What Is Courage According to Plato?

For Plato, courage (andreia) is one of the four cardinal virtues, and it is more than fearlessness. Plato treats it as a kind of right understanding of what really is and is not to be feared. His fullest discussions are in two works: the Laches, a dialogue devoted to the question “what is courage?”, and Book IV of the Republic, where courage is the virtue of the spirited part of the soul and of the city’s defenders. Plato offers more than one account rather than a single settled definition, and that is part of what makes the topic interesting.

A note on a common mistake: the Nicomachean Ethics, which also discusses courage at length, is by Aristotle, not Plato. Aristotle’s account (Book III) is a separate tradition, and some accounts of “Plato’s” view of courage are really his.

What does the Laches say about courage?

In the Laches two Athenian generals, Laches and Nicias, are asked by Socrates to say what courage is, prompted by the question of whether boys should learn fighting in armour (190d-e). Three answers are tried:

1. Standing firm in the ranks. Laches’ first answer is that the courageous man does not leave his post but fights the enemy. Socrates points out that soldiers sometimes fight bravely by retreating, and that courage appears outside war too (190e onward).
2. Endurance of the soul. Laches then says courage is a kind of endurance (192b-c). Socrates objects that foolish endurance does harm, so the endurance must be intelligent or “wise” endurance (192d). Even this proves troublesome, because a person who endures with expert knowledge of the risks can look less brave than an ignorant one.
3. Knowledge of what is to be feared and dared. Nicias, who has heard Socrates say that each person is good in what he knows, proposes that courage is a kind of knowledge of what is fearful and what is encouraging (194e-195a). Socrates then argues that this knowledge would have to cover all goods and evils, past, present and future (198d-199e), which looks like the whole of virtue rather than one part of it.

The dialogue ends without a settled definition, in the state Greek philosophers call aporia (see 199e). Socrates concludes that they have not yet found what courage is. Nicias’ proposal is nonetheless the one closest to the view that appears elsewhere in Plato. In the Protagoras Socrates argues that courage is knowledge of what is and is not to be feared (360d). See also why Plato might have written the Laches.

What does the Republic say about courage?

In Republic IV (429a-430c) the city’s courage resides in its guardian-soldiers, the auxiliaries. Their courage is the power to preserve, through pleasure and pain, desire and fear, the right and lawful belief about what is and is not to be feared that education has instilled in them. Plato likens this to wool dyed in a fast colour that will not wash out (429d-430b). So courage here is partly a matter of upbringing and conviction: it keeps the right opinion in place when fear or pleasure tries to dislodge it.

The same account is then applied to the individual soul (442b-c). A person is courageous when the spirited part holds on, in the face of pains and pleasures, to what reason has declared about what is and is not to be feared. This links courage to the spirited part of the soul and shows why it is not independent of the other virtues: it takes its direction from wisdom, and it belongs in a soul whose parts are in good order. Plato calls this “civic” or political courage (430c) and says it can be examined more fully another time, which implies a higher kind grounded in knowledge rather than belief; the Phaedo (68c-69c) contrasts the philosopher’s courage with that of people who are brave only out of fear of something worse. For the wider scheme, see the cardinal virtues and why the Republic is a key work.

Is courage just a matter of being brave in battle?

No. The Laches starts from battlefield examples but quickly moves away from them. Socrates asks Laches to include the courage of people at sea, in illness, in poverty and in politics (191d-e), so that courage cannot simply be soldiers’ stamina. In the Republic, by contrast, the virtue is assigned most clearly to the military class, because defending the city is their role, although the account of the individual soul (442b-c) makes courage possible for any person whose spirit holds to reason’s judgment. Both texts connect courage with what a person believes or knows about value, not only with his temperament.

Why does Plato link courage with knowledge?

Because a person who fears the wrong things, or fails to fear what is truly harmful, is not courageous however steady he looks. Plato’s view is that fear and confidence can be directed well or badly, and that reason is what directs them well. This is also why courage on its own, cut off from wisdom and justice, is a risky quality in Plato’s eyes. It does not mean that a person must understand everything before acting bravely. It means that what makes an act courageous, as opposed to merely bold, is the correct evaluation behind it.

How does Socrates’ own example fit?

Plato’s picture of Socrates is of a man who is brave on campaign as well as in argument. In the Laches itself, Laches praises Socrates’ conduct during the retreat from Delium (181a-b), an account supported by Plato’s Symposium (220e-221b). In the Apology Socrates treats the fear of death as a pretence of wisdom, since no one knows whether death is a good or an evil (29a-b), and says he will hold his post as the god has assigned it (28d-29a). See the Apology and the ethics of dissent.

Summary

• Courage in Plato is a virtue concerned with fear, and it depends on correct judgment of what is worth fearing.
• The Laches tests definitions (holding position, wise endurance, knowledge of the fearful and the hopeful) and ends without a final answer.
• In Republic IV, courage is the preservation of right belief about what to fear, found in the guardians and in the spirited part of the soul.
• The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle’s work, not Plato’s.