The Bravest Man That Ever Lived

Courage is defined as the ability to defeat pain, fear and suffering. There are two types of courage. Physical courage is bravery in the face of any physical suffering whilst moral courage is the bravery in the face of dissenting opinion. Now we call anyone brave, cancer patients especially, which can easily be considered a cop-out.

But who can be considered to be the bravest man or woman that ever lived?

First we shall examine the whole concept of moral courage. Honesty, integrity and all manners of subjective concepts fall into this category. There are several interesting ideals produced from the term "moral" courage, and why we would consider this said courage moral. Think of the carefree child, he is running through the house, having his fun but then he knocks over his mothers favorite vase. Normally he doesn't run though the house and could easily blame this incident on his rowdier sister but he could also come clean and say it was him.

There are two views associated with these choices, the former is considered immoral because we place value on honesty, the latter is considered moral because he would face a moral punishment and dissenting opinion. Assuming he chooses the latter, the question is why he chose it. Morality not only places value on the action itself, but why one committed the action. We now cannot say if this was a form of moral bravery or not, because we do not know whether he chose to be honest through cultural pressure or just getting the punishment over and done with. Depending on the life view on any individual moral courage could be considered important or non existent. But for the purpose of the question lets assume the former is in effect. The bravest of this subset are those that are honest in their views, truthful in their exploits and pure of heart for their reasoning

Now onto physical courage. This is a very basic concept and does not need much explanation and dissection. For the brief analysis of this form of courage, lets introduce the victim tortured for information. He will withstand all forms of pain and suffering, bear the brunt of the whip and the burn of the iron and he will not give in to his tormentors. The bravest of these men are those who will gladly die for their principles


You, who died for your beliefs. You, who suffered the accusing stares of 501 of your peers. You who built the cornerstone of western philosophy.
Socrates, I bestow unto you the title of the bravest man who ever lived. You were true in your beliefs of your deities, you were honest in your choices and chose to teach the youth of Athens of your philosophy. They sentenced you to death and you chose to drink the hemlock solution that caused your death. You are the greatest example of physical courage and moral courage. We can only hope that you see how far reaching your influence has been.