The reason I choose to view courage as that thing that allows us to turn hope into action (or considered restraint) is that courage is, for me, inseparable from uncertainty. If we know the exact outcome of our actions then no courage is involved. Our choices are simply a rational cost-benefit analysis.

Courage is choosing and acting in the hope of bringing an uncertain good into reality.

Faith is connected, so long as what we mean by faith is a willingness to believe that hope can become reality. Whether or not that involves faith in gods or goddesses or a single God or no God at all depends on the individual.

The why of action counts because one person's certainty is another person's doubt.

Morality is connected because often what propels us to take risks is the hope for a better world, but not always. Sometimes our hope is in short-term, self-serving goals. The goals may be foolish, but iif they involve changing the status quo for an uncertain future, achieving them still requires a certain amount of bravery.

My take on what Matt was saying was that there is a step above the "nice gesture" that completes an action to be deemed as "moral." Slapping a sticker on your car is a nice gesture, but being an ativist for said cause that the sticker would represent...THAT is being moral.
(My take on his stance at least...feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

Sometimes moral choices don't make anything "better".
And sometimes a moral inaction could make something "worse", depending on what "better/worse" ideal you're basing that on.

Sleep to Dream ... I totally got what you said!! Inside it I saw a clue to something that I feel I have been asked to do .... give up what I need for someone else's want... and that's definitely immoral. but I forgot to write a preface. : )

haha oh okay, I had myself triple checking what I wrote...just didn't want to be misunderstood :)

Elisheva ... a while ago you wrote about a person not acting because the disappointment would be too much to bear.

Yet we make courageous acts all the time where the uncertainty is managed or replaced with faith and action.

Why do you think sometimes there is no faith. Because there must be a lack of conviction or conflict.

"The why of action counts because one person's certainty is another person's doubt." "why of action" I don't understand the use of this term?

So is it : moral courage is conviction to the cause yet acting even though out come is uncertian. The person is acting from inner conviction the conflict is external. The uncertainty is external Say civil rights MLK.

So then to not act morally courageous would mean the conviction must not be fully there...not the fear of the outcome. If the conflict is internal one will not act morally courageous. The uncertainty is internal.

When we act courageously there almost always some sort of gap and sometimes more than one:
* a gap between the way the world is and the way we want it to be
* a gap between the way we are and the way we want ourselves to be
* a gap between our internal convictions/self-respect and other forms of self-interest

Hope paints a picture of the world as it might be were the gap closed. To close the gap requires either considered restraint or overt action. Objectively there is no guarantee that our actions will indeed close that gap. We can manage our fears, take deep breaths, have faith that moves mountains, but none of that changes the objective fact that we can't personally guarentee the outcome or what it will cost us, no matter how much acting (or restraint) will cost us.

strike the part after the last , i.e. --no matter how much acting (or restraint) will cost us--

I think I have to disagree that morality requires courage.

moral nature can exist on it's own ... it is only if there is something that tempts someone away from the moral behavior that requires courage to make the moral choice.

It seems that morality has more than one look to it and that may be where the disagreement comes in. I think if we look at what we individually believe is moral as being the only morality, we will never find a common ground.

A friend of mine invented the term "virtual virtuosity" to explain morality without courage. He says that people believe that by endorsing good values, they have accomplished good values. For example, we SAY we're nice, so that makes us nice. Someone on DS is in crisis and we write, "Poor thing! I'm here if you need to talk", and are convinced we have accomplished a form of support. Our church sermons mention being kind to the poor, so we think of ourselves as kind to the poor. We put a "use less stuff" sticker on our car and believe it makes us an environmentalist. And so on. My friend says that this gap between the recommendation of moral action and actual moral action is huge.

As for "moral action," I have thought and thought about this and come up with a very universal conclusion: moral action is any action that uplifts the value of any other life. This, by the way, has also become my one and only test of any religion: a true religion is that which uplifts the value of all other life, and a false religion is any that devalues any life, regardless of the specific theologies behind it.

These are the kinds of statements that sound charming, but just you try it: it's hard, it puts you at odds with culture, it requires you to break rules (and piss off bureaucratic professional Boards of Pharisees in the process), and it sets you up for being misunderstood or smeared for your efforts. Socrates did it, and was executed. Jesus did it, and was executed. MLK did it, and was executed. Ammon Hennacy did it, and was executed. One philosopher recently put it this way: "Social justice is love that becomes manifest in equal treatment of a wounded or weaker other. It is love that becomes action--that is justice."

