Why Doing Good Makes It Easier to Be Bad

Why Doing Good Makes It Easier to Be Bad

You might wonder how people who seem so good by occupation could be so bad in private. The theory of moral licensing could help explain why: When humans are good, it says, we give ourselves license to be bad.

In one paper, economists at the University of Chicago reported that working for a socially responsible company motivated employees to act immorally. In one experiment, people were hired to transcribe images of short German texts and paid 10 percent upfront, with the remaining payment being delivered if they completed the transcriptions, or if they declared the documents too illegible to transcribe. When they were told that, for every job completed or marked illegible, 5 percent of their wages would be donated to Unicef’s educational programs, the instances of cheating rose by 25 percent, compared to where no charitable donation was offered. Cheating manifested in both workers not completing jobs (taking the 10 percent upfront fee and running) and also workers saying that documents were too illegible to transcribe (and so receiving the full fee).

I’m angry. But I’ll close my mouth

Every time I open up Facebook or turn on the news on the radio I get a bit angrier. 😑

Why do I really care? The things I read about only impact me incidentally me at best. But there is the dreaded comment box, which I often will click wanting respond, type a few words and click cancel. I’ve grown smarter as I’ve gotten older.

Nobody wants to hear my opinion anyways and if I do comment, it will only elicit a response on why I am wrong or uncaring. If I have something to say, my best venue is my blog where I have full control over content and now it’s presented.

Moreover, I don’t really care that much. My thing is making the best possible world for myself, saving money and investing in my own future. I don’t plan to stay in New York for many more years, so it really doesn’t matter to me how much of a shit hole our great state is becoming. I’ve never voted for the man. Half of decrees sent down from a high are ignored at the local level at any rate.

And the truth is... My opinion doesn’t really matter and it’s just best to close out and ignore the people I disagree with so passionately.

Allegheny National Forest Deer Density Index

A map service on the www that displays estimates of deer density (deer per square mile), as derived from spring deer pellet-group counts. Displays 1, 2 or 3 year average depending on available data.