The Concept of Courage - Essay Example

Concept of courage A very good explanation of the word courage is bold enough to encounter danger or embarrassment performing what you feel is right. We can also say, doing what you want to carry out even if it damages your repute. The concept of courage has the spirit that enables you to face danger or hurt without showing fear (Julia et al. 15). It is a noun that originated from Middle English referring to the feeling of the heart. Old French word, courage or Latin cor all meaning “heart”. It can also be defined as the capability to act out bravely out of the motivation of your heart. Courage is one thing that each and every one of us wants to have. It is an attribute of good character of bravery that make us respectable and worthy of our surroundings or the society. We can see from the fairy tale, bible stories where David killed Goliath shows how self sacrifice and bravery which comes with courage leads to heroic endings. Fear is a prerequisite for courage. Fear is the consequence of an insight of vulnerability, which is recognized by the accurate or inaccurate assessment or estimation of a threat as outweighing the individual resources. The only validated scale used to calculate courage was of late produced by Schmidt and Koselka in a cognitive therapy research. The Courage measuring Scale used in this study was constructed 7-item scale. The first three items used were to assess the broad-spectrum of courage, while the last four items assessing panic-specific courage. The scales do not illustrate the number of situational domains, and the third item on the three-item scale questions participants if they are fearless. Despite the fear being said to be a precondition for courage, it is rated to be in a positive direction as other items that result in two high scores. One indicating courage and the other indicating a general absence of fear (Schmidt, Koselka.533-550) To be courageous is not having physical energy. Many analysis and correlations were used to see the sights of the relationships among courage, toughness, and physical illness. Hardiness or toughness was not found to be a considerable analyst of physical illness for the participants’ Hardiness was found to be a weak predictor of physical illness for men. There are no other variables in this study that were found to be an important predictor of physical illness, and the variations of the courage scores did not enhance the relationship between hardiness and physical illness when variance accounted for by gender was controlled (Cooper 173-180). In life, there are two major types of courage, physical and moral courage, in this essay, we are going to access the two kinds of courage. Physical courage This is the one that many people think about. It is the one that enable us risk our comfort to endure pain and even to the extreme tolerate death. Persons with physical courage can; run into burning buildings to save someone the way firefighter does, rock climb or climb the highest mountains, face wild animals to protect someone or kill them and many others. We humans are always cautious of pain. Pain signals us here our boundaries of endurance always are. But sometimes we come across some things that are more important that pain alone. More important that the physical fear in us becomes a boundary to be crossed. Physical fear is frequently blown completely out of proportion and pain is time and again greater in anticipation than in reality. Physical courage furthermore involves recognizing that it is how you use or involve yourself in worldly things. Keeping it in good physical shape, strong, and flexible prepares you for all kinds of challenges, not just physical ones (Southwick et al. 155). A person who lacks physical courage has many things running in his mind. He sounds like: I can’t do this if I do this I may get hurt, it’s too hot or cold, boys can’t do this and much more Moral courage It is the quality of mind and spirit that allows someone to face up ethical challenges steadfastly and confidently. Moral courage is sometimes so tricky and subtle that it cannot be recognized by a bystander or could miss it. This makes it harder to come across it given that the trick about it is really to jeopardize the pain, when very probably nobody will identify it as courage, and still you discover that you have to do what is right. In matters of moral courage, we ask ourselves why you can jeopardize your reputation in order to do the right thing as you see it. During the Watergate, why did the white house officials come forth to accept a prison sentence to remove their names? Why is someone willing to risk his future just to maintain his central beliefs and dignity? This question reminds us that, taking ethical stands is the most priority in moral, courageous people. Moral courage Act is found at the intersection of three elements. They are core values, being aware of risks and ones willingness to endure the hardship that comes. Moral bravery spurs us to make every effort for basic values. They are also the ethical responsibilities that one offer in the society like honest and non corrupt. In the society, one is punished for being morally dormant by for instance imprisonment. Before you say that you have to be morally courageous, you should sit down and rethink on the step you have to take. When revisiting a decision, you are trained to act with confidence when you are faced with a situation. Stop to listen to your conflicting heart if it’s right to take a short cut just to be recognized or liked. So moral courage is developed from your inner self, you either acquire it or design or utilize the one you have (Miller, Rielle1-21). There are also other types of courage by mostly are not felt or recognized as the ones above. They are; social courage, emotional courage, intellectual courage and finally spiritual courage. Those who criticize this concept of courage say that it is an illusion and infatuation. It can be destructive as that ones who do it they mainly do it to look heroic and only seek admiration. They don’t consider the risks that come with acting courageously. In the bible, the act of Abraham sacrificing his only son is agued as blind willingness. The acts of terrorism are termed as extremism (Linda. Rabieh 13-15) Conclusion From this essay, I deduce that in life everyone has or can have these two types of courage. Physical Courage is overcoming the dread of bodily hurt while Moral Courage is overcoming the fear of emotional pain or negative response from others. It depends on one's physical ability or moral stability to take on one of them. Physically courageous people are the soul drivers of our economy, and we can’t leave without them. People can use their physical courage to create a means of living like firefighters and deep sea divers. To have ethnic responsibility, we have to be morally courageous. So what do you prefer, be courageous or not, be morally or physically courageous or can u utilize both? Work sited Linderman, Gerald. Embattled courage: The experience of combat in the American Civil War. Simon and Schuster, 2008.1-80 Miller, Rielle. "Moral courage: Definition and development." Retrieved December20 (2005): 2009. Olsthoorn, Peter. "Courage in the military: physical and moral." Journal of Military Ethics 6.4 (2007): 15-20. Schmidt, Norman B., and Margaret Koselka. "Gender differences in patients with panic disorder: Evaluating cognitive mediation of phobic avoidance."Cognitive Therapy and Research 24.5 (2000): 533-550. Southwick, Steven M., and Dennis S. Charney. Resilience: The science of mastering life's greatest challenges. Cambridge University Press, 2012. Waterfield, Robin. "Plato and the Virtue of Courage. By Linda R. Rabieh." The Heythrop Journal 48.6 (2007):. Woodard, Cooper R. "Hardiness and the Concept of Courage." Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research 56.3 (2004): Yang, Julia, Alan Milliren, and Mark Blagen. The psychology of courage: An Adlerian handbook for healthy social living. Taylor & Francis, 2009. Read More