4 ms·

Does power influence moral thinking?

17 points by alexandros 17y ago

greenlblue 17y ago
It just seems weird to correlate power with morality. Most people, powerless or not, simply like to cover their asses. The powerful simply use the best means possible for doing this which is following the rules since the law tends to be on the side of the powerful. This also makes me wonder how a mob boss fits into this scheme since such people are considered powerful by most definitions.
- lionhearted 17y ago
  > Most people, powerless or not, simply like to cover their asses. My experience is the opposite - the most effective people I know spend the least time covering their asses, and put themselves on the line the most. Most people are deathly afraid of stepping up, taking responsibility, being a decionmaker, and being the one to blame if things go wrong - thus, the people who do step up and take responsibility usually ascend to great amounts of influence and, well, "power". Time spent ass-covering is time not spent doing something more effective.
  - Mz 17y ago
    What you are saying looks to me like it fits with this remark from the article: in determining whether an act is right or wrong, the powerful focus on whether rules and principles are violated, whereas the powerless focus on the consequences. For this reason, the powerful are also more inclined to stick to the rules, irrespective of whether this has positive or negative effects, whereas the powerless are more inclined to make exceptions. I think a more interesting question to me would be in regards to people following "internal rules" vs. "external rules". People like Jesus and Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. seem to be willing to break external rules out of deference to a highly developed set of internal rules -- or, perhaps, they follow a set of rules grounded more in reality than social convention. By that I mean that things like racial discrimination aren't simply "morally wrong", they are bad thinking with negative consequences. For example, the (racial) discrimination thing: My recollection is that one of the most successful crime lords of all time was willing to work with the Irish mob, the Jewish mob, etc whereas historically the Irish mob only worked with the Irish and excluded the Jews, Italians, etc. Same for other groups: They were all quite insular. Whether you are a crime lord or a business, inclusiveness is a practical strength which gives you greater access to whomever happens to have talent. If you are the only place some people can go to get a fair shake, Bonus! -- because they will work their butts off for you and be die-hard loyalists. Not because they really give a rat's patootie about you but simply because (to quote a favorite movie line from "Other People's Money") you aren't their best friend, you're their only friend.
    - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
      smart power associates with power, regardless of origin.
  - greenlblue 17y ago
    I said "most people" and not "all people" and I don't know that many effective people since everyone I know is in the education sector and they all simply follow conventions be it in their research or teaching. It's like you said, very few are willing to break the mold but that doesn't mean one can't attain powerful positions by following conventions and not being effective.
tel 17y ago
I wonder about the reverse causation situation as well: does rule based ethical thinking help people to gain power? Without trying to debate deontology versus consequentialism, it certainly seems that someone who can just decide things based on rules would have an easier time gaining power than someone who wastes effort considering the consequences of each action.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  the ones who fortuitously choose the right rules at the right time that is,
Perceval 17y ago
This is a puzzling result for me to read. As someone who studies international relations theory, the Realist tradition of thinkers (Machiavelli, Hobbes, E.H. Carr, Morgenthau among many others) associate power and consequentialist thinking. It was stated most clearly by Weber in the Politics as a Vocation lecture, where he contrasts the ethic of responsibility (consequences) to the ethic of conviction (deontological). Weber's Realism favors an ethic of responsibility against the more idealist thinkers of politics. E.H. Carr makes a similar distinction between deontological idealism and consequentialist Realism in his classic The Twenty Years Crisis. This fits in with the tradition of Realism, going back the Machiavelli, who argued against actually following moral rules, but instead maintaining the appearance of following moral rules. He also links power, the use of power, the gaining of power, and the maintenance of power to a willingness to abandon moral rules. It was will and virtú that determined the prince's effectiveness in the face of fortuna. Hobbes is probably the most interesting thinker on the topic of the link between power and morality. He makes very explicit the link between epistemology (what we can claim we know) and authority and force. In order to avoid the kind of civil wars he saw around him when writing The Leviathan (the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War), he thought that the ability to make claims about truth/revelation/values/morality had to be circumscribed from the public sphere. The ability to resolve disputes about moral knowledge had to be located in a single figure, the sovereign, who possessed authority and the power to back it up. But Hobbes is not making a descriptive argument--he's not saying that the powerful follow moral rules deontologically. He's making a normative argument--that only the powerful sovereign can make moral decisions for the public, because if anyone can make deontological claims what results is the type of religious civil war that he saw all around him. So, for most of the tradition of Western (realist) thought, the relationship between power and morality/consequences runs the opposite way. The powerful operate (or should operate) according to consequences, not to deontological rules. The idealists--the "unarmed prophets" in the words of Machiavelli--operate on deontological rules and end up being ineffective, overthrown, or conquered.

