Flying is pretty fun. It's like a rollercoaster ride that takes you across oceans to your holiday.
Vacations are distant from home, which is why Climate scientists love them. The break helps them forget their disheartening work. More importantly, they fly because their research confers them a moral license to travel.
They feel like they've earned it.
I think moral licenses are fascinating because they can explain a lot of behaviour. A paper from UofT found that people who bought green products cheated more money from the university during an experiment (source below). They were saving the environment, so they had the license to cheat.
This had me curious. Wouldn't it be insightful if computers could identify our moral licenses?
Can an ML model identify our licenses by reading our diaries?
Maybe. But it requires someone to be honest about their intentions in their writing. If they are honest, I think there will be enough context for a program to detect it. However, it's still challenging since the program will have to identify:
- An action.
- The moral ambiguity of this action.
- The justification for this morally ambiguous action.
But in the meantime, I think the best way to find your moral licenses is to talk to friends about them, even if you think it's a bit personal and naive.
Here are a few I've thought of:
- I don't want to help my friend this time because I've already helped them with XYZ.
- I can pirate his work because I publicized it with everyone I know.
- I can see my friend during lockdown because I haven't seen anyone else in the last several months.
Whether your moral licenses are justifiable is up to you. The fun part is seeing them in a list and re-evaluating them with your System 2 (your brain's analytical side).
Anyway, I'll see you next week and good luck with your exams!
- Curtis
P.S. "Don't Even Think About It" is my favourite book of the year because of the concise chapters and the exciting interviews. If you loved the psychology from Thinking Fast and Slow, you'd love this book. Oh, and btw, the "climate scientist vacationers," UofT study, and moral license concept is from chapter 36 of the book. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18594475-don-t-even-think-about-it
P.P.S. Here's a summary of the UofT paper: https://www.thestar.com/business/tech_news/2009/10/18/going_green_licence_to_lie_cheat_steal.html
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