Good Ethics Flows from a Healthy Heart

Mark Twain (aka Samuel Langhorne Clemens) was known for his humor, irony, understatement, and cynicism.  Here he made a statement just the plain truth.  Physical bravery can be seen every day, in every nation, but moral bravery is rare.  What did he mean by this?  Do you understand its importance for you?

Physical Courage.  There are professions where physical courage is required, such as fire service, law enforcement, the military, emergency medical service.  People train to be ready for situations requiring courage.  However, even among these professions, certain persons develop reputations for being “braver” than others, with peers as support staff.

Normal military combat is not really courageous.  To civilians, it seems really courageous.  Yet obeying training and orders in a group likewise trained is dangerous, but not courageous. The Congressional Medal of Honor is awarded for behavior no commander ever would order, expect, or most likely personally repeat.  In fact, when recipients are questioned about what they did, many will respond, “I did not really think much about it.  The situation was there, and I acted to do what had to be done.  If I had thought about it, I would not have done it.”

For the rest of us, physical courage is rare.  Many of us will volunteer to help strangers in many situations.  We will stop at a roadside to help persons in a minor accident until real help arrives.  Yet that is not courage, though some listeners to the story will say, “Oh my, that was so brave of you to stop and help!”

Now when a person is stranded, or drowning, in a raging flooded river, and someone jumps in to save the person in danger, that is courage, or perhaps, foolish if the jumper is not a master swimmer in great physical condition.  A raging river is more powerful than a single human body.  But we do hear stories of such courage, successful rescues, memorable bravery, and happy endings.

Truly, it is a shame, a real shame, that in America the word “hero” has been shot to pieces in meaning, through inappropriate uses made to “make people feel good about themselves.”  A child who wins a reading award is not a hero.

Moral Courage. Mark Twain’s statement has become famous because his observation implies something is not right.  His comment provokes reflection.  Why do people note physical courage, but not moral courage? Which is more important?  Is there not GREATER NEED for moral courage?

Moral courage has to do with making the right decision each day.  Moral courage comes from inside a person.  Moral courage IS courage because doing the Right Thing is not always easy.  Walking away is easy.  Looking the other way is easy.  Explaining away laziness or lack of concern is easy.  All over America today, there are millions who love to see Physical courage, but do not have in themselves Moral courage.

Moral Courage Unnoticed.  The real heroes, the really courageous, are not Medal of Honor winners, but everyday people who sacrificially love other people, when they know that loving others will really cost them Self-Interest.  Look at the pictures below.

See the single parents working at computers, children close with them.  We never think  of the Asian woman, or African woman, or South American woman, working with their children.  We do not think of working mothers who scrubbed floors, ignoring the pain and yet still smiling thinking of her children.  Women all over the world often balance, literally, work and children.

The Healthy Heart Does More, for the Right Reason.  The ancients of long ago often spoke and wrote about “The Heart” as if that muscular organ, rather than the brain, really was the center of one’s moral existence, or in the case of Twain’s quote, the center of one’s Physical or Moral courage.  Surely they had brain injuries, and noted that The Person left the room when the brains were jostled and spilled.  Yet, the Heart still might beat for years, and the Soul still was there.

Pay Attention to Your Heart.  In the Jewish Bible, there is this statement, “Watch over your heart with complete diligence, for from it flow springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23).  The writer was cautioning how to invest every day, because rightly lived, goodness would follow.  In the Christian Bible, we read this, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).  The caution was to pay attention to what was the Central Object or Goal, then to understand that one’s very Being was being invested in that too.

Be a Person with Moral Courage.  Our society has become SO shallow.  A child wins a reading contest and is called a “hero.”  A school nurse paid for her skills is called a “hero.”  Even a fireman who escorts a resident from a smoking building is called a “hero,” though there was no danger.  The real meaning of “hero” is diluted through foolish contemptible uses of the work, simply trying to make people “feel special.”

YOU can be a person who is Morally Courageous.  Be that husband.  Be that wife.  Be that grandparent.  Be that neighbor interested in the welfare of one living next door.  Be that coworker who quietly suggests to management that someone is depressed and considering self-harm.  But live today with specific purpose, with specific moral deeds, followed by a tomorrow lived the same way.

Be Morally Courageous!  Even if no one around you notices or cares.  God knows.  God cares.  Be the best you can be, “just because…”

John D. Willis, PhD, President
Leadership Ethics Online