ARMORS OF COURAGE, A VIRTUE THAT CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING

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ARMORS OF COURAGE, A VIRTUE THAT CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING

"Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality which guarantees all others."
— Winston Churchill
British Prime Minister

1. Would the state of the world be the same if people would have shown more moral courage? The answer is yes! Definitely it would be much better than this. Today we have so much conflict and chaos because the absence of this virtue. As Mark Twain stated “It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.” We can find many example of display of physical courage but display of morale courage is truly rare. The truth is, courage is something that we all esteem about. When in military we are asked to describe the event of courage, most people conjure up the image of a soldier who is running in the battle field in the face of enemy bullet and performing his given mission vested upon him by his superior. The understanding about ‘Moral courage’ is a very complex issue. Images of courage are prevalent in our society; from the images of our soldiers serving in UN msn to the local hero who saved her neighbor from imminent danger. But when asked to go deeper, to really define courage, the only response that comes to mind is “I know it when I see it.” What makes courage so hard to define? We should ask our mind this question over and over, as the discovery of the matter is very important for us.
2. Now if we talk about building up the future leaders for our Army then it is even more important. If we can inject this virtue in the heart and mind of the young officers or cadets the achievement in the long run will be of immense value. At this point of time we seek for an officer who will have moral courage to stand against all odd. Who will make a difference from all other by the display of unique moral qualities! When given with unethical orders he will stand and say he is not going to perform it, whatever comes upon him? We can only make such officer if we can make a good understanding about moral courage and engrave it in the heart of our next generation.
3. In this paper I will take an endeavor to define moral courage. I begin with Plato and Aristotle’s theories of habituation and Education and from there define moral courage then I shall discuss the issues why we lack moral courage. I shall try to explain what fosters the moral courage and finally discuss the development tools for attaining moral courage.

UNDERSTANDING THE MORAL COURAGE
"The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their mind to be good or evil."
— Hannah Arendt
What is Moral Courage
4. Most of us are not aware of the difference between moral courage and arrogance. Here lies the importance of understanding the moral courage. When I consulted lots of definitions and had a look deep down I soon realized that my first task was to separate moral courage from the other conceptions of courage. This part of my write up is my brief analysis of the entirety of courage, and my attempt to extract moral courage from the pack. I tried to draw comparison between all the definitions that I discovered. From these I was able to identify a few key elements. From the book for Rielle Miller “Moral courage: Definition and Development” we can find those five key elements are:
a. Presence and recognition of a moral situation.
b. Moral choice.
c. Behavior.
d. Individuality, and
e. Fear.
I explain the necessity for each component and the sufficiency of all five. Let us now first see what is moral courage?
Definition of Moral Courage
5. Moral courage is the courage to take action for moral reasons despite the risk of adverse consequences. Courage is required to take action when one has doubts or fears about the consequences. So moral courage is not about facing physical challenges that could harm the body, it’s about facing mental challenges that could harm one’s reputation, emotional well-being, self-esteem or other characteristics. These challenges, as the term implies, are deeply connected with our moral sense—our core moral values. Pass the white light of moral courage through the prism of our understanding of values, and it breaks out into a five-banded spectrum: the courage to be honest, to be fair, to be respectful, to be responsible and to be compassionate. If “values” is in some way synonymous with “convictions,” then moral courage is (as it’s often characterized) “the courage of your convictions” in these five key areas as I mentioned above.


From Courage to Moral Courage
6. Moral courage differs from physical courage. Physical courage is the willingness to face serious risk to life or limb instead of fleeing from difficult encounters. “Courage,” says, “that quality of mind which enables one to encounter danger and difficulties with firmness, or without fear, or fainting of heart.” Or, as John Wayne put it with characteristic bluntness: “Courage is being scared to death—and saddling up anyway.” Physical courage is less in demand than it once was in ancient days. Even war, which Aristotle thought was the only place to find true courage, has become less dependent on the physical courage of the individual warrior and more dependent on technology, information and weaponry launched from a safe distance.
7. From the reflection of the greatest minds of all time we clearly understand that the word courage usually brings to mind battlefield heroes, and in fact this is what the term referred to when used by such ancient philosophers as Plato, Socrates and Aristotle. All these scholars have described courage from military point of view as in ancient days the courage mostly was displayed in the battle field. In the next paragraph I shall explain this with examples.
8. Plato centers most of his discussions of courage in a military setting. Plato’s Laches, a whole dialogue devoted to courage, does in fact begin with a question as to what type of military training is best for a child. The connection is made early on in the dialogue between military training and courage. When courage is first asked to be defined, Nicias says, “if a man is willing to remain at his post and to defend himself against the enemy without running away, then you may rest assured that he is a man of courage. Further in the dialogue, Laches, Nicias and Socrates provide other components of courage such as “endurance of the soul,” wisdom, and fear. And while it is clear from the setting and the interlocutors, that courage is mainly considered in reference to war, Socrates declares that he wants to understand the courage that individuals have in war as well as “in illness and poverty and affairs of state.” Courage in war was important to Plato because Athens was involved in a war or military upheaval during most of the time. Even in Plato’s writings we can find evidence that courage can be expanded from the battlefield, but that its most common applicability is to war. Aristotle’s discussion of courage in the Nicomachean Ethics is also focused on battle. He defines courage as something we reserve for those who face, with intrepidness, the fear of death. Aristotle specifically means the death that one will see in battle.


