A major attribute of virtue theory is that it provides a framework for the discussion of courage; an aspect of ethics which escape deontological and consequentialist frameworks. I was recently struck by this when I read two accounts of people's experience of illness:
Kieran Sweeney's moving paper in the BMJ on his journey as a patient with mesothelioma
Published 14 August 2009, BMJ 2009;339:b2862
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/339/aug14_1/b2862
and an article in the Guardian on the battle a young man had to obtain the care he needed for his rehabilitation from a head injury.
In different ways courage was the key issue in both stories. Firstly of course the courage of the patient, as each of them copes with a life changing (and in Keiran's case life-threatening) illness. But also the courage practitioners need - not to shy away from bad news or someone facing a fatal illness.
Less obvious but increasingly important is the courage the carers of needed to take risks. We live in a risk-averse society and the point of the Guardian article was to show how the NHS sometimes seems more concerned with playing safe and covering its back than promoting the well-being of patients. He faced lots of limitations on what he was allowed to do as he recovered, based on fear of what might go wrong. A physiotherapist had to step outside the bounds of this "we're not covered" world and accept that if the young man concerned was to get better, he had to take the risk of falling and getting much worse.
We do this all the time in life, but our ligitation obsessed society finds it hard to accept that it has to be this way in healthcare, too.
Courage, Aristotle tells us, lies in a mean between cowardice and foolhardiness. I'm not sure we are very good at maintaining that mean these days. But we cannot flourish to our full potential if we don't take risks and show courage.
Are there ways in which our social structures can be changed to encourage us to become a more courageous society?
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