I plugged a one-time update about moral
disengagement a good while a go. Moral disengagement is a concept that I
work with on daily basis at the university. I wrote a good text about
it, but then my biggest and kindest critic, yes my mother, provided
me quite puzzling feedback. It took until today that I can finally
respond to it. Word to word she said something like this: ”It was a
good text, but I didn't really understand it - are you writing another thesis, or what?”. And I can only
acknowledge that, it was not general enough and full of scientific
jargon. This is now the take two for the topic.
So, what is moral disengagement and what
does it do? Simplistically, it is a series of thought patterns and
actions that justify why doing wrong isn't bad after all. In essence,
it is how people do harm without negative emotional feelings. The
concept was originally developed by Albert Bandura.
Moral disengagement could alternatively
be described as a loss of moral direction or screwing with the moral
compass. People aren't born as morally disengaged, but rather it
usually develops within social context one spends time in. Don't get
me wrong here, it is not a case of being or being not morally
disengaged. Even the most straight forward, black n' white persons do
occasionally engage in justifying things to their liking. I do it,
you do it and everyone walking the planet most likely does it. Or
have you never done or thought something, because everyone else does
it too? Have you not ever made comparisons to the advantage of your
choice? I have, and I always occasionally will.
Occasional personal choices matter for
sure, but they only create a toxic environment if it becomes a norm
and thus, takes off. When the environment nurtures such behaviour, it
slowly becomes the norm and harm can be done more and more easily –
and often there are incentives for it too. For example, in corporate
world people justify utterly questionable decisions, just because it
is a company norm and it is for the interest and profit of the
company.
There are few examples on top of my
mind as the tip of the ice berg and it would be interesting to know
the current state of affairs around. My question is, if the
executives actually know what is going on at their companies? And, if
they care? Recently at Volkswagen things got wrong and they are
paying for it now. Even more recently, Nokian tyres company became
engaged with such behaviour and they pay for it now. Then comes the
case of Enron, which folded and declared bankruptcy back in 2001.
Their actions and accounting irreregularities surely were not
impartial to moral disengagement. In short, people in their right
mind don't make such bad decisions and judgments.
Morally disengaged environment is well
capable of making profitable decisions for a while. However, on the
other hand it adds and accumulates to corruption and unethical
practice – who would like to run, work for or be associated with
such company? Even though profit drives business, it should not be
achieved by using any means.
And the same goes for the other walks of
life.
