The plight of captives is revealed by enumerating eighteen terms of existence that might obtain in barbaric situations. The poignant confession of Elie Wiesel is used to demonstrate the tormented conscience of a former captive who believed he should have been a conscientious moral agent in extremity. Socrates and Kant are introduced as philosophic forerunners of this ethical idea. The burning question guiding this ethical study is introduced, to wit: “At the extremes of experience, in a time of barbarism when captives are struggling to survive, is there a line at which the moral judgment of survival behavior ceases?” Four competing perspectives on the ethics of survival are introduced as possible answers to the burning question: The ethics of Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, and the U.S. Military. The possibility of bias and distortion in the confessions of survivors, the thinking of philosophers, and the historical reports of scholars are presented as a central problem. With a view toward advancing a biologically based realism, neurophysiological research is introduced to suggest that when human beings are in the grip of physical and emotional trauma, involuntary changes occur in the physical body, resulting in dramatic changes in thinking, feeling, and behavior.