Every now and then a comment on Ethics Alarms that I have not answered personally sticks in my brain like a musical earworm, literally keeping me awake at night. This was one of those times. That proclivity is one reason I have made over 50,000 comments on my own blog among the 300,000 here in the decade Ethics Alarms has been in existence. The vast majority of bloggers don’t do that; most don’t comment at all. I do it because, in addition to the biological need for sleep, I designed this forum to be a colloquy and an ongoing ethics seminar as much as a platform for my own analysis.
This time, the comment that stuck in my brain like “Thank-You Girl,” the Beatles’ all-time earworm, began,
“How is rewarding unethical behavior ethical?”
The comment came as a response to yesterday’s post explaining why it would be best for all concerned if President Trump would stop claiming that the election was “stolen” or “rigged” (though it was both) and concede with graciousness and honor now that the chances of his prevailing in the Electoral College are vanishingly small.
I could answer that question in two sentences, or with a book. I will try mightily to come much closer to the former than the latter.
Perhaps this whole blog, all 12,125 posts (including this one), can be seen as an attempt to answer that question, which translates as “Why be ethical when everyone else isn’t? How can there be ethics in an unethical world? Why should anyone adhere to basic ethical principles if it means that the bad guys win?”
Another translation, you know, would be “No justice, no peace.”
This isn’t a justice blog or a punishment whatever those would be. It’s an ethics blog. Ethics embraces the principle of The Golden Rule,” which in Christian theology is usually stated, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This is known the ethical system of Reciprocity, which does not hold that we should “do unto others as they did unto us,” or any of the other “Golden Rule Mutations” I list in Rationalization #59 on the rationalizations list, among them,
- Do unto others as you know others would do unto you.
- Do unto others what they did unto you.
- Do unto others as you wish others would do unto you even though you wouldn’t deserve it.
- Do unto others as those others treat others.
- Do unto others as they threatened to do unto you.
- Do unto others as others who think like you do would also do to those others.
- Do unto others according to how you feel about what they did unto you.
- Do unto others before they do it unto you.
- Do unto me as you would want to have done unto you if you were as devoid of civilized values as I am.…
and
- Do unto others as if the others felt like I do, even though they may not.”
In fact, a lot of the rationalizations–lies we tell ourselves to make unethical conduct seem right—on the list support the reasoning behind “How is rewarding unethical behavior ethical?” Let’s see…a rough list would include,
2 A. Sicilian Ethics, or “They had it coming”
7. The “Tit for Tat” Excuse
11. (a) “I deserve this!” or “Just this once!”
13. The Saint’s Excuse: “It’s for a good cause”
14. Self-validating Virtue
17. Ethical Vigilantism
23 A. Woody’s Excuse: “The heart wants what the heart wants”
#24. Juror 3’s Stand (“It’s My Right!”)
25A. Frederick’s Compulsion or “It’s My Duty!”
26. “The Favorite Child” Excuse
28. The Revolutionary’s Excuse: “These are not ordinary times.”
31. The Troublesome Luxury: “Ethics is a luxury we can’t afford right now”
32. The Unethical Role Model: “He/She would have done the same thing”
58. The Golden Rule Mutation, or “I’m all right with it!”
59. The Ironic Rationalization, or “It’s The Right Thing To Do”
63. Yoo’s Rationalization or “It isn’t what it is”
69. John Lyly’s Rationalization, Or “All’s fair in love and war“
As has been common this year, #63, Yoo’s Rationalization, my be the most relevant. What the rhetorical question advocates is revenge and retribution. Revenge is not ethical. Christianity adopted the “turn the other cheek” exhortation in rejection of the Old Testament’s “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” formula as primitive and brutal. Of course, the latter formula can work in single instances and in the short term, but it is an endorsement of the anti-ethical concept of “the ends justifies the means,” or, as a famous quote goes, “An eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth would lead to a world of the blind and toothless.”
There are other aspects of the question that undermine the purpose of this blog, prime among them being the fact that most people have no idea how to determine what is ethical and what isn’t, and tend to designate conduct that they find emotionally repugnant, contrary to their own interests. or just don’t like “unethical.” They also are hostage to confirmation bias and wilful ignorance. For example, over 70% of Democrats apparently believe that President Trump “stole” the 2016 election by colluding with the Russians. They believe it because they want to, and because “He’s the kind of person who would do that,” as a famous exile from this blog would regularly assert as his justification for the persecution of the President on this issue. The imaginary collusion, in their view, justified removing Trump “by any means necessary,” which is what “justifies” stealing back the Presidency now, and besides, is it really stealing to take back what you shouldn’t have lost in the first place?
