Most virtue theorists hold that fear is evaluatively neutral and that what matters is one’s ability to surmount it when necessary. The viciousness of fear has gone unrecognized due to a failure to adequately distinguish it from related states such as physiological arousal and desiring to avoid a negative outcome. There is an important difference between wanting to avoid a danger when there is nothing to be gained from facing it and having such a desire even when confrontation is clearly called for. I argue that within a virtue-theoretical context fear is best understood as involving a desire to avoid a perceived danger that is recalcitrant against one’s judgement that avoidance is unjustified. States that interfere with agency in this way not only have bad effects, they are also disvaluable in themselves. As the animals that can both understand and respond to reasons, our excellence inheres largely in the alignment between beliefs about our reasons and our motivational responses to these beliefs. Hence, to the extent that we fail to cultivate away our fearfulness we possess a structural deficiency that counts against our excellence as moral agents.