasts have, since I still think that our instinct, even if similar to that of the beasts, is probably greater than theirs.
SOCRATES: I share the same thoughts, Kurt, so let’s see if we can answer some of these further questions. However, I can’t see how to make more sure that the instinct relating to families is common to both beasts and men.
KURT: First of all, couldn’t we look at what kind of knowledge this actually is? For you haven’t said yet what kind of knowledge has to do with the instinct to protect families.
SOCRATES: Isn’t it obvious? It has to be, first, the knowledge of who our families are. For if we don’t know this, we clearly can’t have an instinct to protect them.
KURT: Of course.
SOCRATES: Next, it must be knowledge of who the enemies of our family are. For if we don’t know that, how can we defend against the right people?
KURT: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then, we must know how to defend against such people. This would include not only who the enemies of our families are, but also the weaknesses of those enemies, as well as our own strengths and how to make use of them in battle.
KURT: This is perfect, Socrates, and I see how all of this knowledge is common to both beasts and men. But I still have two problems.
SOCRATES: What are they?
KURT: First, I would like to know if you think that human courage goes beyond bestial courage. For the things you have listed all seem to belong to human courage, but I can’t help thinking that there is still more to human courage than this. Second, can you tell me how one gains the kind of knowledge that has to do with courage, and how one then knows how to apply it? For the applying of such knowledge is instinct, as we have said, and is the heart of courage.
SOCRATES: What difficult questions you ask, Kurt! Are you not satisfied yet?
KURT: No, I’m not.
LACHES: And neither am I, Socrates. I quite agree with Kurt’s questions. Otherwise, what would distinguish men from beasts in this respect? Would we say, then, that beasts are good and virtuous insofar as they partake of courage? For unless we can distinguish human courage from bestial courage, as Kurt said, we would either need to say this, that beasts can participate in one part of virtue without participating in the others—since it can’t be right that beasts can also be moderate and wise and just—or that courage is actually no part of virtue at all, neither of which I am willing to do.
SOCRATES: What a speech, Laches! But I am forced to agree with you. Let us, then, examine courage further. I think I have a place to start, in fact. We’ve been talking about instinct in one way, but we actually haven’t quite grasped the concept in the way that we want to. If we distinguish it properly, then our first question may be answered for us.
LACHES: Which question was that?
SOCRATES: The question of whether human courage goes beyond bestial courage. We were saying that some beasts have an instinct to protect their families. I think we can add to this some other sorts of instincts, like that many kinds of birds and fish, and even butterflies, migrate to different places at different times, many without having ever in their short lives been to the places to which they go. Now, this seems to me to be rather different from the kind of instinct which we said that men have, such as in battles. Kurt, can you help us to see what sort of instinct that is? For I think you have more experience with it than either Laches or I do.
KURT: I’ll do my best, Socrates. What is it you wish to know?
SOCRATES: Simply what sort of instinct you think you use when you are in combat, and what it looks like, and how you learned it, if you can say so much.
KURT: What you want to know doesn’t seem so simple to explain, but I’ll try. When I act on instinct in combat, I wouldn’t say it’s like these latter bestial instincts which you described, which are ones that the beasts have no way of learning through experience, but have to know in some other way. I think the instincts I make use of are sort of put together from my own experience and training, but not in a conscious way. That is, I don’t think about what I’m going to do, as we’ve already said; I just do it. So in that way, it seems like a sort of unconscious wisdom, whereas what we would usually call wisdom is conscious wisdom.
SOCRATES: Very good. But is it like any of the bestial instincts at all, such as the instinct to protect one’s family?
KURT: I suppose it might be, but that doesn’t seem quite right to me. And I would like to distinguish courage from wisdom, but that may have to wait for another time. My friend Lis will have something to say about that, for he’s very wise.
LACHES: Well, since he isn’t here right now, please go on with what you were thinking.
KURT: No, I’m afraid now I must go back. I suddenly think that we’ve been going about this discussion all wrong. I want to go back to the very beginning.
SOCRATES: What! All the way back to the beginning? And ignore all the things we’ve said so far?
