Is it possible to live a good life in a corrupt society?
First off, I am not necessarily sure what a corrupt society is. Well the word “correct”, as stated in dictionary.com, defines the word as “guilty of dishonest practices, as bribery; lack of integrity”. Now for me, this sounds like a society that has no rules and the people who follow the rules fall into anarchy in order to survive.
Does this mean that everyone in the society has to live a life of crime (according to the government) in order to survive in this type society? No. People get around this type of stuff everyday within the world and I believe that people can live a good life within a corrupt society. An example of a corrupt society would be Paraguay which is said up to be 90% according to polls taken by the public for USA TODAY.
Does this imply that everyone in the country is taking bribes and manipulating the law? No. Are people being treated unfairly? Yes. But, I think that the people try to live a good life because they know where the corruption is, therefore, they are able to avoid it in a manner where they are able to live a good life.
If we look at this question through the lense of distinction, we find that human nature dictates that we are born sinners and have been corrupted once we are born. Only when we are at an age where we learn otherwise, we are taught to not do these bad intentions that first come to our minds. They way humans have acted and humans do act seems to tip the scale towards greediness because society has become obsessed with the idea of power and retaining it. This is how society and humans have worked and will probably work in the future if we do not learn from past experiences and get rid of the greediness that affects millions of lives around the world.
In ethics, I believe there is a key component that offers a lot of insight to what society thinks and goes through. This is morals. Moral means the right thing and immoral means the wrong thing. While an moral choice means the right thing to do. Now, these terms might not have a certain meaning within a corrupt society but the people who live in it do. They have the choice of whether or not to give into these immoral ideals that society has undertaken. This may or may not have to do with someones religion or prior belief system where it already has a set of “moral” and “immoral” ideals. But within a corrupt society, do we throw all of these morals out the window in order to make a living? Quite possibly yes because we must survive. Like I stated previously, man was born a sinner and possibly an immoral choice maker. So who is not to say we go back to these immoral choices to save the ones we love and cherish so that we may live a good life.
If we look at this question within the eyes of a philosopher, I believe that Thomas Hobbes’ theory might back me up on what I stated in the previous paragraph. His belief on the “state of nature” is that humans are incapable of cooperating with each other, and will be selfish, brutish individuals, which will eventually become a state of war. I believe that some people are incapable of working together because of the state of nature we might be in. But this won’t lead to war. It will lead to conflict that can be solved through other dynamics such as negotiations and treaties (which might or might not have worked in the past, depending on how you look at them). Hobbes later goes on in his theory stating that this type of “anarchy” should be ruled by an overall power that will prevent this from happening. So basically a dictatorship. This is not necessarily good because it gives the entire country one leader to make all of the decisions for them. With no consent or advice that will have an opinion. If we do this, the “state of nature” that Hobbes had said will not work because if man is not able to cooperate with others, how are these leaders supposed to make trade, peace or anything if they are selfish? Interesting.
In the end, I believe that people can live in a corrupt society but it will be very hard according the “state of nature” humans already posess.
Good response, you touch on some very interesting points throughout. I'm just wondering, you never seem to define "good life" and I feel that it is an important word to unpack, what is your definition of a good life? From reading you response I do believe you are consistant with its meaning, I would just like to know exactly what the meaning is.
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