Life is hard. There is an important insight in this simple truism. What difficulties you face, how big they are, and how well you face them all vary. But it is a universal feature of human life that you will face difficulty. Facing difficulty is an innerworldly activity that is encountered by all persons of whatever time period or culture. Therefore, the ability to face difficulties well is essential to a good life. The cardinal virtue fortitude is, most simply put, a habit that enables you to face difficulties well.

The purpose of this chapter is to define and explain the cardinal virtue of fortitude. Most people have a ready grasp of the basic meaning of this virtue. The first section will explore in more detail the different components, assumptions, and characteristics of this virtue. In order to do so it will focus on more obvious, extraordinary examples of fortitude, such as laying down one’s life. But then the second section of this chapter applies the lessons of the first section to everyday occasions for fortitude. It will become clear that this virtue is not simply for extraordinary occasions, but rather is needed on a daily basis. It will also become clear how this virtue is needed for the exercise of the other cardinal virtues, a claim we ran across once already, with prudence. Thus the second section concludes with a brief explanation of a classical claim in morality called the unity of the virtues, which is a fitting way to conclude the last chapter in this book’s first half on the cardinal virtues.

This section explores in depth the cardinal virtue fortitude. Fortitude is synonymous with bravery and courage. Fortitude is most basically defined as the virtue that enables one to face obstacles or difficulties well. The brave person is not swayed by trials and tribulations from her pursuit or grasp of goodness. So fortitude may also be defined as the ability to suffer hardship well, whether the hardship is bodily or otherwise. Any time you have called someone brave, or tried yourself to be more courageous, you have been dealing with the virtue fortitude. The terms fortitude, bravery, and courage (and their adjective forms) will be used interchangeably in this chapter.

Though you certainly have a basic grasp of what fortitude is, the virtue is more complex than you might expect, and rewards deeper inquiry. This first section will explore several interesting facets of this cardinal virtue, including different models of fortitude, assumptions implicit in praising fortitude, its essential parts, and its relationship to suffering, fear, prudence, and justice.

Rival Models of Fortitude

As will be explored in more depth in the second section of this chapter, there are countless occasions for fortitude in everyday life. But in order to more easily examine the characteristics, acts, and assumptions of fortitude, the focus in this first section will be on the model act, or best example, of fortitude. What is that model act? Since fortitude is the ability to face difficulties, or suffer hardship, well, and since death is the ultimate human hardship, the willingness to lay down one’s life in pursuit of the good has always been seen as the model act of fortitude. For the Greeks and Romans, the ultimate act of fortitude was the willingness to lay down one’s life on the battlefield in service to the polis or republic. What made this the exemplary act of fortitude was both the magnitude of the hardship suffered (death), and the magnitude of the good that the hardship is suffered for, namely, the common good of one’s country. The greater the hardship and the greater the cause, the greater the act of fortitude. So, for these ancient peoples the willingness to suffer death for one’s countrymen was the ultimate act of fortitude.

In the Christian tradition, fortitude is praised as highly as in non-Christian cultures. But the Christian understanding of the model of fortitude is different due to the different Christian view of what is most important in life. Though Christians can surely praise the bravery of the soldier in a just war, for Christians it is the martyr, not the soldier on the battlefield, who is the model of fortitude. A martyr is someone who is killed for his faith. The classic examples of Christian martyrs are those in the early church (St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Per-petua, St. Felicity, and thousands of others) who were killed for their faith. The martyr, like the soldier, is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, namely, her life. Yet the cause for which the martyr lays down her life is God, who is more excellent than one’s country. Such a willingness to die for the sake of the ultimate truth is seen even in Socrates, who lays down his life in adherence to the truth, even in defiance of the countrymen.For more on non-Christian examples of laying down one’s life in service to the truth, see John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor (Encyclical Letter, 1993), 94. Here we have a foretaste of the Christian recognition of martyrdom over even death on a battlefield as exemplary of fortitude. But of course Christian martyrs do not lay down their lives for a philosophical notion of truth, but rather for the personal God who became flesh in Jesus Christ, with whom the martyr is united in his suffering. This discussion of Christian fortitude anticipates the second half of this book, which focuses not only on the distinctively Christian theological virtues, but also the transformation of even the cardinal virtues in light of Christian faith.This argument about the transformation of the cardinal virtues in light of faith is made extensively in chapter 16. For now it suffices to note that in praising fortitude one must attend both to the hardship faced and to the cause for which one faces it.

