This week we learned about the “Golden Mean” and how
virtue is a mean state between surplus and deficiency. An example we discussed
in class was courage being the mean between recklessness and cowardice. To put
a mental picture to this we discussed what we would do if a bear came into the
classroom to attack us. If one knows how to fight and take down a bear they are
most likely to act in courage if a bear is to attack the class. According to Aristotle,
the mean is most relative to us when it is in our nature, meaning that courage
is a skill to that person. If another person were to attack the bear without
knowing how to take it down they would be acting recklessly. In my opinion I agree
with Aristotle’s view. Even though the media exploits the word “courageous” not
everyone is truly COURAGEOUS, they just acted recklessly and got lucky of not getting
killed.
Another
example we talked about was about a school shooting and what we would do if
that shooter came into our classroom. This situation was very difficult to
decide if one would be acting in courage or recklessly since there are a lot of
things that could go wrong. I believe in this situation any person who has some
skill of distraction or combat (May it be karate, self-defense, etc.) would be
the courageous person (or the phronimos) in Aristotle’s Golden Mean theory because
they would have that specific skill needed to attack. If a person were to jump
and attack the shooter without knowing what they are really doing it would be
an act of recklessly.
As I sat and thought about the scenarios I thought
of how one acts courageous if they do not runaway from the problem, but stay
and deal with it by using their skills. In the other hand, if one runs away
from the problem they are acting cowardly.
I do agree with you that the media overuses the word courageous. However, I don't necessarily agree with our discussions from class today--the fact that acting without training is reckless rather than courageous (at least in all situations.) I believe that sometimes it is necessary to act "recklessly." Sometimes we are put in situations where we must act in order to prevent a certain outcome, even though we are not "trained." For example, I recently read an article about a girl (she was in her late teens), who rescued several horses from a barn fire. The trained firemen had not yet arrived, and had she waited for them to get there, the horses all would have died. I've also heard stories where people must go into a house to rescue a family from a fire. Just because they were not trained, doesn't mean they were acting recklessly. The dictionary definition of reckless is "to be unconcerned about the consequences of some action." Just because these people ran into burning buildings to try to save lives doesn't mean they weren't scared. Instead they decided that attempting to save the lives of those in danger was more important than being scared.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that it takes knowledge to be courageous. In my opinion, courage takes smarts and skill. Courage is knowing that if you step up to the plate, you will absolutely be able to take care of the situation on hand. Yes it is brave to stand up to someone that is threatening others, but if you do not have a plan or skill in taking care of that situation, it is pure recklessness and luck if you take care of the situation. I like your argument, and Aristotle would be proud!
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you in the sense that if one does not have any knowledge about any give situation but yet they still act that is being reckless. However, I would still look at that recklessness as being courageous simply for the fact that even though they had no idea what would become of them if they acted, they still acted. Anyone can have skills but it is not always true that those skills sets are going to guarantee that you will come out of a situation unscathed.
ReplyDeleteI believe the essence of this argument lies on how each one of us defines courageous. In my opinion, the term has evolved since Aristotle's time, and it is now used more loosely. In this day and age, most would call it courageous to attack a bear without prior combat experience; I agree with that. Like Nadia stated, combat experience is not a guaranteed method of surviving one of these extreme examples.
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