Bugs in our moral code

Here is an excellent TED talk by Dan Ariely on why we think it may be okay to cheat and steal. Here is a link to very creative home page.

In his speech Dan mentions about one thing that strikes me as particularly interesting – the existence of “personal fudge factor” in our moral code.

Dan suggests that all of us lie, cheat and steal to a certain small extent – to an extent where we can look at ourselves in the mirror and still feel good. This is what he calls as a personal fudge factor in our moral code.

My hypothesis is that this fudge factor is a function of time and is more likely to expand for a larger proportion of people as they grow older (maybe until a certain age). Many times we are aware of our expanding fudge factor. But we tend to rationalize it as a reaction to our current situation, to the personal affronts we have faced, to the perceived behavior of our peers among several other reasons. Thus, conveniently cloaked in self-righteousness, we continually condone relaxing our moral code and as one direct consequence, we become increasingly self-centered.

At the same time, we also delude ourselves in believing that no one is noticing. But, I strongly suspect that everyone is noticing. They are, perhaps, just bound by a basic decency and also by the fact that in this world of excessive political correctness, there aren't too many socially appropriate mechanisms to communicate their observations. I'll stop here as I think I have digressed a lil' bit from the original subject, which ofcourse is a fantastic TED talk by Dan Ariely.