215. Is It Okay to Do the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason? AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast No Stupid Questions

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Episode: 215. Is It Okay to Do the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason?

Author: Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher
Duration: 00:35:02

Episode Shownotes

What’s wrong with donating to charity for the tax write-off? Should we think less of people who do volunteer work to pad their resumes? And why is Angela stopping women in public parks to compliment them? SOURCES:Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.Geoffrey Goodwin, professor

of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.Jon Huntsman, politician, diplomat, and businessman.Immanuel Kant, 18th-century German philosopher.Emrys Westacott, professor of philosophy at Alfred University. RESOURCES:"How Inferred Motives Shape Moral Judgements," by Ryan W. Carlson, Yochanan E. Bigman, Kurt Gray, Melissa J. Ferguson, and M. J. Crockett (Nature Reviews Psychology, 2022)."Just 2 Minutes of Walking After a Meal Is Surprisingly Good for You," by Rachel Fairbank (The New York Times, 2022)."Psychological Egoism," by Emrys Westacott (ThoughtCo, 2020)."A Meta-Analytic Review of Moral Licensing," by Irene Blanken, Niels van de Ven, and Marcel Zeelenberg (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2015)."Selfish or Selfless? On the Signal Value of Emotion in Altruistic Behavior," by Alixandra Barasch, Emma E. Levine, Jonathan Z. Berman, and Deborah A. Small (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2014)."Greenwashing — the Deceptive Tactics Behind Environmental Claims," by the United Nations. EXTRAS:"Giving It Away," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022)."How Can We Get More Virtue and Less ‘Virtue Signaling’?" by No Stupid Questions (2020)."Does Doing Good Give You License to Be Bad?" by Freakonomics Radio (2018).

Summary

In this episode of 'No Stupid Questions,' hosts Angela Duckworth and Mike Maughan examine the complexities of moral motivations in charitable actions, questioning whether self-serving reasons, such as tax benefits, diminish the value of good deeds. They discuss examples from notable philanthropists and philosophical frameworks like utilitarianism and deontological ethics, arguing that mixed motives often fuel positive social behaviors. The conversation highlights our tendency to judge moral character based on inferred intentions and evaluates the concept of moral licensing, ultimately emphasizing that the motivations behind altruistic acts can be both complex and beneficial.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (215. Is It Okay to Do the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason?) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:02 Speaker_03
Love it. Love the skirt. Amazing. I'm Angela Duckworth.

00:00:08 Speaker_02
I'm Mike Mahn. And you're listening to No Stupid Questions.

00:00:12 Speaker_01
Today on the show, is it okay to do the right thing for the wrong reason? I honestly don't care.

00:00:19 Speaker_03
I was just doing it to feel good. Mike, we have an email from Calvin and I'm going to read it to you.

00:00:38 Speaker_02
OK, I'm excited.

00:00:40 Speaker_03
As humans, we spend a lot of time exploring the idea of doing the wrong things for the right reasons, especially in movies and books. I think the undervalued idea is doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Interesting. For example,

00:00:55 Speaker_03
A billionaire donates a lot of money to charity because it's a tax write-off. This billionaire has done a good thing, but for selfish reasons. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

00:01:07 Speaker_03
I guess he means, is the action of donating a lot of money good or bad, given the intentions? How should we encourage or discourage this? From Calvin.

00:01:18 Speaker_02
Calvin, my first thought, though, is how do you know that the billionaire did it for the wrong reasons. I mean, yes, they got a tax break, but that doesn't mean that they didn't also care deeply about the issue or cause.

00:01:31 Speaker_02
I mean, I immediately think of Bill Gates. Bill Gates is worth a ton of money. He and his then wife formed the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Yes, they get a massive tax write-off. Yes, you could say it was the wrong reason because he wants to

00:01:45 Speaker_02
build up a reputation as this philanthropist in the last half of his life, and he wants adulation and praise. But also, I think Bill and Melinda Gates, each in their own way, care deeply about the causes that they support.

00:01:59 Speaker_03
You want to say that, like, we shouldn't assume that billionaires who get tax write-offs have poor motives? Yeah, that we're assuming motives.

