Linda Rabieh, Professor of Philosophy at MIT, previously taught at Colorado College and Tufts University. She is the author of Plato and the Virtue of Courage, which won the Delba Winthrop Mansfield prize for excellence in political science, and of numerous articles that explore the political thought of ancient and medieval thinkers, including Thucydides, Plato, Maimonides, and Averroes. She was the recipient of a National Endowment of Humanities Independent Scholar Fellowship.
Zan Boag: You started your book Plato and the Virtue of Courage with the line, “Courage is an essential political virtue and should be of serious interest to anyone interested in politics.” This is followed by, “Courage is arguably the virtue that nations celebrate more than any other, including justice.” What makes courage political and why is it held in such high regard by a nation’s citizens?
Linda Rabieh: I think that courage does pose a bit of an awkward problem for modern politics and modern life generally, because the characteristics associated with it are not simply in harmony with modern ethics and a modern disposition.
One of the interesting things is that we still see today just how important courage is for all regimes, including liberal regimes. Courage is like this annoying thing that in liberal regimes especially has been confined to a closet but can’t simply remain there. It’s put in a closet precisely because we want it there when we need it, but the rest of the time, we don’t want to have to think about it. We need it, and this goes to your question about why it’s political, because the first requirement of every regime, of every country, is that it be able to defend itself, and its citizens will need courage to be up to the task. At some point, we’re going to have to call upon citizens’ courage. The most obvious way in which we see courage as a necessary political virtue is in war. But I think we see it in politics too.
Yes, of course, because the defence of a nation doesn’t just come through taking up arms. It is also to defend the beliefs of that country, whether it’s the political or intellectual or social beliefs of the country. Now, intellectual and moral courage, such as the courage to speak one’s mind or stand up for a certain belief, these tend to align with people’s existing political and social views. But is there a certain type of physical courage that can transcend all this, that can transcend political leanings, such as saving a child from a burning house, standing up for
