Mar 04 2010
Social Position and Morality
Many people find it ironic and/or startlingly hypocritical when men, or women, who have risen to high places are discovered to have committed lowly behavior. Other people, myself included, may think something along the lines of, “What do you expect, they are still human beings.”
New experimental research out of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University has revealed that people in high places may actually be more likely to engage in what we call moral transgressions. When in a position of power, subjects tended to be both stricter in their judgments of others while being more lenient in their view of their own behavior [source].
While I guess this certainly can be classified as hypocritical if the person in question had gone on record condemning the behavior that he/she subsequently engaged in, I also believe that the perceived hypocrisy reflects our own psychological naiveté.
How so? First, we tend to hold idealistic morals. That something is absolutely wrong or right. More realistically, there are degrees of wrong and right-ness, determined in part by the motive and particular context the behavior occurred in. For example: Is killing an animal wrong? More wrong would included killing an animal for pleasure. Less wrong for food. Even less wrong, as self-defense. Etc. Also under consideration would be the social and emotional factors that may have played a role in the “decision.” Yes, it is often expedient and smart to judge guilt strictly, as if each us had a totally free will. But that isn’t the case. Motivations don’t grow on trees and are than consciously selected by those under their influence.
The other manner in which this perceived hypocrisy may be naive (and even the article title and the research paper title itself used the term “hypocrisy”) is the expectation that our current standards of right and wrong would be reflected in the behavior of all people, regardless of their social position.
But study the behavior of all the other primate species and you will discover that — gee, equality isn’t the norm. Not only does social position influence the behavior of primate individuals — from the extremely subordinate to the most dominant — but it also influences their expectations of the behaviors to anticipate from individuals in differing social positions.
Would we say it is absolutely wrong for one non-human primate male to mate with more than one female, more than “his share?” Actually, in terms of evolution, it may be more right. For often the more dominant individuals are stronger, more aggressive and fearless (great feature when needing protection) and even healthier than the less dominating individuals. While we may like to pretend that all primates, whatever species, are created equal, they are not.
Of course the contemporary human environment is very complex and different than that of our distant ancestors. I would be naive myself to apply, say, chimpanzee morality to human beings. But I do believe it bears keeping in mind that a one-size-fits-all morality is idealistic versus realistic. And that while our present moral standards — our thoughts — can be fully modern, the roots of our behavior may be much, much older.
