Authentic virtue is a difficult thing to determine, because many people do the right thing for the “wrong reasons.” They do the right thing because it’s easy to do, the safe thing to do. It’s easy to adhere to a religion or a ideology when it gains you acceptance and a sense of belonging.
Doing the right thing because you’re scared of the risks or loss of something important by doing the wrong thing doesn’t make you virtuous. But, it makes it hard for others to know for sure why you do the things you do, and vice versa.
Putting aside severe or grievous crimes, a man who does the wrong thing out of genuine courage is more virtuous than the man who does the right thing out of cowardice. That doesn’t mean what the coward does is detrimental to the collective good, nor is the brave man’s act beneficial. The issue is one of inner conscience, of true self. Both desire to do the same thing, but one at least is willing to risk loss to get it.
This matters because circumstances change, and a man’s cravenness can be exposed as much as a man’s bravery. When the man is a leader or someone with great power and responsibility, the consequences can be enormous.
This is why the mundane, riskless life produces insincere and disingenuous selves. For a man to truly know another, for him to know his own self, they must endure trials, crisis, and conflicts. He must face loss and perhaps even lose things that matter to him. Those hardships are a refining fire that consume falsities and pretenses so he cannot deceive others or himself.
