Abstract: We are all saints and sinners: Some of our actions benefit other people, while other actions harm people. How do people balance moral rights against moral wrongs when evaluating others’ actions? Across 9 studies, we contrast the predictions of three conceptions of intuitive morality—outcome- based (utilitarian), act-based (deontologist), and person-based (virtue ethics) approaches. Although good acts can partly offset bad acts—consistent with utilitarianism—they do so incompletely and in a manner relatively insensitive to magnitude, but sensitive to temporal order and the match between who is helped and harmed. Inferences about personal moral character best predicted blame judgments, explaining variance across items and across participants. However, there was modest evidence for both deontological and utilitarian processes too. These findings contribute to conversations about moral psychology and person perception, and may have policy implications.
See also Beyond "being good frees us to be bad": Moral self-licensing and the fabrication of moral credentials. June 2016, DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781316225608.004 In book: Cheating, Corruption, and Concealment. Daniel Effron, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326058400_Beyond_being_good_frees_us_to_be_bad_Moral_self-licensing_and_the_fabrication_of_moral_credentials
Abstract: Dishonesty is ubiquitous in our world. The news is frequently filled with high-profile cases of corporate fraud, large-scale corruption, lying politicians, and the hypocrisy of public figures. On a smaller scale, ordinary people often cheat, lie, misreport their taxes, and mislead others in their daily life. Despite such prevalence of cheating, corruption, and concealment, people typically consider themselves to be honest, and often believe themselves to be more moral than most others. This book aims to resolve this paradox by addressing the question of why people are dishonest all too often. What motivates dishonesty, and how are people able to perceive themselves as moral despite their dishonest behaviour? What personality and interpersonal factors make dishonesty more likely? And what can be done to recognize and reduce dishonesty? This is a fascinating overview of state-of-the-art research on dishonesty, with prominent scholars offering their views to clarify the roots of dishonesty.
"In this chapter, I demonstrate that people are remarkably adept at convincing themselves that they have a license to give into temptations. After briefly reviewing research showing that doing good deeds can increase people’s willingness to do bad ones, I offer an expanded view of moral self-licensing effects. Specifically, I discuss new work that reveals how people can feel morally licensed without doing good deeds, and I describe how people actively create and distort evidence of their virtue when they anticipate that they will need a moral license."
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