Arrgh, this is getting long; I knew this would happen. And I haven’t scratched the surface. I have explained why I believe that the election has been stolen, but that’s my opinion, and opinion isn’t fact. Enacting vengeance because of subjective conclusions that it has been earned is irresponsible and breaches the Rule of Universality: if everybody did it, the result would be anarchy and chaos. Politics itself is an unethical or anti-ethical culture by nature. Laws are supposed to provide the uncrossable line, but laws are drafted by fallible humans and are poor substitutes for ethics. Both political parties and their supporters can credibly point to past unethical conduct by the other side to justify (aka rationalize) their own ethics breaches, and do so regularly. The so-called cancel culture and Black Lives Matter justify their actions using the logic underlying “How is rewarding unethical behavior ethical?” So do terrorists and rioters. So does the biased, activist news media.
So now, after over a thousand words, this post comes down to the short answer.
Creating a more ethical culture and encouraging people to employ more competent and rational ethical analysis in pursuit of a better world demands that we reject revenge as a means of social control, and encourage ethical behavior by 1) engaging in it ourselves in defiance of the unethical conduct of others, and 2) using established structures and institutions to enforce healthy ethical norms.
This means that the bad guys will win sometimes, indeed a lot of the time, an infuriatingly amount of the time, but the alternative is having no good guys at all.
Ethics Alarms 
If I could add to the last paragraph my opinion. . .
“Creating a more ethical culture and encouraging people to employ more competent and rational ethical analysis in pursuit of a better world demands that we reject revenge as a means of social control, and encourage ethical behavior by 1) engaging in it ourselves in defiance of the unethical conduct of others, and 2) using established structures and institutions to enforce healthy ethical norms.”
It also means holding those that act unethically to account for their behavior. Simply turning the other cheek will reinforce the unethical behavior. That is not to mean that you do as they do but simply to expose the behavior for what it is. Without holding people responsible for their behavior the healthy ethical norms will become relics of a distant past because unethical behavior will be seen as good for it is rewarded.
I’m fully in Chris’ camp on his added third point. We own our own responsibility to be and act ethically to make our world a better place by standing against the unethical to hold them accountable …or in the least expose their wrong behavior with honest reason and truth. Thank you, Chris.
Holding them to account is contained in 2) using established structures and institutions to enforce healthy ethical norms.”
I had actually commented on another site on the circumstances where we must limit remedies against unethical behavior for the greater good.
http://www.quora.com/Is-Senator-Chuck-Schumer-correct-in-saying-that-Brett-Kavanaugh-is-not-entitled-to-the-presumption-of-innocence-because-a-Senate-hearing-is-not-a-court-of-law/answer/Michael-Ejercito
Exactly
I’ll confess this is one of the issues I struggle with. It makes me appreciate this blog more than you know, because it helps me reset my ethics compass.
We may very well reach a time when we have to step up and fight to retain a free America. I think many people are starting to feel like that train is barreling down the tracks directly for us, and perhaps it really is. I’ve heard, and thought, what’s the point? If elections are stolen, and everyone knows they’re stolen, but we’re all told it’s not (it isn’t what it is), then what’s the point of voting, trying, or even caring? Ultimately though, ethical conduct requires that we try. We must try to elect people who will uphold our values, and who will fight for a future with freedoms.
America was founded against seemingly insurmountable odds by people who didn’t give up. We need to be those people now.
Not sure I agree with that. Machiavelli, of course, would have disagreed from the get-go, but the fact of the matter is that if only one side shoots, the other side will soon be dead. I don’t believe in pure “the end justifies the means,” however, if the alternatives are losing with honor, and winning by bending the rules a bit, I am in favor of the latter, especially if the other side has already bent or broken them. There are no real Sir Galahads in history who won by being just that noble, and the overly noble or gullible often quickly found themselves out of the picture. Quite often the winner in history is the guy who was just ruthless enough without being too ruthless. In fact, here’s how I see it.
