Practical Philosophy: Moral Character
The courageous thief
Imagine a thief. He is a deeply self-centred person who finds it difficult to think of others. He steals because he is greedy and self-interested. He steals from people who have less than him. He spreads violence and fear, but he doesn’t care, if anything he enjoys seeing terror in his victims. He is also fearless. He is pursued by the police and he may be caught in which case he could go to prison for life, but he doesn’t allow that to stop him. He puts himself in danger by breaking into the homes of people who may react violently but he doesn’t hesitate at the thought of harm coming to himself. Is he courageous?
What does it mean to be courageous? Take a few minutes to think about this. Try to explain the concept of ‘courage’ as if you were explaining it to someone who was not familiar with it at all.
REFLECT ON THE ABOVE BEFORE READING ON
When explaining courage, you are likely to have said something about fear. Fear is an emotion associated with courage but there is something appropriate about fear when it comes to courage. Too much fear makes someone a coward, someone who is overwhelmed by their fear. Too little fear makes someone rash – they run ahead when they should stop and reconsider. The courageous show the right amount of fear, not too much and not too little. But they also show the right amount of fear towards the right kinds of goals.
Pick one of the following two examples of courageous people and compare them to our thief:
Either Malala Yousafzai or Nelson Mandela
Compare Malala/Mandela and the thief? What is each person fearful of? What do they do despite their fear? What did they achieve? Is there a difference between Malala/Mandela’s courage and the thief’s courage?
One crucial difference between the thief and Malala/Mandela is that the thief’s his goals are immoral, e.g. his own greed, wealth accumulation and happiness through material things, while Malala/Mandela apply their courage to achieve moral ends like education for girls and equality for black people. They might all have the same attitude to fear, a brave attitude, but only Malala and Mandela display the virtue of courage.
If we think of courage merely as fearlessness in pursuit of one’s ends, whatever those ends happen to be, then the thief is equally courageous to Malala and Mandela. But if we think of courage as a virtue, a concept positively linked to morality, then to act courageously is to act well, to choose as the target of one’s courage what is worthwhile. The thief is a good thief, his courage is part of the reason he is a good thief because he boldly steals where a cowardly thief would run away. However, the thief is not a good human being because he chooses to display his fearlessness in the pursuit of the wrong ends.