00:02:07 Speaker_03
You have lots of reactions that I have, but I think what Calvin is asking is hypothetically, what if you had somebody and you could x-ray them and know what their inner motives were for doing something like donating to charity?

00:02:19 Speaker_03
And what if you could know with certainty that the primary motivation was in fact, a selfish motivation and not an altruistic one. Right. So I think that's what Calvin's asking. I mean, I don't even know myself, much less another person.

00:02:32 Speaker_03
You know, sometimes I'm like, why did I do that? I don't know. So I'm not going to pretend to know why Bill and Melinda Gates donated money. Full disclosure, I've gotten some of that money.

00:02:42 Speaker_03
will say that I have been very grateful regardless of how they've given it. And in some ways, I think this is a really open and shut question. I'm like, Calvin, come on.

00:02:52 Speaker_03
Isn't it a better thing that the Gates Foundation exists versus like it not existing? Like, I think most people would be like, sure, we'd rather have more donations, more virtuous acts. In some ways, it's a simple question.

00:03:07 Speaker_03
And in other ways, it's like an endlessly complex question that has no answer. Right. You know, because I think this really does get to what does it mean to do good?

00:03:16 Speaker_03
And I think Calvin's raising this question because if somebody donates a lot of money, I mean, look, I work at a university and every time I walk into any building, I mean, the building is named, the doorway is named. I'm not kidding.

00:03:28 Speaker_03
Like they name the doorway.

00:03:30 Speaker_02
I also just say, like, if I'm giving a bunch of money, I actually kind of feel dumb that it's for a doorway.

00:03:37 Speaker_03
I mean, look, at a university, yes, we have taken to naming literally walkways, doorways, this part of the library, that vestibule.

00:03:45 Speaker_02
Hospitals do it. They name a bench.

00:03:47 Speaker_03
The bench. Yes. I live near a park where like the benches are named. The bricks are named. Right. Like you can buy a brick now. Right. I've even done that myself. So, you know, hello, kettle. I'm pot. But like,

00:03:59 Speaker_03
The thing that I love most, like I was in the MoMA recently. So Jason and I went to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And when you're in that part, I guess the I'm sure it's named where you buy your tickets, like when you first enter.

00:04:13 Speaker_03
I was just standing there like waiting for Jason to make the transaction.

00:04:16 Speaker_03
And I'm staring at this list of the donors, which, of course, they have tastefully like in the most beautiful font, but like in hierarchical order from, I think, greatest to lowest donor. Right.

00:04:28 Speaker_03
And I'm like reading these names of these like very wealthy families or corporations or philanthropic foundations. But at the end of every section, there was my favorite donor, Anonymous.

00:04:40 Speaker_03
What, of course, everyone loves about that is that then you can have some confidence that the motive was pure. And I think that's what Calvin's getting at, is like, how much do we judge people by what they do?

00:04:53 Speaker_03
And how much do we judge people by their intentions or what we assume their intentions were or what we assume to be their intentions? And that's another layer because you don't ever know. Yeah.

00:05:03 Speaker_03
Look, there's some research on this, but I first want to start with my own story. So when I was at Oxford, I dipped my toe in the water of taking philosophy classes.

00:05:13 Speaker_03
And I know I've shared with you before that, like at some point, I realized that I was a much better psychologist than philosopher. But I did take these classes where

00:05:23 Speaker_03
they would introduce the basics of the Western philosophical canon and how to think about morality, like the fundamental distinction that's made in Western philosophy between being a utilitarian and a deontological or deontological reasoner about like whether something is right or wrong.

00:05:40 Speaker_03
And you know more about this than I do, but my understanding of utilitarianism is like doing the greatest good for the greatest number. It's like a calculation.

00:05:48 Speaker_03
But deontological reasoning is like there are certain things that are categorically right and categorically wrong.

00:05:53 Speaker_03
So I remember learning about Immanuel Kant, and that Immanuel Kant said that if you have a feeling of joy when you do a moral act, and if you are primarily motivated by the warm glow of that moral act,

00:06:08 Speaker_03
it is no longer moral that you have to do things that are categorically right or categorically wrong for the sake of their being categorically right or categorically wrong. And then, of course, you had a system behind that.

