Agent Vs Society Moralism

Notes

Claim

Morality can be seen as a Some exploit the altruism of others problem. In the best case scenario, everyone would be kind, altruistic and honest, while I will just focus on myself.

Explanation

Therefore, it isn't strange to see differences between how we wish a society to behave, i.e altruistically, while deep inside we maintain our egoistic nature. Image vs core. This is also similar to the We attribute bad outcomes to luck but others' misfortunes to their faults, where we have double standards between others and ourselves.

Why it matters

If this is how humanity is described, which suggests that it might not be that Humans are good as default, than perhaps the only way to align between morality on the social level back to the individual is to "erase" the personal identity, to merge their identity with that of the group, to create Herd Mentality which is a scary suggestion.

Examples

Supporters

Opposers

Open questions

This note's "double standard" and "me vs them" aliases get borrowed elsewhere for other kinds of self-vs-other bias — confirmation bias, reactance, identity politics — that aren't really about exploiting collective altruism. Is that a fair stretch of the same idea, or does it mean two separate concepts are sharing one note? The content here doesn't yet read as two claims, so it's staying as an open question rather than a split.

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