Implicit Assumptions in Praising Fortitude

Before examining further the causes for which one is brave, it is worth noting two assumptions that we make when praising fortitude. First, the brave person is by definition vulnerable. He has something to lose. If this were not the case, there would be no difficulty to face, and no possibility of hardship. To consider an example from the movies, Superman is not properly called brave. Given that bullets bounce off him and he is indestructible to villains, we may praise Superman’s pursuit of justice, but not his fortitude. I was recently reminded by a student that even Superman is vulnerable in the presence of kryptonite, and so perhaps we can call him brave. Fair enough. Nonetheless, the point should be clear that for us non-super people, it is our vulnerability that makes fortitude even a possibility.

Second, the brave person assumes that what she does matters. In other words, if the brave person thought that no matter what she did, it would all turn out fine in the end, then presumably she would not place herself in harm’s way, or take a stand that would involve personal cost. Why bother if it ultimately does not matter in the end?

Therefore when we praise someone as brave we are assuming two things. First, the brave person is vulnerable because he can suffer. Second, the good that the brave person seeks or maintains is not guaranteed or assured. It requires sacrifice to be reached or maintained. These two presuppositions are quite evident in the life of Martin Luther King Jr., whose life is relatively well known among us today. King is an outstanding modern example of fortitude, so his life will be used repeatedly as an example of fortitude in this chapter.

King was clearly vulnerable. He and his followers suffered taunts, jeers, and broader threats to their reputations. They endured jail sentences and physical abuse, even at the hands of authorities. King obviously made the ultimate sacrifice in his pursuit of social justice when he was killed for his work. These hardships of varying kinds and degrees make it clear that King was vulnerable. Those who have read King’s work also know that he was quite aware of what he was suffering, and even of the possibility of his own death. Yet he was willing to endure these hardships due to the importance of his cause, and his belief that the cause would not necessarily “win out” without such sacrifice. If King thought racial equality would certainly be achieved in this nation no matter what, then his actions would be foolish. Thus his actions reveal his belief that his cause, while important and true, would not necessarily win out without sacrifice by people committed to the cause.

Fortitude: Praising Suffering?

Though the Western tradition has been consistent in its praise of people who are willing to lay down their lives, what is being praised here is not injury, hardship, or suffering in itself. As Augustine once said, it is “not the injury, but the cause, that makes martyrs.”See St. Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos 34,13, cited in Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 125. The point, which is relevant for all brave people, is that suffering is not good in itself. The truly brave person appreciates the goodness of whatever she is willing to sacrifice, be it her reputation, her health, or even her life. These goods are not dismissed casually. Yet the brave person is willing to forfeit these goods, and thus suffer harm, only for the sake of pursuing or guarding something even greater.

Therefore, what exactly is being praised in the courageous is his dogged pursuit and grasp of the most important goods in life (faith, social justice, fellow citizens, etc.), even in the face of losing important but lesser goods (such as one’s health, reputation, or even life). It is not the suffering itself that is praised. In fact, if we learned that a brave person actually escaped unharmed, we would not cease to praise his fortitude, and we would even be relieved that he did not suffer injury. It may seem that we more commonly do praise those who actually have suffered and/or died, but this is likely due to the fact that fortitude is most obvious in these people, since the harm they suffered for the sake of their goal is most obvious. It is possible to wonder if someone who did not actually suffer great loss would have been willing to do so had that opportunity arose. Of course, they may indeed have been so willing. But there is no doubt that those who do suffer and/or die are so willing. The point here is that what is praised in the brave is not their loss but their willingness to suffer hardship in seeking or guarding some important good; and this is true even though we may in fact more often praise those who do end up suffering.

