勇气：为更高层级的存续承担个人风险

承担风险本身不能证明勇气。赌博、炫耀和冲动同样包含危险，还可能把代价留给家人、客户或其他无辜的人。塔勒布给勇气加了一个方向：个人承担损失，保护更高一层的人或共同体。

这让勇气与 审慎 可以同时成立。一个人冒着生命危险救落水的孩子，从个人层面看非常危险，从需要保护的对象看又是合理的。风险对称：收益与损失应落回同一决策者 也在这里提供一道检查。一个人拿别人的钱冒险，很难借用勇气替自己辩护。

这个定义仍然有麻烦。国家、宗教和组织都可能把自己说成更高层级，再要求个人牺牲。行动是否自愿，目标是否正当，发出要求的人有没有承担同样风险，都不能省略。

《Skin in the Game》原文：

Courage is the only virtue you cannot fake.

Courage (risk taking) is the highest virtue. We need entrepreneurs.

How can both courage and prudence be classical virtues? Virtue, as presented in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, includes: sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη), prudence, and a form of sound judgment he called more broadly phronesis. Aren’t these inconsistent with courage?

I can exercise courage to save a collection of kids from drowning, at the risk of my own life, and it would also correspond to a form of prudence. Were I to die, I would be sacrificing a lower layer in Figure 6 for the sake of a higher one.

Courage, according to the Greek ideal that Aristotle inherited from Homer (and conveyed by Solon, Pericles, and Thucydides) is never a selfish action: Courage is when you sacrifice your own well-being for the sake of the survival of a layer higher than yours.

Selfish courage is not courage. A foolish gambler is not committing an act of courage, especially if he is risking other people’s funds or has a family to feed.*4

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