Virtue: Courageous; citizen-soldier (NE III)

The truly courageous is brave because it is noble to be brave [1116b: 2]. The truly courageous are predisposed to avoid the disgraceful and shameful [1116a: 30-33] and they act for honour or ‘noble objects’ [1116a: 29] because he has the right virtuous dispositions or state of character and knows what the noble ends are [1115b: 24]. As such, he will feel and act based on reason towards noble ends [1115b: 12]. Also as a corollary, he will then face his fears, fear the right things, with the right motive, in the right way and at the right time and feel confident correspondingly. But the citizen soldier on the other hand, do not the right state of character. According to Aristotle, they act based on fear and the painful [1116b: 31-33]. They thus act based on compulsion [1116b: 2] and not based on voluntary noble grounds. For instance, they may act because laws and penalties compelled them to [1116a: 19] or because their masters [1116a: 32] forced them in one way or another.