What makes a hero? Debating the status is a delicate matter

What makes someone a hero?

Surely entering a burning building to search for victims and contain a fire qualifies, as Philadelphia firefighters did Monday in the warehouse blaze that killed Lt. Robert P. Neary and Daniel Sweeney.

So does slipping into a fortified compound in Pakistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden, as the Navy SEALs did in May. And remaining inside a crippled nuclear plant to prevent the spread of radiation, as 50 Fukushima workers did in March 2011.

But what about police officers who routinely put their lives at risk? Are they less heroic than those who are killed in the line of duty? What about victims of violence, such as former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who overcome enormous hurdles to recovery? Or cancer patients whose stoicism inspires others? Or community workers who labor for paltry wages to help the underprivileged?

Debating hero status is a delicate matter because who wants to argue that a person so acclaimed does not deserve the title?

Yet, don't we risk diluting the honor to grant it too loosely?

Awards such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Medal of Honor, the State Department's Medal for Heroism confer unquestionable hero status upon those who have served the nation.

Civilians also are recognized by the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.

Last month, the fund announced its recipients for 2012. Among them was Cara A. Ellis, 21, a homemaker from Little Egg Harbor Township, N.J., who was shot to death when she tried to stop an assault on her neighbor. And student Alexis Renee Vaughan, 17, and her father, Michael, who fought off a deer that was attacking a jogger on a rural road in Franklin, Idaho.

Nearly 10,000 people have received the award since its founding in 1904.

They have leaped into riptides and icy ponds to save drowning children. They have climbed through broken glass in upper-story windows to carry old ladies to safety. They have pulled drivers from burning wrecks on the highway.

Hearing these stories, you wonder what you would do. However laudable, isn't jeopardizing one's life to save another also perhaps an act of recklessness? Of disregard for the spouse and children you might leave behind?

"People are complex," says Alex Lickerman, a physician and faculty member at the University of Chicago, who studies altruism. "You can be stupid and heroic at the same time."

Usually, occasions for heroism occur suddenly, says Lickerman, and people surprise themselves by how they react. "In a moment of decision, people who have made a heroic choice often have a hard time explaining it."

Those whose careers require them to act heroically are not always selfless. Such jobs offer excitement, respect, and financial benefits, as well as opportunities for altruism. And circumstance plays a big role, as well.

One minute, soldiers "may be cowards in foxholes," and the next, they may hurl themselves over a comrade's body to protect him from a land mine. "We have this penchant to not label actions but people. When someone does something bad, we say they're evil. When they do something self-sacrificing, we call them heroes. But people are nuanced. And often inconsistent."

There are different levels of heroism, says Frank Farley, a psychology professor at Temple University. Political protesters who resist oppressive regimes, and whistle-blowers who stand on principle to challenge authority - they, too, can be heroes, he says. So can people who go out of their way to be kind or empathetic, like a child defending a classmate from a bully.

"One of the people I consider a hero was a patient who donated a kidney to his brother who had AIDS," says Lickerman. "And single mothers who work their whole lives to put their kids through school, sacrificing many things."

He does not believe, however, that Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who made an emergency landing on the Hudson River, was heroic for bringing the plane down safely. He was just doing his job well and saving his own life in the process, Lickerman says. What made him a hero, the professor says, was returning, twice, into the cabin to make sure all the passengers had escaped.

Heroes are supposed to be humble. In that respect, Sullenberger shines.

"I don't think of myself as a hero," he once said. "I think of myself as a pilot who's become famous because of this remarkable event."

But some we call heroes love feeling important, like the adrenaline junkies who enter battle zones as journalists and soldiers, or humanitarian workers who relish being embedded in refugee camps under siege.

Does an inflated ego diminish a heroic act?

Not really, says William Damon, professor of education at Stanford University and author of The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life. Heroism doesn't require martyrdom. After all, he says, it's only natural to derive joy from accomplishment.

Heroes "are defining their self-interest by their moral cause." As long as the things they do deserve our admiration, there's no reason they can't agree when we say they're terrific.

"Heroes aren't saints," says Damon. "They aren't perfect in every area of their lives."

Dying while performing a public service nearly always elevates someone to a hero. But of the almost 100 U.S. firefighters every year who die on duty, nearly half succumb to heart attacks, strokes, or other problems due to underlying health conditions.

Soldiers have been killed because of their own carelessness. Police have ignored rules that might have protected them.

Do any of these factors countervail against the fundamental altruism involved? If so, not by much, the experts say, because all of these people could have chosen safer ways to earn a living.

Damon has studied larger-than-life figures he calls "moral exemplars" - Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Eleanor Roosevelt, Nelson Mandela - as well as people who have made a mark in quieter ways.

"The word hero has been compromised a lot in the vernacular," he says. "Some people think you have to perform a flamboyant or spectacular feat."

Rather, he says, the term "is defined by a dedication to some cause larger than yourself. Resisting the temptation to promote your own self-interest. In any context, whether the military, in your own family, or in your job, if you do it consistently, with humility, a belief in the purpose of what you're doing, day after day, year after year - out of that grows heroism."