Gender Bias Essay Research Paper Both men

Gender Bias Essay, Research Paper

Both men and woman have intentions and act, so both are capable of

virtue. Virtue ethics as a theory of morality has existed, most

notably, since Aristotle. Courage is one such virtue and to display

this persons need to experience fear and perceive danger. The

circumstances surrounding an act of courage need to be proportionate to

perceived risk to avoid the activity becoming an enterprise of

foolishness. Also the potential costs associated with the risk must be

proportionate to the ends concerning the bravery. These elements

associated with courage are undoubtedly equally available to both sexes

and in the sense of equality feminism woman can and have been

courageous. However, in light of difference feminism, another facet

may need to be added to the modern meaning of courage, as an

acknowledgement that virtues are characterised with respect to

attitudes held within the context of definition.

A virtue is a prescription of how someone should be. It is a

component of character. Aristotle (cited in Hinman, 1998, pp.

334-335), described virtue as being a mean, or average of attitude

which could be uncovered via reasoning and displayed through

personality and behaviour styles. For example, the average between an

excess like contrariness and a deficiency like sycophancy might be

honest opinion.

Hinman mentions further the difference between substantive virtues,

those that are closer to the ethical good, like philanthropy, and

executive virtues those less associated with being morally good and

more directly linked with qualities of desirable persona. Courage is

said to be an executive virtue (Ibid., p. 336).

The virtue of courage contains at least two components. First there

must be an internal factor of fear or even phobia. Psychology tells

us that fear is an awareness of physiological changes in response to

some stimulus or other. These changes include increased respiration,

heart-beat, blood-pressure, and higher production of epinephrine

(adrenaline). Other changes such as pupil dilation, increased sweating

and decreased production of saliva are often present too. This process

occurs in a part of the autonomic, non-voluntary, nervous system called

the sympathetic division (Aitkenson, Atkinson, & Hilgard, 1983 p.

331). All healthy humans, male or female have sympathetic divisions of

the autonomic nervous system and are thus prone to the physiological,

and thus the psychological, experience of fear.

Second, there must be an external factor of perceived danger in a

circumstance for a courageous deed to be possible. The degree of such

will depend on how the individual relates the present circumstance with

experiences of past events and situations. For example, if I see a

torrentially flooded river an attempt to cross it would be perceived as

dangerous because I have seen many such situations on television where

lives have been put at risk. This cognitive component is important in

danger because I may enter a dangerous situation without realising it

and thus act without courage. It could be imagined that an individual

has no idea that, to get a culled animal for feeding their family, they

may have to walk across a minefield. If the minefield is unknown to

the individual then no fear will be experienced because no danger is

attached to collecting the prey on the other side of the field. So in

this case no act of bravery has been committed. Alternatively, it

appears! courage can be displayed without any real danger existing.

Phobias have the component of fear without physical danger. A phobia

may be defined as an irrational fear, associated with a stimulus

containing no objective hazard. To confront a phobia takes similar

courage needed in non-phobic situations because the associated

behaviours necessary to conquer the phobia are manifested despite fear

or anxiety.

This is contrary to Hinman’s concept of rightly ordered fears. He

maintains that once phobias have been overcome courage is no longer

part of the relationship between actor and situation. He also

maintains that if courage is responding to objectively identifiable

danger then responses to psychological dangers will not count and if

individuals do not perceive objective dangers as such they will not be

counted as courageous. This all appears acceptable. However, Hinman

then seems to discount facing phobias as a valid form of courage

(1998; p. 338).

Phobias may be placed in the objective realm of rightly ordered fears

because for the phobic actor, no matter how illogical the response is

to the stimulus, all elements of fear and danger still exist. The

proportion of fear to actual risk to an unempathetic observer, may be

unbalanced. But because fear is a subjective emotion, it seems

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