What Are We Fighting For: The Noble Goal of Courage in Aristotle's Ethics

Aristotle’s analysis of the virtue of courage presents a number of interpretative difficulties. The initial thesis that courage consists in overcoming the fear of death in the context of war for a worthy or noble cause will be analysed against several other, seemingly inconsistent, definitions of this virtue in the Nicomachean Ethics . The normative aspect of the present study aims at making sense of what could qualify as a noble goal of a fearless action for the Aristotelian model, given that one’s personal eudaimonia cannot be the goal of a warrior willing to sacrifice his life in battle. Reference to the intended proper end of courageous behaviour is one of the constitutive features of the Aristotelian holistic account of this virtue and this normative provision remains unexplained in the text. Two options are considered: (1) the noble goal of courage is an altruistic concern for the good of the polis ; (2) the goal of courage is personal honour (including postmortem glorification). It is argued that the second option is a better fit with the Aristotelian model of virtue ethics, which should be seen as a form of enlightened egoism.