Socratic method

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Hurrah, thank you, Karl (for continuing to be interested in the discussion, not for agreeing with the hypotheses proposed, which is unimportant).

So, the definition "Courage is the act of choosing a course of action that looks for the maximum beneficial outcome, in spite of fear or probability urging a different course of action" survives to this point.

It seems we are agreed that courage has no link whatsoever with any absolute form of morality. By any common standards of good and evil shared by the frequenters of the Hub, Bluestreak (courage 2) is a better person than Starscream (courage 9). For most of the time, when not paralysed by fear, Bluestreak acts for the benefit of his friends and others, while Starscream works selfishly, and is happy to kill the rest of his species to acquire power. When faced with a need to overcome fear, Bluestreak becomes useless, but still means well, while Starscream continues to act in line with his hunger. Courage is values-neutral, and is simply a character trait that enables one to be more effective, like strength, speed, skill, endurance, intelligence and firepower.

Or is it?

I think not.

I assume we would all agree that in the cases of strength, speed, skill, endurance, intelligence and firepower, the higher the better in terms of effectiveness and achieving success. There is no downside to having the maximum rating in all these categories. What about courage?

We have argued that courage is not a moral virtue (since it can be evil or altruistic). I now propose that nor is courage necessarily a virtue in terms of effectiveness in achieving one's goals.

Reason: Courage means you follow the course of action that looks for the _maximum_ benefit. It does not mean you follow the course of action that has the maximum _expected_ benefit. Courage, by our definition, means going against the odds, gambling for the maximum _posssible_ benefit. You would soon lose your money if you followed our definition of courage in gambling at cards, because you would never cut your losses and fold, provided there was a small chance that your hand would win the massive pot.

Starscream is courageous, he always risks his life for the ultimate prize, and always loses, ends up worse off than if he'd settled for remaining second-in-command. Soundwave seems to be better off most of the time, for his prudent action - though he knows he will never achieve the dizzying heights of Underbase/Matrix godhood by acting thus, or finish the Autobots off for good.

So, what is the perfect tech-specs rating? All 10s? No! Because courage 10 will mean you always stick to your principles and aim to win all, even when the odds are against you and you are more likely to lose all. All 10s except for courage 2? No! Bluestreak freezes up with fear, and Laserbeak loses rational thought and acts stupidly.

So! Somewhere in-between? All 10s except for courage 8, like Ratchet and Huffer, perhaps?

My original question right at the start was "What is the purest, most admirable or virtuous hypothetical or real example of true courage that we can collectively come up with?" Maybe this is a different question from asking "What is the most courageous example we can come up with?" because the most admirable/virtuous example of courage may not be courage 10, but courage 7 or 8.

Thoughts please!

Martin

[dyrl]

I think one error that is being made here is the assumption that quantative data can give us anything but very general information about character traits, and another (even less secure) assumption being made is that even if we could firmly and precisely measure someone's character, then it would always stay the same and never change for better or for worse.

By any account, Bluestreak has acted courageously under duress. He defended Buster against the Matrix controled Jetfire, for example, and he generally has no known record of running from a fight although he has certainly been known to run his mouth.

Starscream on the other hand has often run from fights or put others in danger for his own ambitions. His favored method of winning is treason - he didn't take on Megatron and the Decepticons in G2 - instead, he got Jiaxhus to do the dirty work for him and reaped the reward (the Warworld and the Matrix) for himself.

It was pretty much the same with the Underbase Saga. At what point did Starscream courageously place himself in danger to achieve his ambitions? As far as I recall he used guile and deciept to achieve his aims. You could argue that taking the power of the Underbase was courageous given the potential negative repricussions - but I think that it was actually a sign of rashness; which is Starscream's biggest weakness - he never thinks his schemes through to the end really and always reaches for something which turns out to - as you pointed out - do him more harm than good.

Soundwave, by contrast, ended up leading the Decepticons on Cybertron in the future. His strategy, as you say, was more prudent. But does prudence negate courage, or could it be that courage without prudence is rashness?

Pete

[Grand Moff Muffin]

Apr 24, 2009 9:36:54 GMT dyrl said:

I think one error that is being made here is the assumption that quantative data can give us anything but very general information about character traits, and another (even less secure) assumption being made is that even if we could firmly and precisely measure someone's character, then it would always stay the same and never change for better or for worse.