00:06:21 Speaker_03
But I remember that so vividly because it made no sense to me. So I guess I wonder what you think about

00:06:29 Speaker_03
The very idea that if, for example, one of the motives you have for making a donation to the Museum of Modern Art or volunteering is that it will make you feel good. Not a tax write-off. Now this is much fuzzier territory, but it makes you feel great.

00:06:48 Speaker_03
Do you side with Immanuel Kant that, like, that's no longer a moral act? Or do you side with Angela Duckworth, who says, like, oh, my gosh, like, are you kidding? Of course it's a moral act.

00:07:00 Speaker_02
Look, I do understand where Kant is coming from in that the act of just doing the right thing because it's the right thing with no expectation of reward, including the warm fuzzy that you feel, I agree is the purest of motivations.

00:07:20 Speaker_02
At the same time, I think it's silly to divorce your own response from the act itself, meaning that like- But wait, wait, I want to challenge you on the first thing.

00:07:30 Speaker_03
Like, why is it pure? Why do we have to divorce emotion from morality?

00:07:37 Speaker_02
I don't think we do. I understand where Kant's coming from in theory. And I think that in theory, what he's talking about works. I think that in practice, it's impossible to actually divorce them.

00:07:47 Speaker_03
I mean, look, I want to agree with you that in practice it's hard, but like, I just don't understand why theoretically it's better for there to be reason and not, you know, your head and not your heart. Like, why is that better?

00:08:00 Speaker_02
Because one, you're doing for self-reward and the other you're just doing because it's right.

00:08:05 Speaker_03
You're saying that it's more pure in the sense that it's truly altruistic, like it's truly other-centered.

00:08:11 Speaker_02
A hundred percent other-centric.

00:08:13 Speaker_03
Interesting. Okay.

00:08:15 Speaker_02
Because once you introduce yourself to it, it becomes selfish to some degree, which by the way, I think is fine. I think we all have, I mean, it's easy to be like, ah, billionaires, but also like, I'll give you an example from myself.

00:08:30 Speaker_02
In high school, I think I signed up for like half of the clubs. on campus, including volunteering. Now, did I really want to be involved in every club? No.

00:08:41 Speaker_02
I think if I went back to a 16-year-old Mike Monn, I think he was really interested in getting into college. And I think I wanted the belonging. High school and junior high, come on, they kind of suck a little bit.

00:08:56 Speaker_02
And you want to like be surrounded by people. You want to have activities to go to. Like there were a lot of selfish reasons.

00:09:01 Speaker_02
I think I also probably did good through some of those, but like, I'm just saying, if you volunteer out of self-interest, but then you find out that you really like it and you benefit the world from it, and it's something that you really care about, but you only found that out because of self-interest, then there's a really positive externality that flows from that.

00:09:20 Speaker_03
I mean, I have long thought about these high school students who are, you know, energetically padding their resumes with volunteer activities because they want to seem like they are community minded.

00:09:33 Speaker_03
And they also want an essay that they are going to have, you know, something altruistic to write about when it comes time to turn in their application for college. And I think the possibility that somebody

00:09:47 Speaker_03
starts down a path for all the wrong reasons, but the path leads them somewhere different, and they're not the same person at the end of the journey.

00:09:56 Speaker_03
I think that's actually something that I should keep in mind, because I also rush to judgment about those things, and they reflexively make me not respect the act itself.

00:10:06 Speaker_03
But probably more often than we think, our motives are mixed, and maybe it's not only a good thing to recognize that, but also to recognize that the motives can shift over time.

00:10:18 Speaker_02
Exactly. And I think that's what's so important about some of these examples. So think about another one.

00:10:23 Speaker_02
You apologize after an argument for the wrong reason, not because I think I'm wrong, but because I know that it will avoid further confrontation and it will ease the tension. Right. I think that that's probably good.

00:10:35 Speaker_02
And maybe in the process of that, we begin to start perspective taking and understanding how somebody else thinks.