For precisely this reason—that it is not suffering itself that is praised when we acknowledge the brave—the virtuous person does not seek to lay down her life. She is willing to lay down her life, but it is not what she seeks. If the primary goal, or intention, were to lay down her life, this would be a careless disrespect for life’s preciousness. But for the martyr or soldier, the primary goal is to seek or protect something even more precious that warrants being willing to lay down her life, should that occasion arise. One twentieth-century thinker tells the powerful story of how early church leaders positively forbid Christians to report themselves to the Roman authorities to be martyred.Ibid., 118–19. Why not, if becoming a martyr is the greatest act of fortitude? Because martyrdom was never to be sought, only endured if thrust upon one. In fact, saints such as Ambrose and Augustine taught that should someone seek martyrdom (presumably to glorify themselves as heroic and faithful—see the importance of intention yet again!), then the Lord who provides the gift of strength for those who endure martyrdom would actually withdraw that gift of strength, presumably leading the would-be martyr to wither.

The Necessity of Prudence and Justice for Fortitude

This treatment of fortitude has repeatedly insisted that the brave person has an accurate grasp of the relative importance of different goods in life (faith, country, health, reputation, etc.). This enables him to judge rightly when lesser goods are to be sacrificed for greater goods. For this reason, the virtue of prudence is essential for the courageous person. Recall that the virtue of prudence enables one to see things rightly so as to act well, and that one of its functions is to enable one to grasp rightly the relative importance of different things in one’s life. The brave person therefore needs prudence to be able to accurately assess what goods are more or less important.

Consider an obvious (and tragically true-to-life) example to illustrate the necessity of prudence. Two teenage boys are driving their respective automobiles toward each other at high speed, playing a game of chicken. If fortitude were simply the willingness to lay down one’s life, this would be a fine example of courage. But, of course, most people would see this as a stupid and potentially tragic game. There are no true goods at stake here that justify such a dangerous activity. Of course, the young men might see things differently, judging either that their reputation among friends and their bravado are indeed quite important, or that they won’t really lose their lives. Both would be errors of judgment, and examples of imprudence. Even when a genuine good is at stake, a person must be prudent to exercise true fortitude. The soldier who rashly storms a machine gun nest over hundreds of yards of open ground, with no chance to overcome the enemy, may fight for an important cause and be well-intentioned. But prudence is needed to know when and how to fight, as well as what is truly worth fighting for.

The notion of what is truly worth fighting for raises a hotly contested issue: the relationship between fortitude and justice. Ambrose famously said, “Fortitude without justice is a lever of evil.”Ibid., 125. Fortitude has traditionally only been considered true fortitude when it is just. In other words, those who pursue injustice simply cannot be truly brave, even though they are willing to suffer hardship for their cause. For example, a thief may risk life or limb while committing crime. But though this is a willingness to suffer while facing difficulties, it is not true fortitude, since it is for the sake of injustice.

This is a challenging claim because it means someone must not only think what they are willing to suffer for is truly good, but it must actually be truly good in order for the person to be rightly called brave. Given contemporary world events, the question can be worded this way: can a suicide bomber who lays down his life killing civilians at a bus stop, or by destroying a building, be called “brave?” Clearly there is a willingness to lay down one’s life. But is this enough? Some people may try to get around this difficult question by answering that as long as the person sincerely believes he is pursuing a truly just cause through truly just means, the person may then be called just. Here our analysis of conscience from chapter 5 helps. This person is acting on what we would call an erroneous conscience. He really believes he is acting rightly, but he is not. Let us even say that the person is invincibly ignorant. In other words, he could not have known better, and so he is not blameworthy for his ignorance. But is he truly brave?