KURT: Not quite, Socrates, but I think we have gone far off course. Let me start from the beginning and restate what we wanted to do, and then perhaps I can find the place where we went off. For didn’t we say at some point that we may be going off course, and that if we found that was the case, we should go back and restart from there?
SOCRATES: We did say that, Kurt, so go ahead and see if you can find what you’re looking for.
KURT: Now, we want to know what courage is. We think it’s part of virtue, along with wisdom, temperance, and justice, but that it’s particularly paired up with wisdom, in a sort of complementary way. Does all this seem right so far?
LACHES: It still seems as right to me as when we first said it.
KURT: My problem, and the reason why I first came looking for you, Socrates, was that I thought I was acting courageously when in fact I was acting foolishly, and so my understanding of courage was shaken. But, if I was acting foolishly and therefore was not acting courageously, then this seems to imply that wisdom and courage are the same thing, which we’ve said can’t be the case. So my foolish acting was not contrary to courage. How can that be?
SOCRATES: That’s a difficult question. I don’t think we can say that courage is naturally foolish, and is thereby opposed to wisdom, for then courage, a part of virtue, would be opposed to wisdom, another part of virtue, and that’s impossible, if we’re completely sure that wisdom and courage are both virtuous, as I’m still convinced they are.
KURT: Of course.
SOCRATES: Perhaps we could say that your action was mostly courageous, but that insofar as it was foolish, it was not good, and therefore not courageous?
KURT: Maybe. But it seems as though you are equating both wisdom and courage with goodness, and thereby setting wisdom and courage equal to each other, as though this were a mathematical equation.
SOCRATES: You’re right, and I shouldn’t do that, for this issue is less clear than a simple equation. It seems even more difficult than I had thought it was at first.
LACHES: Don’t give up, Socrates! I still want to know what courage is.
SOCRATES: Never fear, Laches! I will continue on as long as you and Kurt wish to, or until we have found an answer. Kurt, I wonder if you can tell us why you thought you were courageous before you found yourself endangering your friends? For it seems that the answer you gave us at the beginning, that courage is just running straight in and not fearing anything, wasn’t sufficient.
KURT: I’m not sure I can say what I thought it was, Socrates. I never really thought about it before at all. I suppose it was simply because I was good at fighting, and I never backed down until I won.
SOCRATES: So did you think courage was just skill in fighting?
KURT: I guess so.
SOCRATES: And now you think that’s not enough?
KURT: Not by itself, at least. Or can a man be courageous without having skill in fighting?
SOCRATES: I wonder. Haven’t you seen a weak man turn and fight his enemies if they threaten not only him, but also those he cares about? Won’t he stand up for his wife and children even if he has no skill in fighting at all, and is certain to lose?
KURT: Well, it seems foolish to do so, but that does happen at times.
SOCRATES: Then courage must have more to do with standing up for those weaker than ourselves than it has to do with skill in fighting, though such skill would certainly make courage more effective in accomplishing its goal, namely, to defend those we care about who are weaker than ourselves.
KURT: Yes, that’s certainly true.
SOCRATES: So have we found what courage is? If we flesh out our definition, it seems that courage is being willing to turn and fight those who may be stronger than we are, and even to sacrifice our own lives if necessary, to defend those we care about who are weaker than we are. That means that your action, Kurt, wasn’t courageous only because, rather than defending those you care about, you actually put them in danger yourself. And might this even be how wisdom relates to courage? For wisdom can show us how best to defend those we care about, but it takes courage to act upon that knowledge.
KURT: That seems good to me. But hold on! What about all the things we had said about instinct? What shall we do with those?
SOCRATES: I’m afraid you’ve caught me, Kurt. I had hoped to leave those behind.
LACHES: You’re lying, Socrates. I know you can’t leave behind any part of an argument. You were just waiting for Kurt to bring it up again so that you could blame any difficulty on him, rather than take the blame yourself.
SOCRATES: Why must you be so hard on me, Laches? I swear I wouldn’t have mentioned instinct again if it was up to me—but now that Kurt has brought it up, I suppose we’ll have to bring it back into our discussion. Let’s look at how we can understand instinct in connection with this most recent idea of courage that we had, that courage is standing up to defend those one cares about who are weaker than oneself.
KURT: Yes, let’s do that.