00:10:42 Speaker_02
I just think that there are positive externalities that can come from even mixed motivation or the wrong motivation when you did the right thing.

00:10:50 Speaker_03
Is that what happened to you? Like you said that in high school, you ran around and signed up for all these, I guess, virtuous volunteer activities, thinking like, how do I get into college? But then did they change you?

00:11:01 Speaker_02
I think the experience of being involved in different pursuits with really good people is what changed me. It was less about this organization or that club and more about the fact that it put me in association with other really good individuals.

00:11:17 Speaker_02
Was I then put in environments where I could go enact change and make a difference? And was it an interesting training ground on some of the impact I've been able to make later in life? Yeah, it also did that too. Right.

00:11:28 Speaker_02
One thing I'm curious about, I was interested that you went to this idea, which I love, by the way, of utilitarianism versus deontological morality, because I'm curious to talk with you about something that I read about psychological egoists.

00:11:41 Speaker_03
Yeah, I haven't heard of that expression. Psychological egoists. Yeah, go on. I'm listening.

00:11:45 Speaker_02
So I read this article by a professor of philosophy at Alfred University named Emerus Westacott. And Westacott talks about this idea that there are some things that we're genuinely doing right.

00:11:57 Speaker_02
So, for example, a motorist stops to help someone whose car is broken down on the side of the road. An extreme example, a soldier falls on a grenade to protect others from the explosion. We could call these selfless acts.

00:12:10 Speaker_02
Now, psychological egoists—and I I want to just say cynics. And let me explain.

00:12:17 Speaker_02
But as Westacott describes, they would say, OK, well, maybe what the motorist is really thinking is someday I might need help because my car could break down on the side of the road. And I want to have a culture where people help those in need.

00:12:30 Speaker_02
We act like these are other facing or other oriented tasks. And I think maybe that person genuinely feels when they do that, that it is.

00:12:40 Speaker_02
But then the psychological egoists would say, well, maybe the person is hoping to impress other people or try to avoid feelings of guilt or looking for that warm, fuzzy feeling.

00:12:49 Speaker_03
Right. So there's all different variations of like how your motives could be mixed from. I only want to help this person. That is the only thing I care about. I don't care about how I feel. I don't care about reciprocity.

00:13:00 Speaker_03
I don't care about living in a society where that becomes the norm. So I think that's kind of what Calvin's question is getting at.

00:13:06 Speaker_03
I think what we're probably both going to violently agree with is that it is the nature of human nature to have emotions, to have mixed motives. And by the way, that doesn't necessarily cheapen the virtuous act.

00:13:18 Speaker_03
Mike, I would like our listeners to tell us what they think about this question of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Record a voice memo in a quiet place with your mouth close to the phone and email us at nsqfreakonomics.com.

00:13:36 Speaker_03
Maybe we'll play it on a future episode of the show. Also, if you like NoStupidQuestions and want to support us, please do the right thing for the right reason and tell a friend about it. Or spread the word on social media.

00:13:50 Speaker_03
Or leave a review in your favorite podcast app.

00:13:55 Speaker_01
Still to come on No Stupid Questions, when does doing good lead to doing bad?

00:14:01 Speaker_03
You compliment somebody, you donate to charity, you do an hour of volunteer work, you recycle your container in the morning. Then later on in the day, you are more likely to act in an immoral or unethical way.

00:14:21 Speaker_01
Now, back to Mike and Angela's conversation about doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

00:14:29 Speaker_03
Let me bring a little bit of data to this question. There's a study called Selfish or Selfless on the signal value of emotion in altruistic behavior. And it was done by a team of scientists at University of Pennsylvania.

00:14:45 Speaker_03
And the question at hand is so central to this conversation, which is when we know that somebody has experienced a warm glow feeling from doing a charitable act, Do we think more or less of it?

00:15:01 Speaker_03
Do we think more or less of the person who got the warm glow?

00:15:05 Speaker_02
So it's solely the personal warm glow that we're referring to.

