The Possibility of an Ethical Life

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the possibility of living an ethical life. It is a question that occurs to me every so often, but over the break I decided to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, specifically One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, August 1914, The First Circle, and The Gulag Archipelago. (I read Ivan Denisovich in high school and I was only able to read the first volume of Gulag.) I had a few reasons to read Solzhenitsyn. One, my knowledge of Russian literature and history is truly abysmal (although, maybe if Russian literature was shorter, I would read more). Two, one of my classes this semester is on Socialism and Gender until 1949, so reading about the U.S.S.R. is not the worst idea I’ve ever had. Three, in the United States, socialism and communism are generally misunderstood and the picture of Soviet Russia is flat and shallow and a better understanding of the past leads to a better understanding of the present. This is all rather tangential to the question at hand.

So, how do I get to thinking about living an ethical life?

First, what does ethical mean? Ethics are defined as “moral principles that govern a person’s or group’s behavior.” So what, then, are morals? Morals are “concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character.” What, then, is the difference? On the show NCIS, the difference is explained thusly: “The ethical man knows it is wrong to cheat on his wife, whereas the moral man actually wouldn’t.” The ethical life seems to be different from the moral life. Ethics are determined based on morals and morals are dependent on the individual. Ethics, at least in the general sense, are dependent on the situation (situational ethics) or, at least, ethics take the situation into account.

What happens when one’s morals do not match the ethics of the society within which they live? Is a moral life different from an ethical life? How do the ethics of a society influence ideology? Are they the same?

(I realize I am asking a lot of questions. And they do not necessarily have answers. They only complicate my thinking more.)

Prior to my Solzhenitsyn marathon, my thinking around these questions was based in two different topics: pacifism and capitalism. I’m going to start with pacifism, because I believe it is the easier of the two.

As a historian, I have thought about war and violence a lot, especially because of my focus on the First World War. During high school, I think, I learned about the Just War Doctrine in the Catholic Church. This Doctrine details the conditions for “legitimate defense by military force.” Defense. That means that there is no situation in which military force is justified as an aggressive action. The four conditions are: 1. “The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;” 2. “All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;” 3. “There must be serious prospects of success;” 4 “The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated (the power of modern means of destructions weights very heavily in evaluating this condition).” (This information came from the Wikipedia page, which site the 1992 Catechism.)

Now, there are plenty of things I dislike about the Catechism. This is not one of them. Essentially, these conditions, especially the fourth, mean that no modern military defense is just. Historically, the argument can be made that military defense has been justified. (The argument can be made that the First World War was a just war—although seriously mismanaged.) There are many other examples of refusing violence in the Abrahamic religions (and really all religions). We are all taught some version of “Thou shalt not kill.” Given all of this, there is no situation in which violence is acceptable.

Here I make two points. One relates to self-defense, because I have never been in the position in which I would need to violently defend myself or some one else, I cannot completely rule out the need for violent action in this case. Two, pacifism relates only to violence, not anger. Anger can be justified and righteous: remember, there is Biblical precedence for flipping tables (Matthew 21:12). Non-violent action does not necessarily mean peaceful.

Pacifism is therefore a moral stance and it guides my life, which, I think, makes pacifism part of my ethical life. Decision-making based on pacifism is easy in my life. I do not have to make the decisions that would force me to think about compromising my morals.

My thoughts on capitalism and the society in which I live are more complicated. (I know, that shouldn’t be possible given how mixed up I feel about this all at this point.) In a capitalist consumerist culture, almost every decision is an ethical decision.

As a consumer, where I shop includes ethical decisions. I refuse to shop at Hobby Lobby because of their stance on having their employees claim insurance benefits for contraception. It is morally wrong to prevent individuals from choosing how best to live their lives. Acting on that moral belief, I make the ethical decision not to shop there. I won’t eat at Chick-fil-A for many of the same reasons.

Those are easy ethical decisions for me to make—there are other stores at which to buy craft supplies and fast food. There are harder decisions: I dislike the way the government structures subsidies for farms—heavily favoring corn production that make buying heavily processed foods with high amounts of corn syrup cheap and other produce expensive. But I have to eat and I am living on a part-time, barely-above-minimum wage job while paying tuition and rent (even with a government student loan). I would like to support small local farms, to eat in a way that is, at least, not as harmful to the environment as single-crop farming can be. So, while my morals tell me one thing, when I am confronted with specific situations, I must make ethical compromises.

It seems, then, that sometimes, one’s morals and ethics do not match the society in which one lives. How does one act in that situation? I find that depends on the society in which one lives. I can live my version of an ethical life, or at least try to, when the society in which I live allows me to act contrarily to the prevailing ethical code. But, when society does not, is it still possible?

I would like to say yes. But, perhaps not. Or at least, maybe it is possible if only one posses a strength of mind and conviction that I am unable to fathom.

And that brings us to Solzhenitsyn. I really started thinking about the problem of trying to live an ethical life shortly after starting The Gulag Archipelago. Clearly the U.S.S.R. was an authoritarian dictatorship. The concept of “law and order” had nothing to do with justice. One could be arrested for not speaking against someone even though the second person had done nothing wrong. Standing too long at a street corner with the wrong person, whether you talked to them or not—or even knew them—could land you in the Gulag. With millions being imprisoned or just disappearing, how can one live an ethical life? Is not every choice not to protest or resist complicity? Admittedly, there were those who did speak out. But, like in Nazi Germany, they were silenced. So, then, is not merely surviving enough? Is it acceptable to compromise one’s ethics or morals in order to stay alive?

And, again, I am left with more questions.

The best answer I have to all my questions is that it is impossible to know. Despite how it seems, this is not a Yes/No question and accepting a simple answer is unsatisfying. But there is value in trying to live ethically. There is greatness in questioning one’s actions and choices and trying to make the decisions that benefit society as a whole. There is beauty in the struggle.

And in the end, it’s the journey that matters.