Cowardice and heroism are deeds, not inborn temperaments.
Evidence
But the existentialist, when he portrays a coward, shows him as responsible for his cowardice. He is not like that on account of a cowardly heart or lungs or cerebrum, he has not become like that through his physiological organism; he is like that because he has made himself into a coward by actions. There is no such thing as a cowardly temperament. There are nervous temperaments; there is what is called impoverished blood, and there are also rich temperaments. But the man whose blood is poor is not a coward for all that, for what produces cowardice is the act of giving up or giving way; and a temperament is not an action. A coward is defined by the deed that he has done. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 19
Categorization
- XREF: The antithesis to the hereditary/deterministic character logic of Zola and 19th-century naturalism, and an ancestor of the ‘bad faith’ ethics Beauvoir develops — pairs with the reader’s Beauvoir text. — connects to: Belief in group backup, not physical strength, determines courage in battle.; The epic defines heroism by refusal to strike a sleeping foe, not by victory — , A Year of World Stories, 11873; Even jail does not limit the courage of some souls. — Thomas Mallon, A Book of Ones Own People and Their…, 754 (+5 more)
- DEEPTHINKING: This is the ethical core of existentialist humanism: the radical claim that no disposition excuses action, which overturns both the medical and hereditary frames for moral judgment.
Related
- Suicide bombers are not cowardly although their acts are brutal (similarity 0.84)
Broader Connections
- Belief in group backup, not physical strength, determines courage in battle.
#corroborates(0.85) - Refusing to kill is about what one becomes, not what one ought to do
#expands(0.85) - The epic defines heroism by refusal to strike a sleeping foe, not by victory
#exemplifies(0.80) — , A Year of World Stories, 11873 - False heroism measures superiority through the harm it inflicts on others
#complicates(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 495 - The redefinition of bravery as psychic risk is an invented military virtue
#qualifies(0.78) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 366 - Even jail does not limit the courage of some souls.
#corroborates(0.75) — Thomas Mallon, A Book of Ones Own People and Their…, 754