Abstract

This article discusses Confucius's view of courage in comparison with Aristotle's and Neo-Confucians'. It proposes the following arguments: Confucius's conception of courage is much broader than Aristotle's, since it does not confine courage to the category of martial virtue and moral excellence that presupposes a noble motive; both Confucius's and Aristotle's conceptions of courage hold that courage is concerned with the fear of external threats but not the strength in self-improvement as Neo-Confucians have proposed; and Confucius's conception of courage is more relevant and significant than Aristotle's and Neo-Confucians' to contemporary life