Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T17:31:17.802Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Courage, cowardice, and Maher’s misstep

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Brent G. Kyle
Brent G. Kyle*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, United States Air Force Academy, USAF Academy, CO, USA
*
E-mail: brent.kyle@usafa.edu, bgk5@cornell.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Could a Nazi soldier or terrorist be courageous? The Courage Problem asks us to answer this sort of question, and then to explain why people are reluctant to give this answer. The present paper sheds new light on the Courage Problem by examining a controversy sparked by Bill Maher, who claimed that the 9/11 terrorists’ acts were ‘not cowardly.’ It is shown that Maher’s controversy is fundamentally related to the Courage Problem. Then, a unified solution to both problems is provided. This solution entails that gutsy people who lack good ends are not courageous.

Keywords

Couragecowardicevirtuegoodnessmoral couragephysical courageconversational implicaturenegative strengtheninglitotes
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , 2017 , pp. 565 - 587
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aquinas, T. 1922. Summa Theologica. Translated by The Fathers of the English Dominican Province. London: Burns & Oats Ltd.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1962. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Ostwald, M.. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bach, K. 1994. “Conversational Impliciture.” Mind and Language 9: 124–162. 10.1111/mila.1994.9.issue-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badhwar, N. 1996. “The Limited Unity of Virtue.” Noûs 30: 306–329. 10.2307/2216272CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barker-Plummer, D., Barwise, J., and Etchemendy, J.. 2011. Language, Proof and Logic. 2nd ed. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar
Blome-Tillmann, M. 2013. “Conversational Implicatures (and How to Spot Them).” Philosophy Compass 8: 170–185. 10.1111/phco.2013.8.issue-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradford, G. 2013. “Evil Achievements and the Principle of Recursion.” In Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol. 3, edited by Timmons, M., 79–97. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burton-Roberts, N. 1984. “Modality and Implicature.” Linguistics and Philosophy 7: 181–206. 10.1007/BF00630812CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cruse, A. 1986. Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cruse, A. 2006. A Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Eklund, M. 2002. “Inconsistent Languages.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64: 251–275. 10.1111/phpr.2002.64.issue-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foot, P. 2002. Virtues and Vices. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geach, P. 1977. The Virtues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grice, P. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hazlett, A. 2007. “Grices Razor.” Metaphilosophy 38: 669–690. 10.1111/meta.2007.38.issue-5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horn, L. 1989. A Natural History of Negation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Y. 2007. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hurka, T. 2001. Virtue, Vice, and Value. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/0195137167.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, M. P. 2006. Bernard Williams. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, J. 2010. Entertaining Politics. 2nd ed. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kyle, B. 2013. “How Are Thick Terms Evaluative?” Philosophers' Imprint 13: 1–20.Google Scholar
Levinson, S.C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinson, S. C. 2000. Presumptive Meanings. Cambridge: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. 2007. “Polysemy, Prototypes, and Radial Categories.” In Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, edited by Geeraerts, D. and Cuyckens, H., 139–169. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MacFarlane, J. 2007. “Relativism and Disagreement.” Philosophical Studies 132: 17–31. 10.1007/s11098-006-9049-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rachels, J. 1999. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Rachels, J., and Rachels, S.. 2015. The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 8th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Recanati, F. 2004. Literal Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sadock, J. 1978. “On Testing for Conversational Implicature.” In Syntax and Semantics, vol. 9: Pragmatics, edited by Cole, P., 281–297. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Sperber, D., and Wilson, D.. 1986/1995. Relevance: Communication and Cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, R. 1999. Context and Content: Essays on Intentionality in Speech and Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomson, J. 2008. Normativity. Chicago: Open Court.Google Scholar
Toner, J. 2000. Morals under the Gun: The Cardinal Virtues, Military Ethics, and American Society. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
Väyrynen, P. 2013. The Lewd, the Rude and the Nasty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199314751.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voltaire. 1905. The Works of Voltaire: A Contemporary Version with Notes 26. Akron: Werner.Google Scholar
Wallace, J. D. 1978. Virtues and Vices. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Walton, D. 1986. Courage: A Philosophical Investigation. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, S. 2007. “Moral Psychology and the Unity of the Virtues.” Ratio 20: 145–167. 10.1111/rati.2007.20.issue-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yablo, S. 2006. “Non-Catastrophic Presupposition Failure.” In Content and Modality, edited by Thomson, J. J. and Byrne, A., 164–190. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Zwicky, A. and Sadock, J. 1975. “Ambiguity Tests and How to Fail Them.” In Syntax and Semantics, edited by Kimball, vol. 4, 1–36. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar