“If the specific character of fortitude consists in suffering injuries in the battle for the realization of the good, then the brave man must first know what the good is, and he must be brave for the sake of the good.”

The Virtues and Vices of Courage: Josef Pieper

by Matthew Anger

“Fortitude without justice is a source of evil.”—St. Thomas Aquinas

The great moralists tell us that a person’s strength is often the source of his greatest weakness, whether it is business acumen, artistic creativity, or physical excellence. Any of these things can be exercised too much or in the wrong way. The same is true of courage. A systematic analysis of this subject is provided by Thomistic philosopher Josef Pieper in his classic work The Four Cardinal Virtues (Ignatius Press). Pieper sums up the virtues in this way: “Prudence looks to all existent reality; justice to the fellow man; the man of fortitude relinquishes, in self-forgetfulness, his own possessions and life. Temperance… aims at each man himself.”

One of the best treatments of courage, and certainly the most famous, is Homer’s Iliad. When reading the epic poem there is no doubting the sheer audacity of the Achaeans besieging Troy, but at the same time these men represent a semi-barbarian warrior culture whose heroes are bent chiefly on plunder and revenge. Even the ancient Greek historian Herodotus argued that “the Greeks… were, in a military sense, the aggressors.” Centuries later the English Catholic poet Dryden put it more bluntly: “Science distinguishes a man of honour from one of those athletic brutes whom, undeservedly, we call heroes. Cursed be the poet, who first honoured with that name a mere Ajax, a man-killing idiot!”

For many readers, the most admirable champion of the Iliad is Hector rather than the superhuman Achilles. The former represents the domestic virtues of the settled and civilized culture of Troy, whereas Achilles and the Greeks are little more than marauding pirates. Only in the end does the ferocious Achilles relent somewhat as Priam, father of the fallen Hector, imparts to him a sense of decency and restraint in their shared grief over those slain in battle.

As Pieper explains, “Fortitude points to something prior.” It is a subordinate virtue. An example of this is Achilles’ chief failing—his petulant temper. It is the “wrath of Achilles Peleus’ son,” sung in the opening lines of the poem, which leads to so much disaster for the Greeks. At one point the god Apollo denounces the “abominable Achilles… who has no sense of decency, no mercy in his mind.” He lacks a healthy sense of shame and rages even against the “clay” of Hector’s dead body. By contrast, the Trojan Aineias in his duel with Achilles appears as a superior warrior for his laconic self-control. He chides Achilles for his incessant boastfulness, asking “why must we bandy curses like a couple of scolding wives?”

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