Who are the sellouts? What is a sellout? The very term seems to have become passé as the present generation appears to have made its peace with commerce. But the fact that the term still stings would imply it is not yet dead, and that is a sign of hope. It reveals that buried deep in memory some remnant of our forgotten potential still resides. We only need to acknowledge it to bring it back.

To be clear, the term sellout is not being used in any special sense here. It is exactly what it has been, an accusation of the betrayal of one’s principles in exchange for promised wealth and fame. Today the very idea seems childish and naive to most. “This is just the way things are.” Some would say. While others will make rationalizations that amount to the same thing. But if everything is up for sale, what is left of virtue? Are moral principles then but a trap for fools?

It is one of the many sad effects of capitalism that most of us are forced by necessity to compromise their view of the good life in the cause of simply living. Many dreams and ambitions will be put upon a shelf, perhaps with the half hopeful promise to revisit them in retirement but, deep down sensing that in all likelihood they will be forgotten long before. We have been conditioned to accept this state of affairs for so long that we don’t even think to question it. This is the drumbeat of the working world and, woe to he or she who does not march to it.

Yet we love our rebels, if only in the commodified form modern media provides. Some residue of the romantic outlook continues to cling to consciousness as a reminder that things were not always so. They grant us the luxury of pretending from time to time that things could be otherwise than they are. Such is the role often fulfilled by entertainers, comedians and, what are popularly referred to as artists. Musicians (there is that romantic trope again) are especially viewed in this rebellious manner, perhaps due to the power and ease with which music works upon the emotions and opens us to vulnerability; but any personality in view of the public will do.

Especially when starting out in their careers we admire their gusto, their defiance, or perceived defiance, of the norm, and we cheer our rebels on. Then, as usual, comes the fall from grace. The accusation that they have sold out, have changed so much as to be unrecognizable. Regardless, it is inevitable, if our hero is admired to a point of excess, material rewards will follow and, as a result, remake the mold. When F. Scott Fitzgerald remarked that the rich are unlike you and me, he was not only referring to their bank accounts. Wealth of any form, earned or not, brings with it a new worldview and a new identity. But, can we blame them?

For human beings life is not so much breathing or eating as getting, and the necessity of “getting a living” will eventually enable you to get more of life or less but, we will either succeed in the getting or, life will get us. It is no surprise then when a hero declines the chance to be a martyr. For, though we rarely like to acknowledge it, we judge but are not immune to the same forces that compel our heroes to conform. Indeed, there is plenty to tempt us to join them.

There are no material rewards for the preservation of self-respect and dignity, but often very great rewards, both material and otherwise, for those willing to sell their own. But, as we have increasingly lost the habit of questioning the terms of our enslavement, our state of servitude itself becomes the natural state of being; so much so that we did not know we had any self-respect or dignity to start, as the only value that is known is the value of our stock.

What is more, even for those who believe themselves wise enough to escape this trap, who have abandoned the nine-to-five routine to perhaps live on the road or abroad as “entrepreneurs” running a business from a laptop, have merely modified the terms of bondage, not escaped from it. They sell the idea of freedom as a commodity, and by offering a fantasy of freedom only help subvert the change that might otherwise bring genuine freedom about; a form of subversion that has interesting ethical implications as we will see. And so it is here perhaps the virtue ethics of Aristotle may provide a rubric for ethical analysis.

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle contends that virtue is an expression of reason, as the virtuous choice is, he believes, the reasonable one. And to be reasonable is to choose balance or to seek the mean, that is, the middle point between extremes. For instance, courage might be defined as the mean between cowardice and rashness. But the point here assumed is that one is free to choose the mean. As Aristotle concludes that the rational life was the happiest one, it was with this in mind he argues slaves are incapable of happiness because they are not free to choose their lives. Choice then is a privilege, and such a privilege was taken for granted by the aristocratic audience Aristotle was addressing. A fact not to use in disregarding Aristotle’s views but, a context to keep in mind.

The average modern citizen can little expect a life of unrestricted opportunities and, many are prevented from choosing virtue out of the simple necessity of survival. But, despite his presumed well-to-do readers, Aristotle was not inclined to judge harshly those failing to meet expectations. The philosopher did not feel the need of Jehovah to condemn some as unworthy of perfection as, he understood from his observations of the natural world, that the world is often less than perfect.

As virtue must be a free choice he contends, the circumstances in which the individual can make the choice must always be taken into consideration. Such a view of the ethical is more true to real experience and its messy ambiguities than the more rigid alternatives of both philosophy and religion. Hitting the golden mean between extremes is the ideal; in practice, most mere mortals can but try, and this only if an individual has the necessary understanding to determine the mean at all.

This understanding Aristotle terms ‘practical wisdom’ or, Phronesis. Phronesis can only be acquired through life experience and reflection, and few things provide more opportunities for acquiring life experiences and the intellectual skills for useful reflection more practically than wealth. As virtue is a matter of free choice, and as our ability to choose is determined by our circumstances, those who most closely resemble the slaves of Aristotle’s Greece are consequently the least able to attain virtue and thus happiness.

It should also follow then that those who possess the greater freedom of choice are also obliged to accept a harsher measure of blame in their degree of failure to attain the mean, as their opportunities for developing and choosing virtue were more numerous. But this is not all. Unlike the aristocratic society for which Aristotle wrote, ours is not a world that honors virtue; or at least, our concept of virtue and what pertains to it is either unclear or the outright reverse of our forebears conception.

This deep ambiguity is why even otherwise pleasant, decent people may inadvertently be benefiting from and perpetuating, a false sense of virtue. Aristotle saw virtue as something to be developed, it does not come to us ready-made but requires effort on our part. However, this is not to say that the desire to be virtuous does not exist before our understanding of it. This desire to do good while still in ignorance of in what the good consists Aristotle termed ‘natural virtue’. Children are typical of this category.

To illustrate, consider a young child who wakes before its parents in order to cook them breakfast, and in the process burns down the house. The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions. From much the same mindset there are many adults who, while trying to do good, remain ignorant to the fact that their actions do little or nothing to bring about the conditions in which virtue could thrive. Their good but blind intentions do not rebuild the house, nor stop the fire to begin with. Once again, this only helps to underscore how important are the conditions under which we live that allow for virtue’s development.

In this, it seems however unknowingly, that Aristotle has laid out an early formulation of moral luck. The term, coined by the British philosopher Bernard Williams, concerns the question: How do factors beyond our control affect our moral responsibility?

For example, we might view it as the difference between an individual stealing a loaf of bread to feed their family and, an individual stealing a loaf for a thrill. Most of us instinctively would (although recognizing that theft in itself is wrong) judge less severely the person stealing from necessity than the person just having a lark. Here again, we are reminded that our freedom to choose always relies upon the means and opportunity to do so. The starving beggar might prefer to pay for his meal but, fate is indifferent to our desires and most of us will fight to continue living at any cost, as is only natural. But that natural desire to live often comes at the price of one’s dignity and the debt of one’s shame, two consequences of simply being born the poor know all too well.