Moral Courage and Virtue
9. Is display of moral courage is a noble act? Through the years, our concept of courage has seemed to have lost its virtue. More and more people are postulating the existence of the courageous villain—courage in the service of vice. So it is very important to recognize the right form of courage. If somebody displays courage to perform some act which does not go with the set of values of the society, should we call it a display of moral courage? Moral courage must supported by set of moral values.
10. Plato distinguishes the displayer of courage as having knowledge of good and evil, but what does he say about servicing vice? Imp to note that both Aristotle and Plato wrote about courage as a virtue. However, their theories about why and/or how courage is a virtue are not specifically applicable to current society. Aristotle’s theory faces a problem in applicability to current society because he grounds his theory of courage in his idea of noble ends. The only noble end for courage, according to Aristotle, was victory in war. This is obviously no longer how we see courage. Plato mentions courage in conjunction with wisdom, justice and temperance in numerous dialogues. Aristotle introduces another important element of courage, and all moral virtues, in this passage: “for the right motive.” Aristotle believes that only virtuous motives can produce virtue. Therefore, an act is only courageous if it has noble ends.

Reasons Why We lack Moral Courage.
Social Grooming up from the Childhood.
11. We grow up in a society where from the child hood we see all wrong examples around us. We observe from our childhood that people are robbed when lots of spectators just watch from a distance. Most of us are afraid to help as we think of harm to ourselves. We see from our childhood many wrong deeds but we do not protest them thinking of our discomfort. We see that around the globe the strong is torturing the weak and most of the nation sit tight as they don’t want to indulge themselves in the toils of others. We learn what we see around us and our society and environment fails to show us the right thing.
Habit of Saying Yes Boss
12. We never say no to any order. In the persuasion of a good career we often forget what we are doing. We fail to distinguish the difference between right and wrong. We only think of satisfying our boss. So we say yes sir to all orders and instructions. The result is: our under commands are hard pressed for doing unwanted things and we miss the fine balance. We don’t have moral courage to say no and face the situation. Too much consciousness about our gains leads us to poor or no display of moral courage.
Nothing demands more courage and character than to be in open opposition to time and mainstream, to stand up and to say aloud: No!
—Kurt Tucholsky, in Frohloff

Too Much Conscious about Personal Gain.
13. In the military we always observe that most of us indulge ourselves in the violation of moral uprightness due to aspiration personal gain. We are always calculative to play safe in every situation and often compromise our moral standard. We are very much conscious about the next rank, a good posting, a better appointment. As the American president ‘Abraham Lincoln emphasizes on becoming a little nobody with true moral uprightness. As he says “I would rather be a little nobody, then to be a evil somebody.”
“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to
succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.”
― Abraham Lincoln

Fear of one’s reputation, emotional well-being, self-esteem or other characteristics.
14. We live in a society where everyone competes with each other to go up. This race becomes unethical when we badly demand to achieve it. At the same time we want to keep our reputation very high and want name and fame. For achieving good reputation most of us compromise with the moral standard. As the system has got fault so we have an impression that if we stand against the odd then we will be isolated, cornered and harmed. Mostly due to the dominance of vice in the society the evil power wins. We see the survival of honest soul was always very difficult as everyone else becomes their enemy.
Fear of Punishment.
15. In random interaction with many cadets I discovered that the fear of punishment mostly lead them in violation of moral courage. They find out to avoid the truth and it seems to be an easier course of action. Most of the time, when we make mistake we do not confess our fault. Because telling lie is a better option to skip the consequences. Often we hide the reality and keep our innocence which is an easy option. Most of the children pick up this notion from their childhood. As they often discover that telling lies or hiding facts provides them much comfortable stay. This habit becomes engraved in the mind of the adults and thereby the courageous attribute dies inside. Fear of punishment is one of the root reason of why we lack moral courage.