Rules For the Reading and Understanding of History, according to Steve:
1. History is not a novel or a storybook. Keep coming back to this rule when it doesn’t play like one.
2. There is no right or wrong in history, only accuracy and inaccuracy. Right or wrong are something the reader adds.
3. The guy with the most steel and gold usually wins…until he doesn’t, but that’s the way to bet.
4. Never ignore the obvious. If a reason for something is staring you in the face, it’s probably the reason.
5. Heroes and villains are for novels. In history there are only people. People are complicated and will usually do as much as they can get away with.
6. The most effective leaders are often also the ones who stop just short of being too ruthless.
7. The fate of the world almost never rested on the shoulders of one individual.
8. Those who seek power for its own sake often don’t know how to use it best when they finally achieve it.
9. A less developed culture is doomed once a sufficiently more developed one enters the picture.
10. Big mistakes usually lead to big consequences.
11. If there’s a mundane rather than a miraculous explanation, then go with the mundane one, but…
12. There will always be some things that can never be fully explained, and a few that can’t be explained at all.
13. There is such a thing as luck, although it doesn’t happen as often as you think. Sometimes it just happens, but frequently the successful make their own luck.
14. People have friends. Nations have interests.
15. All empires eventually fall apart.
16. Tactics are tools. It’s the reader who pronounces them right or wrong.
17. Facts don’t have agendas. People often do.
18. No nation ever achieved success without doing things it might not be too proud of later on. The same applies to most high achieving leaders.
19. The more people who know a secret, the harder it is to keep it a secret. Grand conspiracies make for compelling novels. They don’t make for accurate history.
20. Most people say all they have to say. If they didn’t say it, either they didn’t want to say it or didn’t think it was worth saying.
21, The dead don’t care if the living judge them.
22. No matter how much you read, you never know it all.
23. You don’t make yourself more moral by casting invective on those who came before.
Nice list Steve
Always enjoy your posts, and this list is no exception. I would add: “Astonishing evil can be, and usually is done to advance Big Shiny Dreams.” Communism, Fascism, Caliphates, Empires, and Social Media are but a few examples. The greater good is usually neither.
#18) No Grand Conspiracies
I was watching an old horror movie, “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death”. Spoilers obviously.
The premise of the movie was that a young woman died tragically before her wedding, but came back to life as a vampire. There had been rumors of the vampire for the past century. Half the town also had mysterious bandages or scars of bite marks. I had found all this unsettling.
Even though the part of town that hadn’t been bit didn’t believe in vampires, they certainly knew the rumors and stayed away from the vampire’s long vacant estate. I think the town’s collective knowledge is what made the movie compelling. The vampire couldn’t keep her existence perfectly secret, as her need to feed meaningfully impacted the community. The community couldn’t perfectly rationalize away the mysterious deaths and/or scars and reacted accordingly. One of the bite victims even broke ranks and directly warned the protagonist, leading to the murder of the bite victim in retaliation.
The open secret of the vampire in the town, combined with fragile state of the protagonist (who was in remission from a delusion disorder) gave the whole film an unshakable feeling of dread and uncertainty.
The movie’s use of imperfectly concealed conspiracies and people rationalizing away the undeniable for fear they’d be labeled insane is what made the movie compelling. Social pressure and failing to confront evil made a fantasy horror film seem realistic, avoiding all the insulting trope Jack mentioned in yesterday’s post.
In my RPG days it was noted that most vampires DON’T let their presence become even an open secret, since it means going straight to the top of the list of every paladin in the kingdom.
“if President Trump would stop claiming that the election was ‘stolen’ or ‘rigged’ ”
If an election lasts more than four (4) hours, shouldn’t you call your doctor immediately….
Is that an aphorism or a priapism
“Turn the other cheek” is a perfect example. It’s not designed to bring about victory or success in this world – it may, but that’s incidental. Our call is to be, first and foremost, loving. We can, and perhaps should, stand in opposition, insist on doing what is right and proper, and do it all with a warm attitude and a loving heart. Let the people with the authority to do so figure it all out, stay up to date with the facts as they emerge, weigh those facts honestly if and when they support new conclusions, and don’t let others’ wakes steer your ship. When I die, im never going to be judged on how well I enacted revenge, or how successful I was at conquering injustice. Instead it will be on my own behavior, attitude, and choices.
Others have given their reasons for and against President Trump conceding, now it’s time for me to share my top ten reasons.
Up front, I realize that some of these are some form of rationalization. I won’t think less of any of you if you have to correct anything or slam me for rationalizations.
