Can we divorce ethics from behavior and thought?  Such was the contention of someone with whom I was talking a few weeks ago.  This person believed that we could engage in behavior, thought, and inquiry without any reference to ethics, that we could live as intelligent and rational beings apart from ethical foundation.  Ethics, he argued, should be kept separate from everything else.
     It's an interesting thought, but it's difficult to see how it could work.  To make such an observation is in itself an ethical position, for it is a value judgment, an assessment of the relative worth of particular forms of human expression.  We really cannot do anything without taking an ethical position on it; indeed, to chose one thing over another is in itself an ethical decision.
     An existentialist would of course disagree, averring that the choice is not as important as that a choice be made.  Yet even this is an ethical statement.  Sure, it may be in our interest to suspend immediate ethical judgment when evaluating a particular situation. Similarly, we may benefit from reviewing our ethical positions periodically, but few of us can live with an entirely fluid system of ethics.
     A friend of mine who unfortunately died (much too soon) a few years ago once told me that he was a nihilist, meaning that he did not believe in meaning.  Yet even this is a statement of meaning.  Ethics can be cumbersome, and ethics can bind unduly, yet God made us as moral beings.  We are made to find and construct value.  Better that we strive to do that rather than try to escape who we are.
     For that matter, isn't living an ethical statement?  Maybe that's why God chose to live, in the person of Jesus, as one of us.