I agree with this post. Given that we react more leniently towards selfish behavior when people appear to have good intentions, it seems clear to me that we are incentivizing everyone to convince themselves that they really do have good intentions. Regardless of whether they’re actually doing morally good behavior.
I don’t think this is isolated to “having good intentions.” I think it affects many other internal states and ways-of-seeing-oneself. e.g. If we give people more slack for missing deadlines when they have ADHD, that incentivizes people to convince themselves they have ADHD (whether or not they truly meet the criteria). If we give people whatever they want when they throw a tantrum, that incentivizes them to avoid learning how to regulate their emotions.
(Of course, all of these examples involve trade-offs, and the answer isn’t clearly “stop giving any special treatment towards people who have some sympathetic internal state.”)
There’s a related concept in medicine called “secondary gain.” Basically, a patient may be subconsciously motivated to stay sick because their illness resulted in some indirect benefit, e.g. their spouse started helping more with housework.
I agree with this post. Given that we react more leniently towards selfish behavior when people appear to have good intentions, it seems clear to me that we are incentivizing everyone to convince themselves that they really do have good intentions. Regardless of whether they’re actually doing morally good behavior.
I don’t think this is isolated to “having good intentions.” I think it affects many other internal states and ways-of-seeing-oneself. e.g. If we give people more slack for missing deadlines when they have ADHD, that incentivizes people to convince themselves they have ADHD (whether or not they truly meet the criteria). If we give people whatever they want when they throw a tantrum, that incentivizes them to avoid learning how to regulate their emotions.
(Of course, all of these examples involve trade-offs, and the answer isn’t clearly “stop giving any special treatment towards people who have some sympathetic internal state.”)
There’s a related concept in medicine called “secondary gain.” Basically, a patient may be subconsciously motivated to stay sick because their illness resulted in some indirect benefit, e.g. their spouse started helping more with housework.