1. In my opinion there is no legal down side to conceding. The legal challenges can continue to get to the bottom of the irregularities and if by some slim chance the vote tallies turn the election back towards Trump as being the winner then the Trump concession was based on false information and is not legally binding.
2. Conceding now will remove fuel that’s feeding a growing fire. It’s time for President Trump to do the Presidential thing and calm the masses. There is reasonable evidence at this point in time to conclude that Biden won the election so conceding and calming the nation is the right thing to do. If by chance the recounts and legal challenges turn the election and show that President Trump won the election then the fires can be stoked again.
3. There is precedence to gracefully concede.
4. To not concede now would be tit-for-tat rationalization; just because Clinton didn’t concede and never accepted the results of the election and told Biden to never concede this election is no reason to not concede what is apparent at this point in time.
5. At this point in time, it’s the civil thing to do. The Democrats are not willing to be civil about anything, but we can show that we are different.
6. To conceded at this point in a civil manner will effectively deflate the political left’s argument that President Trump is not going to leave the White House.
7. President elect Biden deserves the same professional and transfer of power courtesies that other President elect’s have received before him, all with the exception of President elect Trump.
8. To gracefully concede at this point in time would show a level respect for the election process and the 51% of voters that voted for Biden without ostracizing the voters that voted for Trump, completely opposite what the political left did in 2016.
9. The American people deserve some political peace, even if it’s fleeting.
10. It puts the political ball in the Democrats court to react; either they choose to douse the fire or continue to feed the flames of their base.
The revenge side of me really, Really, REALLY want’s an all out Sicilian Ethics war by waging four years of escalating tit-for-tat against the political left. There’s no doubt that the political left has earned it but that’s not who I want to be.
1. Not legally binding, but it just opens the way for the media to triple down on him.
2. You mean like the Dems tried to calm the masses this summer?
3. Yes, but so what?
4. Maybe so.
5. No, the Democrats can go to hell, why should we play nice?
6. No it won’t, it will just fuel a “let’s get him out of there SOON” narrative.
7. No, his party forfeited that for him.
8 That and a quarter will get you about a half hour on the parking meter.
9. Did the Democratic Party allow them any between the Russia investigation, the impeachment, et al.?
10. The squad et al, will keep feeding the fire no matter what we do.
Maybe a concession is a necessary thing to do, and it may be the right thing to do, assuming all this fraud stuff doesn’t pan out. However, after the last four years, the Democrats have proven themselves not honorable Americans but nascent totalitarians, willing to say or do anything to get into power and stay in power, and willing to use and abuse that power to silence and suppress anyone who disagrees with them. I see zero reason to try to work with them or make things even a little easier for them. Let them tank the economy, screw up this pandemic even more, and impose ever more burdens on American citizens for all I care. I will never give them anything like an even break going forward. Unfortunately we can’t outlaw political parties here, or I think the party of tyranny, lying, and destruction would be a good target for it.
Steve wrote, “Not legally binding, but it just opens the way for the media to triple down on him.”
It doesn’t matter to the media what Trump does, it’s always wrong even when it’s actually right. They will call for concession because it’s the right thing to do and then when concession is realized they will call him a feckless coward. It’s ALWAYS been a lose-lose for President Trump in the media since November 2016, so Presidential Trump should choose the Presidential right thing to do and ignore the fucked up biased media.
Good list, and I think I must agree with the thrust of your points. Of course, Trump will not get any credit for conceding — he would not if he’d done so a week ago. But yeah, it’s getting to the point where he needs to do so. We know — as the left refuses to recognize — that he is motivated in large degree of love of country and his desire to advance its interests.
Conceding the election does not mean we are giving up the fight. There will be another election after this, and we’ll have to be even more prepared for it.
CORRECTION
Clinton did concede so these three words in my post are unwarranted and false, “didn’t concede and”. Honestly I thought I had edited those words out of the text until someone over on Turley’s blog pointed them out to me this morning.
Clearly, each of us hold our own opinion about what our President should do, while believing we can prove we are right. And for all President Trump’s flaws we have witnessed for four years, our personal beliefs appear sustained. But let’s not stand in judgment too soon when we have not walked in Trump’s shoes the past four years. We have an obligation to give him some room to deal with the multitude of factors he must consider. He indeed carries much responsibility to do right, and History will prove he ended his First Term (if it is the end) in a dignified and timely manner. Let’s judge him as we would wish to be judged if we were in his place.