It may be tempting to say he is. And clearly there are some similarities to true bravery here. Most obviously, there is a willingness to sacrifice, and even a willingness to do so in what is understood, wrongly, to be a just manner. But recall from above what is actually being praised in recognizing fortitude. It is not the suffering, or even willingness to suffer, but rather that for which one is willing to suffer. The unjust person may be deluded and may even be invincibly ignorant. But to praise him would necessarily mean praising that for which he acts and the way in which he does it. And given the case laid out here, such praising we must not do.

Of course, this means that many debates over the possibility of fortitude in suicide bombers, kamikaze pilots, and American soldiers in Iraq will really be debates over whether those conflicts are just, a topic explored in the previous and following chapters. That is a separate debate. The claim here is simply that a willingness to lay down one’s life, even in a selfless manner, does not necessarily constitute fortitude, since fortitude relies on justice to truly be a virtue. This claim points us to the concluding lines of this chapter on the unity of the virtues.

Fortitude and Fear

Before proceeding to examine how fortitude is needed in everyday life, two further points on this virtue are necessary. First, does the brave person experience fear? Recall the discussion in chapter 4 on the nature of emotions, and how they are judgments of a certain sort. It other words, their very arousal indicates that a person perceives, often unconsciously, that a certain state of affairs exists around him. For instance, experiencing fear means something. It means the fearful person perceives himself in a situation where he is threatened, experiences certain associated bodily changes (racing heartbeat, sweaty palms, etc.), and is inclined to flee the perceived threat. Should a brave person experience this emotion of fear?

Given the above claims about the vulnerability of the brave person, and the genuine goodness of what may be lost, it is completely reasonable for a brave person to experience fear. Further still, if a person who is truly in a situation where he is threatened does not experience fear, it would indicate a failure to accurately perceive the situation and thus a failure of prudently seeing things rightly. Aquinas calls such a person foolhardy, and claims this foolhardiness is a vice actually opposed to fortitude. Foolhardiness looks like fortitude because one is willing to continue to pursue some good even in the face of difficulty. But the problem here is that this is done without an adequate realization of the danger present, or an adequate appreciation for the value of the goods (health, life, reputation, etc.) that may be lost. The brave person experiences fear precisely because he understands the value of what is threatened, and the reality of the danger at hand.

Of course, saying the brave person experiences fear does not mean he flees in cowardice. The emotion of fear entails an inclination to flee. But that inclination can be resisted, and indeed it should be if a greater good is at risk that is worth fighting for. The brave person may, and indeed should, experience fear. But he does not act on that fear and flee. He overcomes the fear so as to face the difficulties at hand, being willing to suffer in doing so. Not so with the coward. Cowardice is another vice opposed to fortitude. Like the brave person (and unlike the foolhardy person), the coward does realize the value of what may be lost, and the magnitude of the present danger. But unlike the brave person the coward does not stand fast and endure in the face of the threat. The coward cuts and runs in the face of difficulty.

Consider Martin Luther King Jr. to better understand the place of fear in the brave person’s life. Was King ever scared? I would submit that if he never experienced fear for his life, then he was a less virtuous person. King knew his life was in danger; he knew he and his family had received bomb threats; and he knew that he and his followers would suffer in their pursuit of justice. If that impending suffering did not arouse fear, then King would not have accurately assessed his situation, and the value of his life. He would have been foolhardy, and not brave. Of course, given his prudence in other areas of life, I can only assume he did indeed accurately assess both the threat and the value of what was threatened. If so, he did indeed experience fear, but unlike the coward he stood fast in pursuit of an even greater good. King’s life provides a fine example of how virtue lies in the mean: neither foolhardiness, nor cowardice, but rather fortitude.

The Two Main Parts of Fortitude

One last consideration for this section concerns the odd claim of Aquinas that there are two main parts of being courageous, of having the virtue fortitude. Though the brave person may exhibit only one of these at a time, she must be willing and able to do both to be truly brave. Explaining these will help us further understand fortitude, and lead us into the next section on its application to more everyday examples.