By "all life," I mean ALL life, nature too.

Elisheva, your list is also a fantastic description of what "stuck points" are!

Now, consider the other question: what prevents us form being courageous at times? Because there are certainly times I have failed miserably. It's usually when I'm embarrassed or panicked; it's much easier for me to be courageous when I can contemplate the situation I'm in.

Now I differ from Matt in that its' easier for me to be courageous when I DON"T have time to contemplate the consequences...gets me in trouble sometimes and has made me suffer with a decision but hey...that's how it needed to be I guess

And maybe that's true for me too, but it's just that when I think back to times when I've failed in my courage, it's been in moments where I feel embarrassed and panicked. But if I can contemplate that I know something is right (for example, I know that there is a conflict in a relationship and I have to take a step to resolve it, to reconcile, to make amends), I am able to muster up that courage. A lack of courage would be if I felt a relationship schism and I knew it was my responsibility to step forward and "heal" it, but kept ducking it. Fortunately, that doesn't describe me; I'm at my worst in sudden moments of shock and humiliation.

sudden moments of shock and humiation can inspire us to be courageous....without those feelings I don't think we'd be so inspired to be courageous

Can we go a bit easier on the Pharasees? I know its a common Christian metaphor for people who put rules before compassion and common sense. However, Jesus was criticizing one side of an internal battle within the Pharasees, not the entire Pharasitic movement. Historically, the Pharasees had two major schools of thought: Hillel and Shammai. Jesus's positions tend to be aligned with the school of Hillel. and critical of some of the worst excesses of Shammai's followers.

As a movement the Pharisees were a populist movement which tried to open up Jewish ritual to all people. They argued that all of life was sacred and that the home and the field no less than the temple was a locus of holiness. After the fall of the temple their philosophy that holiness was not limited to a specific caste or place became central to the survival of Judaism.

Both sides believed that the saving of human life trumped any other moral or religious consideration. There were only three exceptions where the ends do not justify the means to save life. One may not murder, rape/sexual abuse or denying the source of holiness and hope itself in the name of saving life. (For more on this, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikuach_nefesh.)

What the two schools of thought differed most on was what in fact honored human life the most. It isn't a simple question. Compassion without rules can become self-delusion. I'm sure each of us has been the unhappy recipient of compassion that met the needs of the compassion bearer more than it met our own. Rules without compassion makes the rules kill the very thing they were meant to save and protect.

Shammai tended to believe that the ritual observances that didn't jeopardize physical life were inherently a sanctification of life since they connect us to God and fulfill God's commandments. What could honor life more than connection to the most high?

Hillel was very sensitive to the way human suffering can block out God. He shaped his ethical and ritual decisions around compassion for human suffering. I can't help noticing that his own formulation of the golden rule reflects his concern for suffering: do not do to others what is hateful to you. Hillel's version may sound like a watered down version of Jesus's statement (ove your neighbor as yourself). but notice how Hillel's version both avoids rules that hurt and ego-centric compassion?

The historical consensus within Judaism has been with the school of Hillel. Shammai's rules are only fit for a heaven where human suffering isn't a possibility. Shammai's world is incidentally, I think, a world with morality but totally without courage. If there is no uncertainty or cost to doing the right thing, how can it be courageous?

Hillel didn't get to his compassionate approach by breaking rules. Rather both he and Hillel and the entire Jewish community after them engaged in repeated discussions about ethics and ritual centered on specific actual and hypothetical cases. The understanding of principles were constantly refined to meet new issues of justice and suffering that were raised by each case.

This kind of dialog takes courage because the rules of yesterday can be reshaped by new realities. We can't sit back and say "its decided once and for all!". Additionally the measure of another persons suffering is impossible. No matter how hard we try, if we are serious about taking into account compassion, we can't really ever know if we made the right decision. Did we over estimate the suffering and yield principle too early? Did we under-estimate suffering and compound injustice?

Thinking about your battles with the system, Matt, I wondering, is this really about rules vs. respect for life or is it something else? Perhaps the real issue is that an awful lot of people like to pretend they are in Shammai's world rather than Hillel's? They want to ignore human suffering as part of the equation that defines rules?

Courage is believing, breathing, holding up your head. Its walking, its talking, smiling, sighing. Courage is facing the world when feeling whole and facing it when you don't, facing fears, crying tears, hoping hopes, dreaming dreams. Courage comes from being alive.