Value

Courage is considered a virtue and is defined in the dictionary as "lack of fear". How can "lack of fear" be a virtue?

Comments

The dictionary, then, is a bad one. Courage is not a matter of lack of fear. It is a matter of not letting even justified and appropriate fear stand in the way of doing the right thing -- such as rescuing your injured friend from a burning building, standing up for the innocent man in the face of the baying mob, refusing to betray the whereabouts of the resistance fighter. Not to feel fear of the fire (or the mob, or the Gestapo, or whatever) would be a sign of a kind of reckless madness, not of virtue: the virtue of courage comes in knowing when it is appropriate to let the fear guide your actions and when you have to master it -- and being able to do so.

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