One of the two parts of fortitude is attack, the part of fortitude in which the difficulty at hand is faced well by seeking to eliminate or remove it. The difficulty at hand poses a hardship by threatening certain goods a person has or is seeking. The person with fortitude acts to remove that threat. This resonates with our common vision of fortitude as something a soldier has. The brave person recognizes a threat to something precious, such as one’s nation and countrymen. She thus fights that threat to protect what is threatened. The soldier clearly does this with an invading enemy. Consider also the firefighter entering a burning building. She sees the threat to life and, if she is truly brave, experiences fear. But she also refuses to let that fear debilitate her as she enters the building to fight off the fire and eliminate the threat to people’s lives. These are classic examples of attack.Note there is an important place for prudence here. If lives are threatened, or the fire may spread to devour a neighborhood, entering the building and putting her life on the line may well be brave. But if the fire were in an isolated empty building that was already damaged beyond repair, entering the building and risking her life to extinguish the flames would be imprudent and thus foolhardy. Better to let it burn itself out.

The other part of fortitude is endurance. Aquinas describes endurance as “standing immovably in the midst of dangers.”Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, English Dominican trans. (New York: Benziger, 1948), II–II 123,6. Endurance is hanging in there in the face of hardship. It is not weak passivity. To the contrary, it is a resilient clutching to what is precious even when it is threatened and one is suffering. It is truly a part of fortitude because it is prudently and justly facing a difficulty well. On certain occasions it is either impossible or imprudent to attack the cause of difficulty, and so one simply endures without letting one’s spirit be broken. An obvious example of endurance would be the prisoner of war who maintains resolve despite captivity and abuse.

Endurance seems less obviously a part of fortitude to us than attack. But Aquinas actually claims that endurance, not attack, is the primary part of fortitude, mainly because it is more difficult than attack. He offers three reasons for this claim. First, attack implies that one has at least the possibility of overcoming the difficulty, while endurance implies a stronger threat that can only be endured. Second, one who endures already experiences the difficulty directly, whereas one who attacks may be acting to prevent suffering to come. Finally, endurance implies greater duration of time, whereas attack may consist of punctuated actions. We could add that when the time and possibility of attack are gone, it is still possible to endure. For all these reasons, endurance is the primary of the two main parts of fortitude.

The following example of both attack and endurance should help further illuminate both parts, demonstrate the primacy of endurance, and lead us into the final section of the chapter on fortitude in everyday life. Consider a patient diagnosed with life-threatening cancer. This is clearly an occasion for fortitude, since he faces a great difficulty and has the opportunity to suffer this hardship well or poorly. He is vulnerable and has something to lose. His health and chance of survival depend in no small part on how he will respond to his diagnosis, so how he acts does indeed matter. He is quite afraid, but does not let it debilitate him. With the help of others, he prudently understands his situation accurately and makes good decisions.

The patient begins by learning all about his disease in order to fight it as best he can. This is a classic example of attack. The cancer threatens his life and he seeks to eliminate that threat. He educates himself, exercises, eats well, and receives treatment. Of course, at moments when he is not reading, exercising, or seeing doctors he must endure. Though the ultimate injury, death, may be avoidable, in a very real sense suffering is already present. In the quiet moments especially, he must endure and not let his spirit be crushed. Thus bravery in this situation requires acts of both attack and endurance.

Eventually, however, it may become clear that though he has fought the good fight, the cancer has significantly advanced to the terminal stage and will soon take his life. Further treatment will no longer help. The time for attack has passed. And yet endurance remains. We sometimes speak of the terminally ill being brave in their facing of death, and this seems odd given the more militant models of fortitude that are forefront on our minds. But the story of this patient perfectly reveals how fortitude is not only for soldiers, and why Aquinas is correct that endurance is the primary part of fortitude. The patient bravely faces his impending death. Perhaps there is strengthening of family bonds or needed reconciliation. There may be spiritual and/or sacramental preparation. There is certainly a refusal to let the impending enemy of death destroy what goods in life there are still available. Eventually the person passes from this life having exemplified fortitude to the end.

