Courage is based in fear.

OH. That was a joke. (note to self: I'm supposed to laugh here, or at least smiley.) Hahaha. (Note: no sarcasm intended)

I am saying you shouldn't dismiss the possibility of there being another cause to courage. Hence your semantics should reflect that. It's true that "A is caused by X" isn't synonymous to "A is ONLY caused by X", but very often it comes across as the latter. (read: some people tend to misconstrue meanings, they like making strawmans)

There's another possibility. You may simply be inspired to achieve a goal, and though there are some things you fear, you overcome them nonetheless. In this situation you feel energized to move towards something, instead of moving away from something.

Forgive my miniscule knowledge of philosophy, but I think you can understand this motivation thing more if you read up on concupiscible passions vs irascible passions (Thomas Aquinas was one of the persons who explained this.)

The way you constructed your argument came across as "I am (subconsciously or consciously) afraid that this will happen to me, so I will be courageous and do X as a form of prophylaxis." While this statement is no doubt true (at least from my experience), it is not the only truth.

Originally Posted by Larxene

OH. That was a joke. (note to self: I'm supposed to laugh here, or at least smiley.) Hahaha. (Note: no sarcasm intended)

How can I be so sure you weren't being sarcastic when you said that no sarcasm was intended? (That indicates non seriousness. ...Great, now you have me doing it.)

I am saying you shouldn't dismiss the possibility of there being another cause to courage. Hence your semantics should reflect that. It's true that "A is caused by X" isn't synonymous to "A is ONLY caused by X", but very often it comes across as the latter. (read: some people tend to misconstrue meanings, they like making strawmans)

There's another possibility. You may simply be inspired to achieve a goal, and though there are some things you fear, you overcome them nonetheless. In this situation you feel energized to move towards something, instead of moving away from something.

Forgive my miniscule knowledge of philosophy, but I think you can understand this motivation thing more if you read up on concupiscible passions vs irascible passions (Thomas Aquinas was one of the persons who explained this.)

The way you constructed your argument came across as "I am (subconsciously or consciously) afraid that this will happen to me, so I will be courageous and do X as a form of prophylaxis." While this statement is no doubt true (at least from my experience), it is not the only truth.

I can accept that. Those were just possibilities I had not considered. And I'm obviously not as familiar with philosophy as you, as while I've heard of Aquinas, I'm not familiar with that concept. I also apologize if I overreacted, as I have my own insecurities.

(Here's where I should laugh some more to prove my point.) Hahahahahahaha .

No offense received. Well then, we're done.

"Courage is not the absence or fear, but the mastery of it." - Mark Twain.

the standard way of thinking:

courage is measured relative to fear. courage owes its existence to fear, because if fear did not exist, then the absence or overcoming of fear (either of which constitute courage) could not exist either.

fear need not be present in the individual who is displaying courage, because some people who take risks are not frightened by them, or are so focused on the thrill that they forget about the threat. it is merely the fact that it is common among people to fear something, that labels anything that appears unafraid of that something as "courage."

an alternate way of thinking:

"courage is knowing what not to fear." - Plato

fear is a matter of values. whatever means most to you will incite in you the most fear when it is threatened. therefore, one can choose between, or prioritize fears.

for instance, if you fear, more than anything else, that your loved ones may be harmed, if their safety was threatened, you may put your own safety at risk in order to ensure theirs. you have prioritized the fear that they will be harmed higher than the fear that you will be harmed, because you value their safety above all.

sometimes a person can only overcome a crippling, unhealthy fear by trading it for a higher priority, more dangerous, legitimate fear. if the original fear doesn't actually disappear but just lessens in its control, then this all is the same as shuffling fear priorities (as discussed above).

case in point: a kid who gets involved in crime because his friends are pressuring him to do so, and he's too afraid to lose his popularity or their friendship/acceptance to say no...if he trades his fear of his friends' response to him for a fear of what will happen if the policemen catch him doing this stuff, by really developing and feeding the latter fear with information about prison sentences and the like, he will have overcome a crippling fear with a more healthy fear/respect.

Fascinating conversation. I'll use the definition my comrade gave to me: "Courage is having fear but going anyway. You are afraid for yourself, but your love for others overcomes that fear."

Love for others isn't the only thing that overcomes fear. Love for self (in the form of healthy narcissim) can also overcome fear.

@emerald sea:

Yes. People often see some things that others do as courageous because they themselves fear them. In no way does this mean that others will fear the same thing that they do. This is the effect of egocentrism or to some extent ethnocentrism (we may have confirmed our fears with some people within our community).

I do agree with the second point to some extent, though I don't know if prioritizing his legal safety over his popularity is necessarily more 'healthy'.

One possible scenario is that he experiences the repercussions of rule-breaking which is severe enough for him to see such future acts as reckless and unproductive, and he learns to despise other people (by associating them with the negative emotions produced by the negative outcome) who would ask him to do such things and avoids associating with such people in the future.

You can generally see a pattern: these people who do X, Y, Z are more likely to do A, B, C. In science and math we call it correlation.

Another way to phrase my response to the "we subconsciously fear something, and it manifests as a desire to do something (courageous)" by Gardevoir:

The direction of causality can be bi-directional. Fear can cause desire, and desire can cause fear. Let me expound on the latter. We can only have fears if we have desires. If we desire nothing, we fear nothing either, except perhaps instinctually, which is the manifestation of our body's desire to protect itself. When we desire something so strongly, this strong desire will generate the fear that we may not be able to achieve the desire. This is (amusingly) similar to Newton's Third Law: action and reaction are equal and opposite.

Edit for perspective:
Courage some times means just doing something. Anything. Even if it will ultimately fail.

Some times it means that even if your'e a fireman who is alone because of under staffing and cuts, you get in that truck by yourself and go to that fire anyway.

Hmm. I suppose courage is just survival, however, I think selfish vs selfless courage are some good terms to throw out there..