This article reads in a new way a work by Claudio Pavone, a short “autobiographical sketch” written for Albert O. Hirschman where the author describes the roots of his engagement in the Resistance. The work stands between Una guerra civile. Saggio storico sulla moralità nella Resistenza, the book that renewed the studies on the issue, and La mia Resistenza, a book of memories published in 2015. The paper highlights two features of Pavone’s historical research: on the one hand, the tension between different and equally felt values and the political outcomes of these values; on the other hand his decision to refrain from taking up arms even though he believed armed Resistance against the Repubblica Sociale Italiana and German occupation to be a necessary and legitimate option.