Han Solo and Professor Moriarty—What Interviewing Soldiers Taught Me About Heroism

In interviews with Danish combat soldiers, deployed to Afghanistan, I learned that the term “hero” can also be used in a negative sense, to describe a person who in pursuit of fame and glory, puts the lives and wellbeing of others at stake. In this article, I argue that real heroes—in the eyes of soldiers and everybody else—are defined by two characteristics: The first is that heroes are intrinsically motivated. Heroes do what they do because it is the right thing to do. The second is that heroes put something at stake. An act is only heroic when there is an actual chance of failure. These two conditions are both necessary, but none of them are sufficient. It is often challenging to provide real-life examples fitting both conditions. When we argue that a given act should be seen as heroic, we inevitably enter the grey zone of interpretation.