Thomas Hobbes famously held that a violent death is the summum malum for human beings. This Hobbesian sentiment deeply influenced the liberal tradition. As a result, courage has been a virtue rather foreign to liberalism, as courage calls for individuals willing to stake their lives for something, expressing through their actions that there is something more valuable than self-preservation. For the courageous individual, death is not the supreme evil. The shame or dishonor of cowardice can be a fate worse than death. As Richard Avramenko points out in Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb, liberal theories of individual autonomy and utility maximization fail to explain a virtue that asks one to jettison one's autonomy and utility. Liberalism's uneasiness with courage is not, Avramenko contends, a reason to ignore or denigrate an outmoded virtue that is connected with violence and war. Rather since courage illuminates the fundamental motivations of all political communities—“shed[ing] light on why people are willing to kill or be killed” (14),—we should take courage seriously.

Avramenko's book aims to uncover the nature and development of this virtue in Western political thought. Yet Avramenko does not approach the phenomenon of courage in a detached scientific spirit. On the contrary, he makes a case for the intrinsic value of courage, since it “reveals the transcendent character of human existence” (9). The courageous act shows that human beings do not only live for the satisfaction of their physical needs, but also that we can sacrifice all these needs for a higher purpose we share with others. In this way Avramenko distinguishes his defense of courage from the recent work by Harvey Mansfield, whose 2006 book Manliness explored a similar phenomenon. Drawing on Martin Heidegger's notion of “care,” Avramenko defines courage as “risking life and limb for the sake of something about which we care fundamentally” (7, emphasis in original). Courage, then, is not in essence connected to being manly, but rather to being truly human, as men and women alike can stake their lives to demonstrate this fundamental “care” for a communal ideal.

Avramenko proceeds to examine the development of courage through several close and penetrating readings of classic texts in political theory. His argument is that courage originates as a martial virtue concerned with honor, and subsequent forms of courage respond to this form by softening its connection to violence. Chapter 1 examines martial courage in Herodotus' account of the Spartans in the battle of Thermopylae. The Spartans reveal in their obsession with military valor that they fundamentally long for honor and they shame anyone who chooses dishonor over a glorious death. On the one hand, Avramenko argues, this military virtue fosters deep and even “sacred” connections among soldiers, a phenomenon Avramenko argues is present still today in war (68). On the other hand, the courage of the warrior is “bound up with the human capacity for violence and destruction” (84).

In Chapter 2, Avramenko holds that political courage—the courage of the citizen in the forum—was developed by ancient theorists as a response to the gruesome courage of the soldier. Through an impressive analysis of a broad array of texts by Aristophanes, Plato, and Aristotle, Avramenko argues Socrates serves as the courageous exemplar to replace the Homeric hero Achilles. Socrates' new form of courage does not eliminate military valor (Socrates himself proved to be quite courageous on the battlefield), but rather balances it with excellence of speech (133).

Chapters 3 and 4 concern modern forms of courage. In Chapter 3, Avramenko analyzes Jean-Jacques Rousseau's “moral courage”. This form of courage eschews the ancient cares for honor and justice and instead turns to the modern concern for freedom and autonomy. To create a community of autonomous individuals, they must be bound together by “pity or compassion”—the sentiment that drives their courage (167). Chapter 4 takes up Alexis de Tocqueville's “economic courage” to reveal another distinctively modern form of courage, one that is compatible with the fundamental care for freedom and equality. Tocqueville observes that whereas the Americans left behind the ancient altruistic virtues, they nonetheless demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice life and limb in the form of putting in an 80-hour, caffeine-fueled work week to succeed in business.

Avramenko's book succeeds admirably on several levels. It contributes to our understanding and appreciation of the virtue of courage, a virtue unjustifiably neglected in the contemporary liberal world. By reading the history of political thought through the lens of courage, Avramenko gets us to reexamine well-worn texts in interesting and illuminating ways. Finally, his defense of courage does not rest on natural law or virtue ethics arguments, but he offers a promising existential alternative that can enrich theoretical discussion of the virtues generally.

Nevertheless, I am not sure this existentialist frame for understanding courage is the right one. The language of “fundamental cares” is an awkward imposition on the ancient theorists. For instance, Avramenko tries to align Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle into the “fundamental care” for “justice.” Though the language finds a better home among the modern thinkers, Avramenko's account prevents him from explaining why courage develops as it does in history. Avramenko explains the reaction against the warrior's courage due to its connection to violence, but does not do so for the other forms. Such an explanation is difficult as this language of “fundamental cares” leaves one without a basis by which to compare these cares, discern the relationship they could have to one another, or examine the genesis of these cares in the first place. Addressing these concerns would have involved taking up a version of an old question: Are these “fundamental cares” worthy of our care because we care for them, or do we care for them because of their independent worthiness?

Furthermore, I do not think courage is best understood as risking life and limb for a single fundamental care. In Chapter 1, Avramenko discusses martial courage as fundamentally concerned with honor. But soldiers' courage is animated by many “cares”—a soldier may fight for family back home, his comrades in arms on the battlefield, for “truth, justice, and the American way,” for honor, or perhaps all of the above. Finally, the emphasis on a single fundamental care as constitutive of a type of courage may obscure the complexity of the type. In Chapter 3, Avramenko identifies Rousseau's “moral courage” as distinct from the other forms, although Rousseau seems quite interested in drawing on the ancient courage of the citizen and the soldier in his broader concept. By thinking in terms of “fundamental care,” Avramenko may have been led to overstate the differences among the concepts.

In sum, Avramenko's theoretical frame leaves some fundamental and metaphysical questions about courage unanswered, such as the relationship between courage as a single, universal virtue and its many particular instantiations. Nevertheless, Avramenko's book provides a sophisticated, sympathetic, and synoptic analysis of an under-examined political virtue. Avramenko makes a strong case for the retrieval of courage, especially for contemporary liberal regimes. Finally, his multifaceted portrait of the virtue provides an excellent guide for retrieving it.