00:15:08 Speaker_03
Yeah, this isn't about tax right. I mean, there are lots of things that you can get out of doing quote unquote virtuous or altruistic acts. This, in particular, is asking about this Kantian question of like, what if you feel something?

00:15:20 Speaker_03
And across six studies, what the conclusion was is that when we learn about somebody who is an emotional do-gooder, they do something moral because they feel good. They have a warm glow from doing it.

00:15:34 Speaker_03
You know, the question is like, do we feel better about that person? Do we judge them higher or lower in moral standing? And I think Kantians might say like, well, lower, right?

00:15:46 Speaker_03
Because now you have mixed motives, like they're doing it to feel good, but they're also doing it to do good. But in fact, if you actually just ask lay people, not philosophers, not professional psychologists, just people,

00:15:59 Speaker_02
just human beings.

00:16:00 Speaker_03
We actually consider emotional do-gooders to be more moral. And the reason I think makes so much sense to me, that is for us a signal that there is sincerity on the part of the actor. So I guess one could argue like, oh, you have mixed motives.

00:16:17 Speaker_03
You're just trying to feel good. But I think most of us consider that to be a sign of genuine concern, genuine compassion, genuine empathy. And I'll share with you. I mean, I have good days and I have bad days.

00:16:27 Speaker_03
And when I'm very stressed, it's so interesting to me that without conscious awareness, but in retrospect, I catch myself doing it. I do things that are nice to make myself feel better.

00:16:39 Speaker_03
And sometimes it's as trivial as, you know, Jason, I like to take a walk after dinner. We're such old people like we take our evening stroll.

00:16:47 Speaker_02
You actually should do that. All the research I've been reading says is one of the best things you can do.

00:16:51 Speaker_03
What? Take a walk after dinner.

00:16:53 Speaker_02
Take a walk after dinner. It helps with digestion and lowering your glucose levels and all sorts of stuff.

00:16:59 Speaker_03
OK, well, Jason, I do that. And by the way, I don't think that mixed motive cheapens the act, but like we were not doing it to lower our glucose levels. We were just doing it to like, you know, talk and we enjoy it.

00:17:10 Speaker_03
And when I'm having a bad day, I have noticed.

00:17:12 Speaker_03
that I will be watching the other women in particular who are doing their constitutions around the same park, and I will wait to see one that has an outfit I like, and then I will stop her and I will say, love it, love the skirt, amazing.

00:17:28 Speaker_03
And that little flicker of a smile that, you know, I remember doing this recently, and this woman was wearing this like flowy white skirt, and she was older than me, and she was walking with her husband.

00:17:40 Speaker_03
And he stopped in his tracks after I, you know, gave this unsolicited comment. And he said, see, honey? And they just both laughed. And I was just like, look, I have brought 12 seconds of joy to not one stranger, but two.

00:17:53 Speaker_03
And then I amble off and I feel this warm glow. I don't know that that makes me more or less deserving of moral credit. I honestly don't care. I was just doing it to feel good.

00:18:08 Speaker_03
But I remember when I learned about Immanuel Kant and the categorical imperative and, you know, something is only moral if you reason it so, that if everybody did this, then everybody would be better.

00:18:19 Speaker_03
I remember thinking that it ran against my mother's example. So my mother is like the kindest, most generous person I know, without exception. I mean, truly. And when she does things, it makes her feel good. She gets that warm glow.

00:18:36 Speaker_03
So anyway, I feel like this research study was brilliant in that it asked a very basic question, right? How do we read that signal?

00:18:45 Speaker_03
The fact that we read it as positive, that we read it as a gesture of sincerity or a symptom of sincerity, I thought that was really telling.

00:18:54 Speaker_02
Well, I'm curious, going back to Calvin's question, would you view complimenting the woman in the white skirt that you were doing the right thing, complimenting her for the wrong reason, which was to boost your own- To make myself feel good. Yeah.

00:19:08 Speaker_03
Like I'm having a bad day. I think I'm gonna compliment this woman's flowy skirt. I mean, when I did it, I wasn't even thinking about it in moral terms.

00:19:16 Speaker_02
Right.