I believe there is a great deal of difference between rewarding unethical behavior and not “doing unto them as they did unto you”.
Doing nothing or acquiescing to those that behave unethically is in itself rewarding the practitioner of the behavior and thus reinforces the behavior.
More to the point, retaliating using unethical behavior further positively reinforces unethical behavior by demonstrating that such acts are an appropriate mechanism to deal with those who you perceive have wronged you.
By mistakenly treating retaliatory unethical behavior as a punishment (negative reinforcer) you are challenging the opponent to ratchet up the unethical behavior until one steps over the line between unethical an illegal.
Nothing is gained from these transactions.
Operant conditioning is confusing to people, and they often mix up how it is categorized.
Positive reinforcement is the introduction of a reward for a behavior. Negative reinforcement is the removal of an unwanted event or outcome after a display of behavior. They both strengthen a behavior.
Positive punishment presents an unfavorable event or outcome upon display of a behavior. Negative punishment occurs when a favorable event or outcome is removed after a behavior occurs. They both weaken a behavior.
Social media is a giant Skinner box that seems to have the sole purpose of re-engineering people’s behavior. It uses algorithms to hijack the real responses of normal people, and replace them with the responses the tech giants approve of. They do this by redirecting traffic and shadow banning, although recently they have become more overt and just outright ban and label anything they don’t like.
Back in the early 2000’s, IBM purchased the behavioral statistics software suite SPSS and turned it into “big data analytics”. The tech world has been experimenting on the public ever since to see how well they can control everyone’s behavior. They have literally been running double blind placebo studies on everyone for about 2 decades. They call it A/B testing, but it’s the same thing.
The current chaos is engineered. Running human psychology studies on people without their knowledge or consent is highly unethical, but no one talks much about that.
Null. I got caught up in my own thoughts and got ahead of my self. I appreciate that you clarified what I was trying to get across.
My Economics background always forces me into positive benenefits or negative benefits makes it easy to fall into the trap of misrepresenting negative reinforcers as punishments.
Nonetheless the points remain the same, doing nothing or removing consequences from unethical acts reinforces behaviors we are attempting to minimize as they both create the condition for the unethical player to enjoy higher levels of utility.
To bring us full circle we as the people must reward the ethical player with our vote or business or withhold it from the unethical player. Unless and until the ethical player consistently wins the rewards from being the ethical player the unethical player will prove to be a continued problem.
The original ‘Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth ‘ wasn’t meant to be urging to retaliation. It was meant to be a limit. The human tendency to get the other guy back worse than one was hit was causing excess. That human tendency is still seen in things like road rage. So the idea was that if someone insulted you, you shouldn’t beat or kill them. The response is supposed to be no more than what was done to you, but you can respond with less.
Where is that “but a half a tooth or just an eyelid is OK too” part? I’ve never seen it.
The point is, or should be, that the OT does endorse vengeance, it just doesn’t mandate it. Jesus was directly saying that retribution was the wrong way to go.
There is a whole area of discourse on an eye for an eye. Here is one small link. http://www.tacticalchristianity.org/eye-for-an-eye.html
Thanks: very helpful. However, I take issue with this assertion: “They are not encouraging retribution, they are restraining it.” I call that spin. If another assertion is “if you are poor and have to steal, then don’t steal more than you need,” that’s restricting theft, but also justifying it. Ethics holds that retaliation, retribution, and generally causing harm of any kind in vengeance is wrong.
Do you have a cite for this poll? I remember reading about it in a previous blog post, but can not find the previous post.
Click to access rctct.pdf
Thank you.
Reinforcing unethical behavior guarantees that you will get more of it.
Sometimes I feel like there is idealistic ethics and then there is practical ethics.
Idealistically, I don’t want people doing things that can be perceived as revenge. Practically, I don’t want people encouraging one side to riot, loot, burn down buildings, kill people, rig elections, or use a virus to justify installing themselves as authoritarian dictators of states.
Right now, all of those things are being encouraged. The media calls violent riots by the left “peaceful protests.” Left wing governments refuse to prosecute violent left wing terrorists. They lock everyone in their house, and only give permission to socialize if you are engaging in violent left wing protests. Then they call them social justice and say that the violence is not only good, but so good it outweighs the risk of a pandemic.
