Thoughts.
Many people think of courage or of heroic acts in the sense of instinctive physical courage – a scenario suddenly unfolds and the courageous hero springs into action, instantly and without a thought to the consequences to self, and performs some deed of self-sacrifice or, if not that, at least some risky action that has the potential for danger and self-sacrifice, benefitting others.
That’s all well and good, but is that real courage? Is that real heroism? Is an instinctive, reflex action, performed, as noted, “instantly and without a thought to the consequences to self,” really courageous? It would seem to me that true courage, true heroism, contains within it a full understanding of the risks involved, of the consequences, and does not always have to be a physical action. Indeed, it can be taking a political sand, speaking out even when at risk for doing so; the whole direction I’m thinking toward, whether the action is physical or not, is moral courage, action taken after deliberation and thought as to consequences. Of course, in some circumstances, the scenario unfolds so quickly that such deliberate thought is not possible, one must act or not act, now, and that’s all well and good and that can be viewed as courage if you will. But that’s not what I see as real courage, real heroism. And please note that by deliberation and thought this does not imply some particular length of time, one does not need to sit brooding and pondering for long time periods in order for an act to demonstrate real courage. Indeed, the deliberation and thought can consist merely of a few seconds, and if those few seconds are sufficient for a conscious decision making process then that is all that is required for genuine (moral) courage. The person is faced with a situation in which they can act thus or not thus and after a “moment” of deliberation (seconds or hours or years or whatever) they decide to act thus, and in acting thus do something that would be said to reflect courage and heroism.
A soldier throwing themselves on a grenade, instantly and without thinking, and thus saving their comrades may or may not be courage and heroism (I have my doubts), but a person seeing another being unjustly attacked and having that “moment” to decide, to deliberate, and then acts to defend the victim, that is, in my opinion, definitely courage.
To summarize, I see courage and heroism as incorporating within it some aspect of a conscious decision – it may be a very brief deliberation, it may be only a few seconds, but it should contain the option of “act thus or not thus” – with “acting thus” being something that has some element of risk and/or discomfort and that will help some other.
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