FWIS3

No, not the General Public License, that's a different kind of moral licensing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_licensing

Rather, the way that doing occasional good deeds makes people feel free to do bad ones in compensation. I've seen this pattern in my own thinking and behavior fairly often, to the point that I have my own term for it; but for some reason it didn't occur to me that psychologists might have one already. Anyway I'm glad I now have a "legitimate" term to keep in mind.

On some related notes:

- IIRC some serial killers show an extreme example of this. "I'm a pillar of the community, I've helped so many people; what's a few murders to that?"

- The most morally stringent people I've met have all had a cruel streak... Working in soup kitchens and women's shelters, having work ethics to put me utterly to shame, saving the lives of strangers and all but destroying themselves for their ideals; and yet always willing to hurt those around them on the small scale. I wonder if that's related, in some weird inverse way.

Al Capone.

SciFiFisher wrote:Al Capone.

I see your Al Capone and I raise you a Congress.

Amateurs

I see your Congress and your Al Capone and raise you a Chavez

Game Set Match.

I will go all in with Stalin....


oh wait. I don't think he bothered to do the occasional good deed.

Stalin was an atheist that thought he was a God.

and here i was thinking of people who resolve to do better and perform acts of atonement in recognition of their sins and other shortcomings.

More the opposite of that, cm - people doing a good deed here and there, and using that as an excuse to do wrong. Stalin might have been an extreme example (or something else entirely) but apparently most people do this all the time. Looking at how I behave, I could believe it.

I'm coming more and more to believe that there are no good or evil people, only people influenced to do good or evil by circumstances.

This could have a bright side, i.e. that social progress and improved standards of living might influence people to be more decent.

Making the most of being an Electric Ant kind of sucks, though.

Edit: what I'm getting at is, the pattern of

sin -> penance -> sin -> penance -> etc.

is a form of rationalization. Or maybe more to the point, if someone is repeating the same wrong behavior and trying to make up for it by doing right elsewhere, they're still doing the wrong thing.

... Hope I'm not touching too many nerves here BTW.

No nerves to touch here. I'm prefect.

FZR1KG wrote:No nerves to touch here. I'm prefect.

I thought you were awesome?

Awsome and prefect!

Prefect? you related to Ford?

No, I'm pretty sure Stalin was just evil and had no intentions of really doing "good" in any sense, so not buying it. I mean if there was ever a candidate for someone worse than Hitler...

Also not sure why this is under sci-tech but that's neither here nor there I guess.

Sigma_Orionis wrote:Prefect? you related to Ford?

Nah...he's more of a Yugo...