Martial Virtues: Lessons in Wisdom, Courage, and Compassion from the World's Greatest Warriors

Martial Virtues explores the place of the martial arts in the development of moral character. It focuses on the spiritual aspects of martial arts training, attempting to answer the question of what it means to be a good warrior.

In this groundbreaking analysis, Hackney draws from the psychological literature and from the lives and experiences of admirable warriors of fact and fiction. He analyzes how the virtues of ancient and modern warriors can be developed by practicing the martial arts. Using examples from the ancient Greeks to the samurai practitioners of Bushido, from Confucius all the way to Bruce Lee. Martial Virtues scrutinizes such qualities as courage, wisdom, justice and benevolence in turn, employing the lessons of modern psychology to understand how these virtues can be cultivated within ourselves and others.