The moral compass

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.