Difference between revisions of "Moral Licensing"
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| − | In the world of charity and altruism, two things that are already vulnerable to misuse and counterproductiveness, one of the most perniscious issues is the one of '''Moral Liscensing'''. Moral Licensing refers to the phenomenon when an individual does some sort of ethical action, such as donating to a charity, or buying a more eco-friendly product, then feeling either justified or not guilty in engaging in other unethical behaviour, effectively offsetting the good done. In other words, it's the issue of treating morality like a currency; Keeping track of how many "points" you have and using them to spend on unethical actions, sort of like the idea of karma. For example, someone who donates to a tree planting charity will feel justified in taking a 500 mile road trip in a gas guzzler since they have helpedto reduce CO2, or a person helping out at a local pet shelter won't feel the need to do anything about their meat consumption since they already have helped animals. | + | In the world of charity and altruism, two things that are already vulnerable to misuse and counterproductiveness, one of the most perniscious issues is the one of '''Moral Liscensing'''. Moral Licensing refers to the phenomenon when an individual does some sort of ethical action, such as donating to a charity, or buying a more eco-friendly product, then feeling either justified or not guilty in engaging in other unethical behaviour, effectively offsetting the good done. It's a very effective way of making us feel bad about things we know we ought to not do, to fight the resulting cognitive dissonance. |
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| + | In other words, it's the issue of treating morality like a currency; Keeping track of how many "points" you have and using them to spend on unethical actions, sort of like the idea of karma. For example, someone who donates to a tree planting charity will feel justified in taking a 500 mile road trip in a gas guzzler since they have helpedto reduce CO2, or a person helping out at a local pet shelter won't feel the need to do anything about their meat consumption since they already have helped animals. | ||
Besides the obvious issues with how this negates any potential good, human beings are exceptional at underestimating the effects of their actions both positive and negative when there is no direct evidence of the good or bad they've done, meaning that when they partake in the unethical behavior afterwards, it often does much more harm which not only negates the good they've done, but is often drestructive enough to add additional harm. This makes them not even at absolute zero, but in the red. | Besides the obvious issues with how this negates any potential good, human beings are exceptional at underestimating the effects of their actions both positive and negative when there is no direct evidence of the good or bad they've done, meaning that when they partake in the unethical behavior afterwards, it often does much more harm which not only negates the good they've done, but is often drestructive enough to add additional harm. This makes them not even at absolute zero, but in the red. | ||
Revision as of 19:15, 5 December 2025
In the world of charity and altruism, two things that are already vulnerable to misuse and counterproductiveness, one of the most perniscious issues is the one of Moral Liscensing. Moral Licensing refers to the phenomenon when an individual does some sort of ethical action, such as donating to a charity, or buying a more eco-friendly product, then feeling either justified or not guilty in engaging in other unethical behaviour, effectively offsetting the good done. It's a very effective way of making us feel bad about things we know we ought to not do, to fight the resulting cognitive dissonance.
In other words, it's the issue of treating morality like a currency; Keeping track of how many "points" you have and using them to spend on unethical actions, sort of like the idea of karma. For example, someone who donates to a tree planting charity will feel justified in taking a 500 mile road trip in a gas guzzler since they have helpedto reduce CO2, or a person helping out at a local pet shelter won't feel the need to do anything about their meat consumption since they already have helped animals.
Besides the obvious issues with how this negates any potential good, human beings are exceptional at underestimating the effects of their actions both positive and negative when there is no direct evidence of the good or bad they've done, meaning that when they partake in the unethical behavior afterwards, it often does much more harm which not only negates the good they've done, but is often drestructive enough to add additional harm. This makes them not even at absolute zero, but in the red.
This sort of thing of course is not always a gauruntee. Some people recognize that doing good doesn't make it permissable to engage in harmful behavior, and the whole point should be minimizing harm while maximizing good. But given human beings irrationality and constant self-serving bias, this is comparatively rare.
It's not charities in and of themselves that are a problem.