00:19:17 Speaker_03
I mean, I was thinking about it as in, if I keep this compliment to myself, then she won't feel good.

00:19:23 Speaker_02
So at least it was a sincere compliment, like you really did actually like it.

00:19:27 Speaker_03
Oh, yeah. I don't just like pick the next person and say, like, love the fit. I think that could do more harm than good, by the way. Right. I do wait to see somebody whose outfit I do like.

00:19:37 Speaker_02
I think that that's fine. You made other people feel good, you feel good. If you're okay with me taking this into the business world for a minute, this idea of authenticity I think is really important.

00:19:47 Speaker_02
And I think where businesses often get in trouble is that they will do maybe the right thing for the wrong reason. And I think you can, and I'm gonna use a term I don't love right now, I think you can get away with that.

00:20:00 Speaker_02
if it's aligned with sort of your mission and your values, it's when there's this incongruence between what you're doing and what you say that it doesn't really work. So have you heard the term greenwashing, for example?

00:20:11 Speaker_03
I have not.

00:20:13 Speaker_02
So greenwashing is this idea that companies can mislead consumers about the environmental benefits of their products or services, and they'll put things on the packaging that says something like,

00:20:23 Speaker_02
eco-friendly or environmentally responsible to make you think that they are more sincere in their efforts to help protect the environment or do things in the right way, but they're not.

00:20:34 Speaker_03
Wait, so in greenwashing, the idea is that you're signaling virtue, but you're actually not even doing anything. not just that you're signaling and doing it, but like faux signaling, right?

00:20:48 Speaker_02
Right. Or maybe what you're doing is so inconsequential. I mean, my immediate thought is about eggs, right? So there are different classifications of the chickens.

00:20:58 Speaker_03
OK.

00:20:58 Speaker_02
And some of them I think are highly misleading. There's cage free. That means that they're not kept in a cage. But the reality is the chicken might instead of being kept in this little box is kept in a little square.

00:21:12 Speaker_02
There's organic, which might mean nothing other than they're fed organic feed, but they can be kept in a really tight container.

00:21:19 Speaker_03
It's like a real estate ad where they're like amazing marble fireplace, but there are no windows and it's like seven foot ceilings and there's a leak in the bathroom. Right. But you're saying that this would be an example of not a virtuous act.

00:21:31 Speaker_02
Right.

00:21:31 Speaker_03
They're just trying to do the bare minimum for the wrong reasons.

00:21:36 Speaker_02
Yeah. People respond to incentives. The incentive may be for you complimenting someone is that you feel good and you needed to get yourself out of a funk. We can also bastardize those incentives when we do things like greenwashing. Right.

00:21:48 Speaker_02
Because then people pretend to do the right thing because the incentive is so strong to be viewed in that way.

00:21:55 Speaker_03
Well, it's a good example to bring up because for better or for worse, we do judge each other. And I know there's this expression like, don't be judgy. I think it is the nature of people to judge each other.

00:22:05 Speaker_03
We are constantly judging each other as good or bad. So the original theory for decades was that if you meet somebody and you start to get to know them, we would judge them on two different dimensions. One is warmth. And the other one is competence.

00:22:19 Speaker_03
And the idea was that very quickly we come to these judgments and there are all kinds of theories about like why it would be good to know these two things. And by the way, what you would want to be is somebody who's judged warm and competent.

00:22:31 Speaker_02
Right.

00:22:31 Speaker_03
But recent research by a moral psychologist named Jeff Goodwin. who happens to be in my department at my university, suggests that before we do that even, perhaps, like, you know, the strong signal is like, can I trust you?

00:22:45 Speaker_03
Are you morally of good character or not? So this idea that we shouldn't be judgy, I guess it sounds good, but I just think it's naive. And I think when we ask questions, as Calvin does, you know, what if someone makes a charitable contribution

00:22:59 Speaker_03
And does it for the wrong reasons? I think the reason why these questions are interesting is that we are all judging. We look at an action and we're guessing the intention.

00:23:10 Speaker_02
Right.

