Choosing a way of life › Does the content of a choice matter?

The judge sometimes emphasizes the seriousness of choosing more than choosing correctly. He suggests that wholehearted choice can lead a person to recognize that a choice was wrong. Taken in isolation, this can sound as though any sincere decision is ethically sufficient. His surrounding argument does not support that conclusion.

He distinguishes the aesthetic from evil by describing it as indifference to the distinction between good and evil. Choosing the ethical introduces that distinction as a matter that concerns the chooser. It does not make the chooser incapable of doing wrong. The ethical task continues after the initial choice.

This is why responsibility cannot be replaced by intensity. Someone may commit intensely to a harmful undertaking. Their intensity alone does not answer the question of its moral character. The judge's appeal to choice must be read with his continuing claims about duty and the good.

The letters therefore invite two separate questions. Has the person taken responsibility for choosing? What have they chosen, and how should that choice be assessed? Keeping these questions distinct allows us to understand the judge's emphasis without turning it into a permission to do anything with conviction.