by James Wallace Harris, 10/23/23
I try to be an ethical person but I’m not a particularly virtuous person. Some might define both terms, “ethical person” and “virtuous person,” as a good person. I’m reading The Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman and it’s making me wonder if being ethical, or even a moral person is not the same thing as being a good, or virtuous person.
I believe morality is defined by theology, and ethics are defined by the consensus of humans. It’s how we divide right from wrong. Before I thought about it today, I assumed being moral or ethical meant you were a good person, and being unethical or amoral meant you were a bad person. But now that I’m reading the Stoics I’m wonder if they offer a different definition for being good or bad, mainly because they bring in the term virtue.
Stoicism is all about how you live life. Actions speak louder than philosophy. Being a virtuous person, a good person means acting in the positive. Doing good for yourself, your family and friends, for you community, nation, species, and planet. Being ethical or moral only means not breaking the rules, not being bad. That doesn’t make you good.
And I can imagine amoral and unethical people doing constructive things. And I can imagine ethical and moral people being destructive. I can see why the Stoics, and philosophers in general, argue so much.
Most of us fear and despise amoral, unethical, destructive people because they hurt us or people we know. But I’m not sure we are good people if we’re just ethical and moral. In my reading of the Stoics I’m getting the feeling that by virture we have to do something good to be good. But doing what is where philosophical problems arise.
We make exceptional people in our society who can do amazing things into stars and heroes. But should we equate success with virtue? Expecially success measured by money and fame? For the early Stoics like Zeno, working hard all day at a job was virtuous. To handle whatever life threw at you without complaining was virtuous. To take hardships and disease in your stride was virtuous. Of course, today we’d say that’s only being stoic.
Maybe I want to define virtue by what some people call saintly. Does someone have to bring diplomatic peace to the Mideast to be virtuous, or does just volunteering at food bank count? I haven’t read enough of ancient philosophy to know yet.
I do know the more philosophical I become the more I distrust words and concepts. I do enjoy reading about the Stoics, but ultimately, I’m not sure philosophy will be any more valid than religion was to me.
I used to say I was a Puritanical Atheist. Now I want to label myself an Existential Buddhist.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
“Being ethical or moral only means not breaking the rules, not being bad. That doesn’t make you good.”
Of course it does—those ethical or moral choices are not bad, or neutral, and will not come without personal cost.
>
When we are living a quiet civilized life the people we interact with daily are expected to follow the “Social Contract” of being moral and ethical… and we tend to downgrade that effort as simply being normal and not that hard to follow if your over the age of 40. But this changes as events explode into war or famine or natural disasters. What is normal behavior is different. It takes a lot more mental energy to maintain a ethical behaviors; not stealing food or following basic laws in a crisis. This is the plot of so many stories. A soldier who is following simple rules of what is moral and ethical is looked upon as something of a hero…… In the book Ordinary Men this concept is put to the horrific test in Eastern Europe during WW ll… .. After the Germans soldiers conquered Poland and Ukraine Germany police took over maintaining order…… but soon after they were ordered to execute thousands of civilians, which they did… You have to be heroic to push back against those orders.
A virtuous life is easiest seen looking back on the sum total of your life’s work… A virtuous life is not what you plan or wish of your life it’s what actually what took place…in my mind it’s not what you believe in but “WHAT” you did with your time on earth….
One look at the House of Representatives will show you that Bad Behavior has been normalized in the U.S. Ethics are ignored…just look at Clarence Thomas and his RV. As our society seems to be spiraling out of control with increased drug use, mental health breakdowns, and increased suicides those concepts James Connell refers to seem to be held by fewer and fewer of us.