How to Understand the Virtue of Fortitude or Courage

Courage

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By ethoslogos
eHow Community Member

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Fortitude or Courage is the third great moral virtue that helps shape human character (after Justice and Temperance). It’s important to understand what the virtue of courage actually means and how it can help us in our daily lives.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

An Open Mind
A Strong Will

Step 1

The moral virtue of courage refers to the habit of overcoming barriers such as pain or fear on the way to achieving something worthwhile. The classic examples refer to heroism in battle. But there are many circumstances in ordinary life where courage is important.
Step 2

Courage is a mean between foolhardiness or rashness on the one hand and cowardice or timidity on the other. A person who attacks an armed robber with bare hands is foolhardy and is likely to lose his life. Cowardly or timid people have difficulty standing up for or doing the right thing when there is opposition.
Step 3

The ways that courage can help each of us are numerous. If we are writers then we know the struggles and procrastination that need to be overcome to be productive. If we are students we have experienced the pain and fatigue that concentrated study is capable of inflicting. Courage is the habit of persisting through the pain and fatigue that confronts us when we are doing things that take serious effort. Another example is cleaning a room or a house. There’s usually neither a monetary nor a psychic reward for cleaning chores. But they should be done and the virtue of courage helps us overcome the tendency to avoid such tasks.
Step 4

Courage is required not only when we are engaged in solitary challenging activities, but it’s also needed frequently in social settings when confronted with pressures to go along with something that we feel is wrong. It takes courage to say no to others, even to one’s own children at times. Assertiveness helps us to say no in the right way, so we should study assertiveness if we need it.
Step 5

Courage is developed the same way other moral virtues, are, by doing – acting courageously over and over until it becomes a habit to behave that way. Courage is very valuable in our lives because it helps us to do the right thing for ourselves and for others on many occasions. This is especially the case when there are no near term rewards and we are not highly motivated to do what it takes. Courage helps us overcome and achieve.