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Civil Courage

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Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies

Synonyms

Moral courage

Definition

Civil courage (or moral courage) can be defined as (1) an act to help (2) other living beings (3) at the risk of personal disadvantages.

Civil courage, also known as moral courage, is defined as an act to help other living beings at the risk of personal disadvantages. The three main components included in this summarizing definition refer to the three recurring characteristics from the various definitions of civil courage based on broad and interdisciplinary literature on this topic (Osswald et al. 2010; Sasse et al. 2022; Sekerka and Bagozzi 2007; Willems 2021; Williams et al. 2022).

Different forms of civil courage can be distinguished, depending on the extent to which these three characteristics are either strictly or broadly applied. The goal of this contribution is not to argue that some or all of these criteria have to be present in a particular way in order to talk about civil courage. In contrast, the goal is to clarify different approaches to...

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Correspondence to Jurgen Willems .

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Willems, J. (2023). Civil Courage. In: Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_192-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17125-3_192-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-17125-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-17125-3

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