Book III

Summary

iii.1.1 We have stated in general terms that the virtues involve mean points, that they are concerned with decision, and that their opposites are vices, and what these are. Now let us take the virtues individually and discuss them in sequence, beginning with courage.

iii.1.2 It is pretty much universally held both that being courageous is about one’s fears, and that courage is one of the virtues. Earlier, in our list, we distinguished fear and recklessness as opposites, and in fact these are in a way contrary to one another. iii.1.3 So clearly those who are described in terms of these states will likewise be contrary to one another – the coward, who is described in terms of being more fearful and less confident than one ought, and the reckless person, described in terms of being such as to be less fearful and more confident than one ought. This is where the term is derived from: the reckless person is named derivatively after recklessness.

iii.1.4 Courage is the best disposition with respect to fear and confidence. One should be neither like the reckless, who display deficiency with regard to the former and excess with regard to the latter, nor like cowards, who do the same, except not in the same respects but the other way around – they have a deficiency of confidence and an excess of fear. Hence it is clear that courage is the mean disposition between recklessness and cowardice, this being the best.