SOCRATES: Now, right from the beginning, I see a connection that we seem to have passed over entirely in our previous treatments of courage and instinct.
LACHES: What connection is that?
SOCRATES: We said that courage is defending those we care about who are weaker than ourselves. But then, isn’t it just like the way we were comparing our instincts to those of the beasts? For our primary example was that of defending families, something that both beasts and men do.
KURT: You’re right, Socrates. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before.
SOCRATES: Well, we’ve thought of it now, which is what matters. So it seems that we were, indeed, on the right track about courage in the first place, though I think you may have cleaned up some minor difficulties by going back to the beginning. But I don’t think we’ve fully made the connection yet, so let’s not stop with our bridge half-built, as it were. For, if it is through wisdom that we know how to defend those we care about, but through courage that we act, is wisdom then the same thing as the instinct by which we know how to defend our families? It seems that it must be that way to me.
KURT: I would like to agree with you, Socrates, but then we must unsay some of the things we had said about instinct before. For if instinct is part of wisdom, then it is not part of courage, or else we are again facing the same problem of properly distinguishing the different parts of virtue.
SOCRATES: Indeed. Shall we say, then, that instinct is actually a part of wisdom—perhaps an unconscious wisdom, as you said once before—and that it relates to courage only insofar as wisdom and courage as a whole relate to each other, all under the heading of virtue? And perhaps, since instinct seems to be almost internalized within our bodies, and yet is still a kind of knowledge, we could call this the kind of knowledge that is closest to action by its nature. We must still say that it belongs to wisdom, and is not a third thing intermediate between wisdom and courage, but that it is more closely related to courage and bodily actions than other kinds of wisdom are.
KURT: That sounds good to me.
LACHES: Before we finish, would the two of you be averse to exploring one more aspect of courage?
SOCRATES: Go ahead, Laches. What are you thinking?
LACHES: Isn’t courage called fortitude, as well? Yet we seem to have said nothing about that.
SOCRATES: You’re absolutely right! I think Kurt touched on the idea in some of his accounts, but we never took it up, and I can’t think why.
KURT: Neither can I, Socrates. But why don’t we take it up now? Now that we’ve brought it up, I wouldn’t be willing to abandon our discussion now.
SOCRATES: Let’s add this to our thoughts on courage, then. Doesn’t fortitude carry with it the idea of being strong?
LACHES: Yes.
SOCRATES: So it seems that some of what Kurt said before, about having skill in fighting, is more important than we realized at the time. At least, I would say that someone with greater skill in fighting would have more fortitude than someone with less skill. Wouldn’t you?
LACHES: I would.
SOCRATES: Fortitude also gives me the idea of standing one’s ground, which we already sort of thought was a part of courage.
KURT: We did. But I would say that it isn’t just standing one’s ground in any situation at all; it’s standing one’s ground, and being strong, in a particularly difficult situation. Or do we think that just anyone who stands his ground or is strong is displaying fortitude?
SOCRATES: Well, why not? It may not be so much fortitude as someone who is in a more difficult situation, but it seems to be fortitude nonetheless.
KURT: I suppose you’re right. So we’ll have to add this on to our previous definition of courage: Having strength, and standing firm and not backing down when difficulties come. Do you think there’s any more to courage, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I think there is. Can we add that fortitude, or courage, seems to spread confidence to those around us? If there is one very courageous man in our midst when we are in danger, then we take comfort in his presence, and become braver ourselves. Isn’t this so?
KURT: It is indeed, and I’m glad you mentioned it. I’ve had that same thought before, but it either slipped my mind or I lost it in some other way when we were going through our discussion before this. So courage isn’t a selfish virtue, as you might say, but it spreads to those around us. The presence of one very courageous or brave man, then, spreads courage to many, and teaches them to be brave and strong and to stand firm even in the face of many dangers in order to protect those they care about.
SOCRATES: Well said. Now, before we go, I would like to add one last rhetorical flourish to our idea of courage. It takes the form of some lines I heard somewhere:

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. [...] A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.

KURT: That seems to me to express it all very well, Socrates, and better than I ever could have on my own. I’m glad I found you, and was able to discuss these matters.