On shepherds, wolves, and sheep, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 245

245

On shepherds, wolves, and sheep: There is a sort of integrity which refuses a personal indulgence when it would exploit the innocent.  It is held by one who concludes that he is really at bottom a scoundrel and that resistance is the noble thing to do, given the unfortunate circumstance.  This integrity is nonetheless something more than that sort which is incapable of doing harm.  And as it turns out, the harmless are just that sort which the scoundrel musters up the strength to resist exploiting.  But in doing so, does he not measure his integrity to the precise degree of his successful resistance?  


This struggle presupposes a fundamental orientation from which he reached for a higher result ... a presupposition that there is a moral basis in something higher than that evident both in the one who failed to resist the force and also in the one for whom there was no force to resist.

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