We're not making those assumptions, we're just considering how representative the tech-specs numbers are of observed behaviour. No-one would dispute that characters can behave in uncharacteristic ways, and that one may show courage in one situation and another in a different situation. Still, over time patterns can emerge.

By any account, Bluestreak has acted courageously under duress.

I would dispute that. He has had two significant appearances in the comic, first in 'The Last Stand' and second in 'Brainstorm'. We didn't see fully what happened in 'The Last Stand' but we have Huffer's thoughts, "I barely managed to save Bluestreak! He's scared bad! This isn't going well at all!" suggesting that he froze up after his rockets failed to dent Megatron, and a few panels later Huffer's desperate plea: "Keep fighting, Bluestreak! Keep fight--AGH!" All this suggests to me that yes, he will fight, but he needs constant encouragement to do so. Likewise, in 'Brainstorm', Bluestreak has no hesitation in shooting down the puny Laserbeak, but as soon as Jetfire shows up he freezes up.

"You humans take cover - Bluestreak and I will take care of him. Right, Bluestreak? Bluestreak?!"

"I can't - I-I don't know what to-"

"This is no time to let a little confusion keep you from acting, Bluestreak! He's coming back for another pass! Shoot!"

"Shoot? All right... I'll shoot!"

The required action was exactly the same in the case of Jetfire as in the case of Laserbeak a few moments earlier, but in the case of Jetfire Bluestreak was unable to act without instruction. He is a good guy, but useless in scary situations unless he has moral support and guidance.

Starscream on the other hand has often run from fights or put others in danger for his own ambitions. His favored method of winning is treason - he didn't take on Megatron and the Decepticons in G2 - instead, he got Jiaxhus to do the dirty work for him and reaped the reward (the Warworld and the Matrix) for himself.

It was pretty much the same with the Underbase Saga. At what point did Starscream courageously place himself in danger to achieve his ambitions? As far as I recall he used guile and deciept to achieve his aims. You could argue that taking the power of the Underbase was courageous given the potential negative repricussions - but I think that it was actually a sign of rashness; which is Starscream's biggest weakness - he never thinks his schemes through to the end really and always reaches for something which turns out to - as you pointed out - do him more harm than good.

What I would call courageous in Starscream's actions is the fact that in his three big solo bids for power, 'The Enemy Within', the Underbase saga and G2, he risks all by acting in ways that leave every Decepticon his enemy. He burns all his bridges behind him. This, to me, shows full commitment to his chosen path. Also, in all three cases his actions are planned and premeditated, meaning they weren't spur-of-the-moment impulses, but required courage and commitment over a period of time.

Yes, he runs away sometimes - but that is consistent with our definition of courage when running away is the course that looks for the maximum beneficial outcome for his set of values. Likewise putting others at risk fits our definition of courage, going by Starscream's definition of maximum beneficial outcome.

He does think his schemes through, we've seen him planning. His problem is just that he is so greedy that his high courage leads him to gamble all or nothing, even knowing the risks.

Soundwave, by contrast, ended up leading the Decepticons on Cybertron in the future. His strategy, as you say, was more prudent. But does prudence negate courage, or could it be that courage without prudence is rashness?

No, I would say courage without prudence is courage. The difference between courage and rashness is that courage involves a rational decision to take a risky gamble, while rashness involves not thinking rationally.

By the definition that we are using, prudence _does_ negate courage because it requires one to pass up on dangerous choices that have more to gain and more to lose. Yes, he ended up leading the Decepticons on Cybertron in the future, but only by default, and not through taking any risks or making any enemies. He was just the highest-ranking Decepticon at the time, and tried his best to please his troops - not very successfully, as his trip to the past in 'Time Wars' didn't achieve anything, and he was tricked by the Quintessons in 'Space Pirates' in a way he might not have been, had he been less concerned with looking good in front of his men. His exchange with Ultra Magnus at the end of 'Space Pirates' suggested he wasn't very happy or comfortable in his role.

OK, we've gone a bit off-road and are now just debating the accuracy of tech-specs, but it's fun so what the hey. I've said all the non-TF stuff I want to say about courage.

Maybe courage 9 is the best rating to have. Shockwave is supposed to be emotionless and logical, and so can presumably determine his own courage rating, and has calculated that the maximum beneficial _expected_ outcome can be achieved by acting in a manner consistent with that rating, averaged over a lifetime.

Martin