Fortitude. Courage is the choice and willingness to confront agony, pain, danger, uncertainty, or intimidation. Physical courage is bravery in the face of physical pain, hardship, death or threat of death, while moral courage is the ability to act rightly in the face of popular opposition, shame, scandal, discouragement, or personal loss. The classical virtue of fortitude is also translated courage, but includes the aspects of perseverance and patience. In the Western tradition, notable thoughts on courage have come from philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Kierkegaard; as well as Judeo-Christian beliefs and texts. In the Hindu tradition, mythology has given many examples of bravery, valour and courage. Ramayana and Mahabharatha have in them many examples of both physical and moral courage. In the Eastern tradition, some thoughts on courage were offered by the Tao Te Ching. More recently, courage has been explored by the discipline of psychology. Daniel Putman, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley, wrote an article titled The Emotions of Courage. Using a text from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as the basis for his article, he discusses the relationship between fear and confidence in the emotion of courage. First, in feelings of fear and confidence the mean is bravery. The excessively fearless person is nameless.while the one who is excessively confident is rash; the one who is excessively afraid and deficient in confidence is cowardly; Aristotle. He states that courage involves deliberate choice in the face of painful or fearful circumstances for the sake of a worthy goal. With this realization, Putman concludes that there is a close connection between fear and confidence. Fear and confidence in relation to courage can determine the success of a courageous act or goal.They can be seen as the independent variables in courage, and their relationship can affect how we respond to fear. In addition, the confidence that is being discussed here is self-confidence; Confidence in knowing one's skills and abilities and being able determine when to fight a fear or when to flight it. Putman states that: The ideal in courage is not just a rigid control of fear, nor is it a denial of the emotion. The ideal is to judge a situation, accept the emotion as part of human nature and, we hope, use well-developed habits to confront the fear and allow reason to guide our behavior toward a worthwhile goal. When trying to understand how fear and confidence play into courage, we need to look back at Aristotle's quote. According to Putman, Aristotle is referring to an appropriate level of fear and confidence in courage. Fear, although it might vary from person to person, is not completely relative and is only appropriate if it matches the danger of the situation.The same goes for confidence in that there are two aspects to self-confidence in a dangerous situation. a realistic confidence in the worth of a cause that motivates positive action. knowing our own skills and abilities. A second meaning of appropriate confidence then is a form of self-knowledge. Without an appropriate balance between fear and confidence when facing a threat, one cannot have the courage to overcome it. Putman states if the two emotions are distinct, then excesses or deficiencies in either fear or confidence can distort courage. As noted above, an excess or deficiency of either fear or confidence, can distort courage. According to Putman, there are four possibilities: Higher level of fear than a situation calls for, low level of confidence. Someone like this would be perceived as coward;. Excessively low level of fear when real fear is appropriate, excessively high level of confidence. Someone like this would be perceived as rash;. Excessively high level of fear, yet the confidence is also excessively high. The third possibility can occur if someone experienced a traumatic experience that brought about great anxiety for much of their life.Then the fear that they experience would often be inappropriate and excessive. Yet as a defensive mechanism, the person would show excessive levels of confidence as a way to confront their irrational fear and prove something to oneself or other. So this distortions could be seen as a coping method for their fear. Excessively low level of fear and low level of confidence. For the last possibility, it can be seen as hopelessness. Putman says this is similar to a person on a sinking ship.