Anyone participating in normal activities is a terrorist who wants to kill grandma, and right wing peaceful protesters are violent white supremacist groups trying to install fascism, naziism and Hitler.
I understand that 2 wrongs don’t make a right, and just letting everything devolve into a free for all buffet of unethical behavior is wrong.
At some point, though, you have to look at how human beings work. We work on the principles of operant conditioning. Ethics tries to use operant conditioning to achieve positive behavior. Unethical behavior tries to use operant conditioning to achieve a goal.
Do unto others as you would have done to you requires mutual participation to work. One side is not participating, has no intentions of participating, and is actively attempting to prevent those on their side from participating.
Honestly, I think the only thing preventing the other side from retaliating with similar behavior is Trump refusing to concede. On a practical level, I’m not sure it’s ethical to encourage him to do so, as that would leave people with no focal point to concentrate on. It is easier to channel people into ethical behavior if you give them a reason to do so. Right now that reason is hoping to fix the rigged election results. If you remove that shared goal, what happens?
I’m just thinking out loud, I’m sure there are reasons why this is wrong.
“Christianity adopted the “turn the other cheek” exhortation in rejection of the Old Testament’s “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” formula as primitive and brutal.”
This is of course in reference to Christ’s exhortation in Matthew 5:38-39. Like many other “well-known” and often quoted passages, it it almost always taken partially or entirely out of context. Here is what I was taught and believe:
The matter of “an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth,” according to the Bible, refers to fair restitution; not literally taking out an eye or tooth. The amount to be restored must be commensurate to the loss; the loss of an eye must be rewarded the value of an eye. (See Exodus 21:24; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21.) In the book of Matthew, Christ is telling his followers not to “resist evildoers.” “Resist,” as it is used throughout the New Testament and Greek writings, referred to legal disputes. In context, Jesus is encouraging followers to not spend their time engaged in legal disputes with adversaries, even if the other party is wrong.
He then goes on to say, “But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” The operative words here are “slaps” and “right cheek.” In time of Christ, a slap was considered a grave insult and a sign of disrespect. The most insulting type of slap was a backhanded slap. Considering most people are right-handed, Jesus is likely referring to a backhanded slap.
In effect, what he is saying in this passage is that, as a follower of Christ, if anyone (metaphorically) slaps you -whether out of disrespect, shame, hatred or even wrongheadedness- it is not advisable to retaliate. Retaliation against someone who lashes out at you hatefully without justification would likely only raise the level of conflict and neither undo the damage done nor convince the other party that they were wrong.
Christians are not expected to offer themselves defenseless against assaults or abuse. That’s why he didn’t say, “If someone cuts off your right hand, stick out the left hand and let him cut that one off also.”
I like how you sum the principle up at the end. It fits with how I understand ethics, as the virtue that effectively deals with the liability of conflict. Here’s my explanation of why I expect it to work:
Conflict describes a situation where multiple goals and motivations are in opposition to each other and we don’t know which will triumph. Ethics is an approach to reconciling conflict that is better than both turmoil (underregulated conflict) and corruption (overregulated conflict).
Ethics creates principles through which we can contribute more than we’re required to in any quantifiable manner, to make a world we want to live in: a world where we all actively try to make things better for us all, where we don’t have to be afraid that everything will be taken from us by someone more ruthless who wants it.
I have to define it vaguely like that because the most ethical principles to follow may change depending on the situation. Even so, there are some principles that are important to follow in the vast majority of situations.
Regarding the topic of the post specifically, it’s not so much about rewarding unethical behavior so much as it is about refusing to punish it using methods that do more damage to the trust the system is based on than the original unethical behavior does. There are other ways to oppose unethical behavior that build trust: the trust that ethical people will follow principles even when it’s not in their immediate interest. That indicates to unethical people that if they themselves start following ethical principles and behaving ethically, then ethical people will cooperate more with them, even if it costs them, because their principles hold it is necessary in order for society to survive.
Although I do want the Axis of Unethical Conduct to atone for their unethical behavior, there will be plenty of time for that later. I’m not particularly invested in the outcome of this election, because my work of empowering people to work together to solve problems vast and small will be the same no matter who the president is. My plan wouldn’t be a very effective one if it required the participation of elected officials. I suggest we all think about what people can do to constructively solve problems independently from politicians. That’s the only way people will learn to leave the power games and thus become immune to manipulation by those in power.
“screw unto others….”