Is it possible to live a good life in a corrupt society?

HA! That’s an unanswerable question if ever I’ve seen one. But if I have to answer…

Taking the question at face value, it can be said that the concept of good directly correlates to the ideals and beliefs of the society the frame (human) of reference is in. In an extreme example, if I lived in a morally corrupt (to our standards) society where killing babies was revered and I was a baby killer, I’d be, by extension, living a good life. In this case, the answer to the prompt would be an unequivocal “yes.” However, the question can and will be interpreted differently. I will assume that “good” is not relative—there is such a thing as an all-encompassing moral good and whatever opposes it is “bad”—and those who act with good intentions are living a “good life.” Sure, that’s all nice and dandy, but it’s still pretty abstract. What exactly is “good”? Without the answer to that question, this prompt as a whole is unanswerable. I will define it as the following: a good action is one that furthers the physical, mental and emotional well being of the individual (and of others) given that it does not interfere with the well being of the next person. It logically follows then, that something “bad” is something that depraves or lessens humans from that state of well being. Finally, a corrupt society is a society in which their moral compass has been reversed—a society where doing the bad thing is seen as the norm and followed. The question then becomes: can one do good deeds if they live in a society where doing bad things is commonplace?

The way I see it, the answer remains yes, albeit to a lesser extent. East Asian philosophers, like Laozi, provide the view that the greatest state of being comes from within, from the self, suggesting that a corrupt society would not change the possibility of being good. The same follows with Epicurus. However, a utilitarianist view of morality shakes the foundation of this thought.

A society can be corrupt, and all those in it can be doers of bad actions, but even then, the life is individual; it is the individual who chooses to live a good life. That is what philosophers like Laozi, Confucius and Epicurus would argue. The tentatively fictional Laozi (Lao Tzu), tentative founder of Daoism as both a religion and philosophy, strongly believed that there’s a natural order to the universe and how things act. He believed that a virtuous person is one who lives by that order, that path, that Dao, The Way. The Way is not determined by the society, nor do humans determine it at all. The Way is simply the natural way the universe follows. Therefore, a human need not and should not be influenced by those around him, meaning he can be morally good even if he resides in a corrupt society. In the Daoist train of thought the idea of “wu wei” is that, in order to living a proper, good, life, one must act in an uncontrived way. The must do without doing, as the planets orbit the sun. If an asteroid hits a planet, its orbit will be changed, but it will continue to revolve in a natural, unforced way. To Lao Tzu, this is how a human must live; a society can be bad, corrupt and it may change the life of the individual in one way or another, but the virtuous human will, in spite of it, continue to follow the Dao, the Way. And being on said Way, in Daoist thought, is the greatest state of well being.

Although from a completely different time period and culture, the ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus, also believed that morality came from within. His moral philosophy, a kind of egoistic hedonism, in which one’s own happiness is the most important, described a concept named ataraxia. This state, he believed, is the greatest state for a human being to be in, achieved when said person gets rid of all pain and suffering in their life and, consequently, no longer seek pleasure to counteract the pain. This is a state that depends on the self—those who are able to rid themselves of pain will, in turn, act in such a way that is constantly furthering their well being. However, this exact thought provides its own counterargument.

If a human trying to achieve ataraxia lived in a corrupt society, he would never achieve it. Why? Because if all those around him were acting in a morally detrimental way, this individual would never be able to rid himself of pain and suffering because it would be ever present. Thus, the argument can also be made that no, one can not truly live a good life in a corrupt society because there will always be others to negate or make it impossible for one to do good actions and achieve a state of well being.

It can also be said that utilitarianism works against the thought that it is possible to live a good life in a corrupt society. This is because, in utilitarianism, the proper course of action is defined as the one that produced the greatest “net happiness” (i.e. most happiness amongst all people involved). Therefore, when faced with an ethical dilemma in a corrupt society, the action that will make most people happy will be a bad one, as that is what they’ve come to expect and respect. If everyone worked in function of utilitarianism, there would be no possible way to live a good life in a corrupt society.

Thankfully, that is not the case. Everybody abides by different beliefs of morality and they have different ways of achieving total well being. And seriously, think about the ramifications of the answer “it is not possible to live a good life in a corrupt society.” That means that in every single society that acts in a bad way, there is not a single human being who acts in a morally good way. Surely this can’t be. Otherwise, does that mean that a society will forever remain corrupt unless an outside, “good,” source tips the balance? The Arab Spring comes to mind, Syria in particular. Can they find their way out of their problems on their own or do they require foreign assistance? Knowledge issues permeate this entire question, for, if everyone has a different concept of morality and discrepancies between what they think is good and bad, then who is to even say that their society is corrupt and that ours is good? The question “Is it possible to live a good life in a corrupt society?” is unanswerable for the very same reason. Only if we stick to my over-simplified, over-restricted definition of good and corrupt can we find one of many possible answers, and even that isn’t black and white. Yes, it is possible to live a good life in a corrupt society, but not always.