A helpful way to end this section on fortitude (and especially its two parts) is with the famous Serenity Prayer of Alcoholics Anonymous, both because it is so widely known from speaking to our experience, and because it perfectly exemplifies points made here, such as fortitude’s need for prudence and its two parts. The prayer is:

God, grant me
The serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.

It is fitting that this prayer is treated under the virtue fortitude, since the condition of having alcoholism is certainly a hardship. It is also fitting that we seek God’s help—“God, grant me . . .”—on such occasions (but that is a topic for the second half of this book). Look carefully at what is asked here, and with some minor changes in terminology you will see summarized some key points of this section. The serenity to accept the things I cannot change is the same as endurance. There are certain hardships in the alcoholic’s life (and in all our lives) that cannot be eliminated or removed. Thus we must endure them. Serenity is stability in the face of hardship, which keeps one’s spirit from being crushed. It is endurance, the primary act of fortitude that is fittingly placed at the start of this prayer.

The prayer then asks for “courage to change the things I can [change].” The prayer employs the term courage (synonymous with fortitude) for effecting change, and this is certainly a crucial part of fortitude. It is one of the two parts: attack. In asking to change what can be changed, presumably to remove the hardship at hand, the person is asking for assistance in attack. Finally, the prayer asks for the “wisdom to know the difference.” We might add “practical” to wisdom, and then clearly see that the person praying is asking for prudence. He is asking for the help to see things clearly, so as to be able to act rightly. He wants to accurately differentiate what can be changed so as to act accordingly with attack, and what cannot be changed so as to act accordingly with endurance. Without prudence a person cannot have fortitude, and thus the prayer fittingly ends with a plea for this charioteer of the virtues. In sum, the Serenity Prayer is a prayer for fortitude, which illuminates both parts of fortitude and the necessity of prudence for this virtue.

The examples of the cancer patient and the alcoholic extend our notion of fortitude beyond the martyr’s execution site or the soldier’s battlefield. Nonetheless, the difficulties faced here are still enormous. In most cases, the hardship faced is death itself. As noted at the start of the chapter, the ability to face death well is indeed the model act of fortitude. But there are far more ordinary and everyday occasions for fortitude. They are worth reflecting on here, lest one think that fortitude is only for extraordinary moments, and only a rare possibility in life.

A Broader Understanding of Fortitude

The difficulties and hardships that are faced in life are many, and can be minor as well as major. Consider one of the classic sub-virtues of fortitude, patience. Aquinas claims the patient person does not become overcome with sorrow while facing difficulties. One modern moralist elaborates on this and says that “to be patient means to preserve cheerfulness and serenity of mind in spite of injuries that result from the realization of the good.”Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, 129. Patience is a type of endurance.Pieper notes (129–30) that while patience is important, it is only a sub-virtue of fortitude, since fortitude includes both endurance and attack. And while the brave person is always patient when need be, the patient person may or may not be virtuous in knowing how and when to attack. Patience is evident in even the littlest things in life, like waiting in line at the store. While pursuing the simple good of obtaining needed things for her family, a mother may face difficulties in having that goal hindered by a long line, or a less-than-competent salesperson. The patient person bears this in stride, not letting her cheerfulness and serenity of mind be overcome by, for instance, making rude comments, becoming irritable, or doing something rash. This is obviously a minute example of facing difficulties well. But the patient person is prudent enough to see that the difficulty at hand is miniscule, and is not troubled inordinately. The impatient person, on the other hand, may become irritable, try to cut in line, or lash out at those around him. He has not faced this difficulty well.