17 points by alexandros 17y ago

It just seems weird to correlate power with morality. Most people, powerless or not, simply like to cover their asses. The powerful simply use the best means possible for doing this which is following the rules since the law tends to be on the side of the powerful. This also makes me wonder how a mob boss fits into this scheme since such people are considered powerful by most definitions.

lionhearted 17y ago
> Most people, powerless or not, simply like to cover their asses. My experience is the opposite - the most effective people I know spend the least time covering their asses, and put themselves on the line the most. Most people are deathly afraid of stepping up, taking responsibility, being a decionmaker, and being the one to blame if things go wrong - thus, the people who do step up and take responsibility usually ascend to great amounts of influence and, well, "power". Time spent ass-covering is time not spent doing something more effective.
- Mz 17y ago
  What you are saying looks to me like it fits with this remark from the article: in determining whether an act is right or wrong, the powerful focus on whether rules and principles are violated, whereas the powerless focus on the consequences. For this reason, the powerful are also more inclined to stick to the rules, irrespective of whether this has positive or negative effects, whereas the powerless are more inclined to make exceptions. I think a more interesting question to me would be in regards to people following "internal rules" vs. "external rules". People like Jesus and Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. seem to be willing to break external rules out of deference to a highly developed set of internal rules -- or, perhaps, they follow a set of rules grounded more in reality than social convention. By that I mean that things like racial discrimination aren't simply "morally wrong", they are bad thinking with negative consequences. For example, the (racial) discrimination thing: My recollection is that one of the most successful crime lords of all time was willing to work with the Irish mob, the Jewish mob, etc whereas historically the Irish mob only worked with the Irish and excluded the Jews, Italians, etc. Same for other groups: They were all quite insular. Whether you are a crime lord or a business, inclusiveness is a practical strength which gives you greater access to whomever happens to have talent. If you are the only place some people can go to get a fair shake, Bonus! -- because they will work their butts off for you and be die-hard loyalists. Not because they really give a rat's patootie about you but simply because (to quote a favorite movie line from "Other People's Money") you aren't their best friend, you're their only friend.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    smart power associates with power, regardless of origin.
- greenlblue 17y ago
  I said "most people" and not "all people" and I don't know that many effective people since everyone I know is in the education sector and they all simply follow conventions be it in their research or teaching. It's like you said, very few are willing to break the mold but that doesn't mean one can't attain powerful positions by following conventions and not being effective.

tel 17y ago

I wonder about the reverse causation situation as well: does rule based ethical thinking help people to gain power? Without trying to debate deontology versus consequentialism, it certainly seems that someone who can just decide things based on rules would have an easier time gaining power than someone who wastes effort considering the consequences of each action.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
the ones who fortuitously choose the right rules at the right time that is,

Perceval 17y ago

This is a puzzling result for me to read. As someone who studies international relations theory, the Realist tradition of thinkers (Machiavelli, Hobbes, E.H. Carr, Morgenthau among many others) associate power and consequentialist thinking. It was stated most clearly by Weber in the Politics as a Vocation lecture, where he contrasts the ethic of responsibility (consequences) to the ethic of conviction (deontological). Weber's Realism favors an ethic of responsibility against the more idealist thinkers of politics. E.H. Carr makes a similar distinction between deontological idealism and consequentialist Realism in his classic The Twenty Years Crisis. This fits in with the tradition of Realism, going back the Machiavelli, who argued against actually following moral rules, but instead maintaining the appearance of following moral rules. He also links power, the use of power, the gaining of power, and the maintenance of power to a willingness to abandon moral rules. It was will and virtú that determined the prince's effectiveness in the face of fortuna. Hobbes is probably the most interesting thinker on the topic of the link between power and morality. He makes very explicit the link between epistemology (what we can claim we know) and authority and force. In order to avoid the kind of civil wars he saw around him when writing The Leviathan (the Thirty Years War and the English Civil War), he thought that the ability to make claims about truth/revelation/values/morality had to be circumscribed from the public sphere. The ability to resolve disputes about moral knowledge had to be located in a single figure, the sovereign, who possessed authority and the power to back it up. But Hobbes is not making a descriptive argument--he's not saying that the powerful follow moral rules deontologically. He's making a normative argument--that only the powerful sovereign can make moral decisions for the public, because if anyone can make deontological claims what results is the type of religious civil war that he saw all around him. So, for most of the tradition of Western (realist) thought, the relationship between power and morality/consequences runs the opposite way. The powerful operate (or should operate) according to consequences, not to deontological rules. The idealists--the "unarmed prophets" in the words of Machiavelli--operate on deontological rules and end up being ineffective, overthrown, or conquered.