HOW IS MORAL COURAGE DEVELOPED?
16. I have provided an overview of where moral courage came from, its right to virtuousness, and its components. I also have explored the issue of assigning moral courage. But how is moral courage developed? Following are the fields to attain or develop it:
Education and Habituation.
17. Both Plato and Aristotle argue for the centrality of education at a young age to shape an individual’s character. Moral courage is not an innate behavior but can be learned and trained. As I stated earlier, Aristotle claimed that virtues could be acquired. I tend to agree with Aristotle, but whether or not you believe that virtues are acquired or innate, the issue of development is important: either you need to get some virtues, or you need to maximize the ones you have. Courage is developed through habit, and is therefore a moral virtue. Habituation is key to acquiring courage, but Aristotle was convinced that habit could not only produce virtues but vices as well. To use an example: if an individual practices the piano well, that individual will be a good pianist. However, if an individual practices the piano poorly, that individual will be a poor pianist. In this sense if an individual habituates response to fear well that individual will be courageous, but if an individual habituates response to fear poorly that individual will not be courageous.
18. Plato and Aristotle claims that the Moral courage must be taught and habituated. Socrates’s education will focus on the soul, not the body. To nourish the soul, the citizens must be educated in the virtues. Aristotle’s theory of moral development relies heavily on Plato. To achieve this virtue, an individual must live one’s life according to the virtues. It is only through the virtues that a human being’s natural capacities can best be utilized. Aristotle does not believe that all the virtues are innate to human beings. Instead, Aristotle says that human beings are born with a capacity to receive the moral virtues. The moral virtues must be learned by the individual in order for them to be acquired. Children must be taught the virtues. Children when they are young, however, cannot fully understand the virtues. What they need is a role model, someone who can demonstrate the virtues. “To inculcate a good disposition in any person,” Children must be taught to habituate themselves toward virtuous actions. They need to develop good habits of soul. Aristotle was convinced that if children were not habituated toward the good, they would habituate themselves toward the bad. Regardless of education, children will form habits.
Use of Stories and Heros
19. Plato felt that stories were an important piece of early education, but that stories had to be in the service of virtue. The hero, an individual who conveys the virtues of the society who tells everyone the lesson. Even sometime some unreal stories or heroes may also foster the moral courage in the mind of the young. In our childhood we found many stories like that in our text books. In the present era if we say about some heroes who demonstrated moral courage the names that will come in our mind is “Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. They both risking their own lives have stood for the right cause and fought against all odds till the end. Their story can inspire the young generation to make such similar impact in our society or even something beyond that.
Training on Moral Courage
20. The moral courage trainings try to teach behavioral routines that can easily be recalled to foster adequate and fast reactions. For example, because it is dangerous and often not reasonable to intervene alone, participants learn in role plays how to activate other people also to help. After moral courage trainings, situations are recognized as an emergency more quickly and clearer, and personal responsibility to act and to intervene is fostered. Thus, it seems possible to train people in moral courage. For training a team of moral courage we can put them through some situational training exercise to test their moral standard. So when those exercises reveal their shortcomings they have the scope to work out on it. This type of exercise helps many to recognize the situation to understand when to display moral courage. Training is one of the best tools to seek improvement.
Reward and Punishment
21. The effect of reward and punishment on our behavior is obvious to all. Unaided by experimental psychologists, the human race managed long ago to discover that children and animals desist from punished behavior and persist in rewarded behavior. Sometimes only punishment cannot engrave moral courage rather it works in a reverse way. The fear of punishment resists an individual to face the situation. So inspiration and reward can help to develop it. If someone displays moral courage and come out with his fault that individual may be forgiven to encourage this habit. If he is punished then maybe he will think of avoiding it next time.

Encouragement
22. Inspiration plays a big role in injecting moral courage. That’s why the requirement of heroes and good examples comes. Encouragement can lead a team to follow it and if they do it for a long time then it will turn out to be habitual in them. When it becomes a habit in him he will automatically do it. We can cite the example of the famous Canadian General Lieutenant-General Roméo Antonius Dallaire. Who was is Canadian humanitarian, author and retired senator and general. Dallaire served as Force Commander of UNAMIR, the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994. He attempted to stop the genocide by violating the order of the UN headquarters which saved life of thousand people. But later he was rewarded by UN for this great display of moral courage. This incident will inspire thousands of officers from different countries to be encouraged to display moral courage.
Conclusion

It’s very interesting “A man with outward courage dares to die; a man with inner courage dares to live.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
23. I would like to end my paper with a famous saying by Albert Einstein “The world is not dangerous because of those who harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything. We can clearly see the reflection of this saying in today’s world. Today we have many dangerous things happening and we look at it without doing anything. Our prophet stated that “Who so ever of you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; And if he is not able to do so, then with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so then with his heart-and that is the weakest of faith” From these verses we can clearly understand how important it is to display moral courage even to a little extent that we can afford. Moral courage can be understood as an offspring of the virtue of courage as the ancients knew it. Once human beings left the battlefields, we were in need of another type of courage to help us preserve our moral life. It has become a necessity for all human beings who have yet to reach excellence, or the purity of heart stage. Since it is in service of the virtuous life it cannot be used for evil virtuous means or ends. The paradox of the courageous villain has been dismissed.
24. Conception of moral courage has five components. The courageous individual must face fear, but overcome it. Fear cannot impede action. To develop moral courage, moral courage must be habituated and practiced. Moral courage is one of those things that can only be properly attained by doing it. To get courage, be courageous. Stories are also an important tool for developing courage. Stories teach children virtues. Once children have virtues, they can then work on developing courage. The substantive virtues must be acquired first, because they are what moral courage is preserving. Stories of heroes also provide models for children and adults to look to for guidance. Heroes can be role models for behavior.

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