We have now gone from the extraordinary to the most ordinary and everyday. There are many occasions for fortitude in between, where the difficulty faced is far more serious than having to wait a few extra minutes in line, but still not be life-threatening. During exams a student may face great difficulty and stress. But the brave student will step up and prudently study hard (attack), while also not being overcome by the stress (endurance). A lack of fortitude could be seen in this situation in countless ways: simply staying in bed to avoid the stress, unjustly stealing notes to make studying easily, imprudently trying to re-read everything to prepare for the exam, and so on. Some anxiety or fear will indeed be felt by the courageous student in exam period, but he will not be overcome by it.

Numerous other difficulties come to mind that can be faced well or poorly. Asking a question in class can be an occasion for fortitude, if one fears looking silly. It may take bravery to talk to a professor about a contested grade. A job search is a stressful process that poses difficulties to be faced well. An athlete in training must be willing to endure hardship to excel in a sport. Being a virtuous family member surely calls for fortitude, since family life is difficult at times. One needs patience to endure another’s annoying characteristics or even intentionally harmful acts. Endurance is needed, as no family is perfect, but attack is needed too, since at times disagreements must be addressed head-on, and people must be lovingly confronted with their harmful acts.

Confronting friends can be a particularly difficult challenge that calls for courage. Telling someone they drank too much to drive is difficult, but also prudent and just. Standing up for someone in the face of peer pressure can be very brave, particularly in the teenage years. Dating relationships, too, are ripe with occasions for fortitude. Being faithful, attentive, and lending an ear may all be experienced as difficult at times, but are all needed for a relationship to grow. On the other hand, at times a relationship may have run its course, and the brave thing to do would be to end it, even though it is difficult and may seem easier to just keep the status quo.

Basically any situation where one experiences difficulty is an occasion for fortitude. One broad arena for this virtue should be mentioned last: fortitude is needed for progress in the virtuous life. Recall the discussion of habits and developing virtuous desires in chapters 3 and 4. When one has a bad habit, acting badly feels natural. A vice, rather than a virtue, has become second nature to the person. Performing good acts for good reasons, to overcome a vice and develop a virtue, is difficult. But trying to remove sources of temptation so as to act positively (attack), and standing fast even when one is tempted to do otherwise (endurance), are occasions to display fortitude. Development in the virtuous life would be impossible without fortitude. In fact, Theresa of Avila is reported to have said “an imperfect human being needs more fortitude to pursue the way of perfection than suddenly to become a martyr.”Ibid., 137. Here we are reminded again of Aquinas’s claim that endurance is the primary act of fortitude. In sum, fortitude is a crucial part of living a virtuous life, even for those of us who will never be called to literally lay down our lives in service to our nations or to our faith.

The Unity of the Virtues

Repeatedly throughout this chapter the connection has been made between fortitude and some other cardinal virtue, a connection that works both ways, so to speak. On the one hand, true fortitude requires the presence of the other cardinal virtues. We noted earlier how prudence and justice are required. The same may be said of temperance. If one is immoderately attracted to certain sensible goods, it will be impossible to face difficulties well, since those difficulties will include the sacrifice of those very sensible pleasures one is too attached to.

On the other hand, fortitude is needed in order to fully possess the other three cardinal virtues. This point was just made with regard to temperance. Becoming free of an overreliance on sensible pleasures will entail refusing to partake in those pleasures, and that is difficult. Fortitude enables us to stick with it. In this chapter we repeatedly referred to Martin Luther King, Jr., and his fortitude in pursuing racial equality. If he was not brave, he would not have been able to be so just. This is true of every occasion for justice in our lives, even in cases far less extreme than King’s. Finally, we certainly need fortitude to be prudent. That may sound odd. But recall that seeing things rightly in order to act well entails such things as remembering things accurately, and being docile in listening to mentors. To the extent that these are difficult (and no one likes hearing what they do not want to hear even if it is—or especially if it is!—true), fortitude is necessary.

