Courage without wisdom is only action without proper concern and thought, and wisdom without courage is just an opinion and a longing that one doesn’t act on. A couple of weeks ago, I asked a friend, “What does it take to face a fear?” She candidly answered, “Every ounce of energy and wisdom from experiences that you had and heard about, then you go through it: not around it, not evade it, through it.”
I deliberated on it and concluded that courage is not the absence of fear but the right judgement about it. Socrates called this judgement wisdom, Protagoras called it character, and my own opinion and experience suggest it is a mix of both, different even for the same person in different circumstances, governed by their judgement, experiences, ambitions, prejudices and reservations. Courage comes from both nature and nurture. Ninety-six years ago, Gandhi marched from Sabarmati to Dandi, a distance of almost 400 km, on a journey that took weeks. He chose a pain point that hurt everyone, rich and poor alike; his great wisdom lay in selecting something that could be turned into collective action. The discipline of his followers on that march was something they had been trained in through Gandhi’s vision and beliefs. This discipline can be equated with Protagoras’ “nurture of the soul.”
Shakespeare’s Macbeth shows how a character who feels and sees clearly what matters may still fail to act on it. Before committing regicide, Macbeth, in his soliloquy, clearly states his reasons:
He’s here in double trust:
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked newborn babe
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other—(Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 7)
The judgement and wisdom, in the Socratic sense, are very clear. He is fearful not of the murder but of breaking his bond of loyalty, kinship and hospitality. Yet when Lady Macbeth enters, he offers only a very weak version of this reasoning. She goes on to play on his fear of not being man enough to act on his desire. His character breaks in that moment. The courage that should have protected his honour and led him to do the right thing as a loyal subject is distorted and misdirected into action meant to prove himself to his wife. His wisdom is intact, but Protagoras’ sense of nature is not. Lady Macbeth offered only boldness, and he mistook it for courage, pointed in the wrong direction. Her resolve nurtured her husband’s actions and let him take a break from his wisdom. This only proves the Sophist’s point of view that boldness can come from passion and ambition without being courage.
Life is hard, and humans make it harder by mismeasuring: short-term gains look bigger, and distant penalties look smaller. Macbeth’s willingness to escape his deed by not daring to look at it is that kind of mistake. When we read his statements, we realise Protagoras was closer to the truth: knowledge and wisdom were present, yet they did not produce action, showing a clear lack of character, which Lady Macbeth, with full knowledge of her husband’s ambitions, replaces with provocation.
Character without judgement is dangerous. A person with great nerve and bad judgement can do real harm, and history has many brave fanatics. Don Quixote is the comic version, and Macbeth’s boldness in Duncan’s chamber is the tragic one. Wisdom is what tells you which fears deserve respect and which causes deserve your nerve. Without it, strong character is just strength pointed at random.
Most people, most of the time, already know roughly what they should do. The gap is rarely in the knowing. It is in the following through. Macbeth’s soliloquy shows this: he reasons correctly and still goes ahead. If wisdom were enough, that scene could not happen, which is Protagoras’ point against Socrates. And character is formed early, through habit and example, so by the time you need it, it is usually too late to build from nothing.
Aristotle says Socrates was on the right track in saying the virtues imply practical wisdom, but wrong in thinking they are all forms of practical wisdom.
If Socrates was right that courage is knowing what is truly worth fearing, and Protagoras was right that knowing is not enough, then the difficulty of courage lies somewhere neither of them quite names: in the noise. Most of us, most of the time, already know what we ought to do. Macbeth knew. Alone on stage, he reasoned his way to the truth: that Duncan was his kinsman, his king and his guest. It was only when other voices entered (his wife’s taunt, his own ambition and the fear of seeming less than a man) that the knowledge was drowned out. The task, then, is less to learn what is right than to quiet everything that talks over it: the objections of others, the expectations we have inherited, and the picture of ourselves that we are afraid to disappoint. This is what the old Delphic command to know thyself asks of us. It does not mean collecting more information about ourselves, but listening past the crowd to what we already understand. Gandhi, halting a movement at the height of its momentum, did exactly that, and so, in smaller ways, must anyone who has chosen the right course against the wishes of those around them. Courage, in the end, is wisdom that has stopped being embarrassed to act.
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