Virtue Theft

Virtue Theft refers to the claiming of total moral credit for the actions of others due to your own. It in and of itself isn't quite as insidious as Moral Licensing, but it can certainly accentuate it, especially when a moral act is done as a means of obtaining moral credits. For instance, donating money to an effective animal charity that contributes to the development of more Vegan alternatives, or convincing a person to reduce meat consumption, and believing you get complete credit for that. This ignores the agency of those you are influencing. Does the person working in the charity to develop alternatives, or the person you influenced to eat less meat not get any credit?

The credit for actions such as these doesn't fall on one person, rather the credit is shared. You get the credit for donating your money or spending your time, while the person working in the charity or is influenced by your actions gets credit as well.

This contirbutes to the negative effects of Moral Licensing, because not only do people already wildly overestimate the good of their positive actions, they get far less "credit" for their actions than they realize. Let's grant that a person donating a dollar to a tree planting charity (which are highly dubious in cost effectiveness and are arguably counterproductive), absorbs 1 tonne of CO2. But the person does not get all the credit for that one tonne, since it'll dilluted through dozens or even hundreds of other people. You have to take into account the person who planted the tree, the people who scouted the area and obtained the proper resources, and the organizers of the charity, just to name a few. One could argue that without that person donating, the tree would not have been planted, but without all the other people on the line, there wouldn't be any charity to give to to begin with.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the message was lost.

For want of a message the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.