Therefore it should be clear that in order to have one of the four cardinal virtues fully, one must have the other three as well. The virtues are organically interconnected. This basic claim is common throughout the Western moral tradition, in Christian and non-Christian thinkers alike. It is called the unity of the virtues. The claim is not that there really is only one virtue. The claim is that there is such interconnectedness among the four cardinal virtues that full possession of any one cardinal virtue requires possession of the others.This seemingly straightforward claim is actually articulated in importantly different ways throughout the Western tradition. For a helpful overviews of different ways it is expressed in classical ethical thought, see Julia Annas’s Morality of Happiness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 66–84.

Fortitude is a virtue that seems easy to grasp once we realize it is the same as bravery and courage. Yet a closer analysis of its parts, its assumptions, its model acts, and its relationship to other virtues reveals what a rich cardinal virtue this is. It also reveals how necessary it is for ordinary life, as well as extraordinary situations. Because life is difficult, fortitude essential for living a good life. To the extent that this chapter helps you better understand the nature of fortitude, it is hoped you will be better able to live it out.

Life in general is hard, but the good life, which is the moral life, can be particularly hard at times. Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on moral theology, Veritatis Splendor, with its concluding reflection on martyrdom, demonstrates the crucial importance of fortitude for living the virtuous life. He claims that the martyr (a term derived for the Greek word for “witness”) witnesses to the truth by refusing to participate in evil despite the genuine goodness of what may be lost by (life, health, etc.), and the suffering entailed in, such witness. Though this is most obvious in the example of those who literally lay down their lives, John Paul recognizes few are called to this. Yet there are countless little deaths (which do not feel so little when experienced) by people who are steadfast in the virtuous life, even in the most ordinary circumstances.In ways discussed in the second half of this book, Christianity has always understood all these deaths as connected to the cross of Jesus Christ. By giving such witness, virtuous people proclaim more loudly than words the beauty of the good life. They know and live the truth, and it sets them free.

1. Define fortitude. What are model acts of fortitude, and what does a people’s model of fortitude reveal about what they hold most important?

2. Does the Christian martyr want to die? Why or why not? Why is the brave person willing to suffer?

3. Why is it essential that fortitude be connected to prudence and justice?

4. Are the brave ones fearless? Why or why not?

5. What are the two basic parts of fortitude? Which is the primary one and why?

6. What does patience have to do with fortitude?

7. Give three examples from everyday life that require fortitude, and say how each illustrates some claim about fortitude made in the first section of the chapter.

8. Explain what is meant by the unity of the virtues. Give an example of this claim.

fortitude, martyr, foolhardiness, cowardice, attack, endurance, unity of the virtues

1. What is at stake in the debate over whether people who are willing to lay down their lives for an unjust cause that they think is just are truly brave? Where do you stand on that question?

2. According to chapter 4, we can habituate our emotional responses. So if a person was fully virtuous, why can’t the person get to the point of feeling no fear on occasions when it is indeed virtuous to fight. In other words, is the presence of fear a sign that one is not fully brave or virtuous?

3. The classical thesis of the unity of the virtues seems circular. It seems one must have every other virtue in order to fully have a particular cardinal virtue. But those other ones cannot be fully possessed unless the virtue one seeks is fully had! Does this mean there is no true unity of the virtues? If so, what of the seeming reliance of each virtue on the others? If not, then how to avoid this circularity?

4. Having read this chapter on fortitude, how might it apply to the discussions of war and peace in the previous two chapters. Can a nonviolent resister be brave? How? How can a just-war advocate be brave, with regard to both attack and endurance?

In his Summa Theologiae II–II 123–40, Aquinas devotes a treatise to the virtue of fortitude. Josef Pieper’s The Four Cardinal Virtues is an outstanding explication of Aquinas and was crucial for this chapter. R. E. Houser’s chapter on courage in Stephen Pope’s (ed.) Ethics of Aquinas is also a helpful analysis of fortitude. For a superb example of relating Thomistic thought on fortitude to the social sciences in the context of examining a contemporary issue, see Craig Stephen Titus’s Resilience and the Virtue of Fortitude. Finally, see also the concluding section of John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor on martyrdom, along with his Salvifici Dolores on human suffering.