00:23:10 Speaker_03
I mean, you started off by saying, Mike, do we really know? And I don't think we know, but we're always trying to know.

00:23:16 Speaker_02
Or we assume we know.

00:23:17 Speaker_03
I mean, sometimes we really feel like it's so obvious, you know, psychologists who have thought about this much longer and harder than me.

00:23:25 Speaker_03
I'm thinking about this review that was done just a couple of years ago, how inferred motives shape moral judgments.

00:23:34 Speaker_03
And they make, I think, a really compelling case that at the end of the day, when we witness an action, right, you happen to walk by me and Jason as I am complimenting the woman in the white skirt. And you overhear this flattering comment.

00:23:48 Speaker_03
That's an action. I took an action, right? You can see the outcome of that action, like the woman turns to her husband, they share a moment of joy. Okay, that's a positive outcome.

00:23:58 Speaker_03
But immediately, because you are human, you are going to ask yourself, why did she do that, right? You make some guess about my intention.

00:24:07 Speaker_03
And then I think if you detect that that motive was primarily well-intentioned, meaning like primarily something that we call virtuous, then you judge me of good character, especially if you see this again and again and you think it's like who I am.

00:24:24 Speaker_03
But I think The key to all of this is that, like, everybody wants to know, why did that person donate? Why did that person join the club?

00:24:32 Speaker_03
It's a natural question to ask, but I think it's all laddering up to we are probably, whether we like it or not, making judgments of character. That's important. But I also want to say this. I think Calvin would want to know about moral licensing.

00:24:47 Speaker_03
So moral licensing, is this, like, well-known outside of psychology research?

00:24:53 Speaker_02
I mean, I think it's decently known. I think when I think licensing, I don't always go to moral licensing. I think more about licensing in general. For example, if I exercise in the morning, then I'm like, I can have a donut.

00:25:05 Speaker_02
But yeah, talk about moral licensing.

00:25:06 Speaker_03
I am sure Immanuel Kant would have a lot to say about how this is bad, but in general, the idea of moral licensing is that when you behave in a moral way, you compliment somebody, you donate to charity, you do an hour of volunteer work, you recycle your container in the morning, then later on in the day, you are more likely to

00:25:29 Speaker_03
act in an immoral or unethical way. It is the idea of kind of like having a bank account of morality and you can withdraw or deposit, but what makes all the difference is just like the net balance.

00:25:40 Speaker_03
So if we do something good, one of the downsides potentially is that we might do less good later if we have this bank account view of being a good person.

00:25:53 Speaker_02
But sorry, just to understand on moral licensing, are you saying that we take nine steps forward in a good direction and then license ourselves to take one step backward, so it's a net eight steps forward? That, I think, great.

00:26:04 Speaker_02
If it's take one step forward and then one step backward, that's much tougher.

00:26:08 Speaker_03
I don't think the studies make that distinction. I think what you're saying is that if somebody will cut themselves a little bit of slack because they did a really big, great, virtuous act, you're seeing the societal bank account growing.

00:26:20 Speaker_02
Right. It's net positive overall. And that's a very good thing, because if it really is like this net sum and, oh, I did something good. Now I can do something bad. Then you net out at zero. So hopefully it's not that balanced.

00:26:32 Speaker_03
Well, I mean, even something as trivial as making a small donation, I think one thing that Calvin's question clearly points to is that there are so many motives. There's the warm glow. There's the virtue signaling. There's the tax write off.

00:26:45 Speaker_03
There's the moral licensing. So it's complicated. And I would say, Mike, that we don't like that kind of complexity. And so that's why we are so paritially interested in these questions.

00:26:57 Speaker_03
Like, we want to know whether it was a good act or a bad act, because we don't like the idea that, well, it's complicated.

00:27:02 Speaker_02
So, Anne, one other thing I wanted to touch base on was something you brought up earlier, which is this idea of anonymity and how you're at the MoMA and you're looking at all these things and your favorite donor in each category is anonymous.

00:27:14 Speaker_02
Because I will admit that I immediately assign a greater moral value to someone who did something anonymously because it's like, oh, they did it just for the right reasons. They don't want any credit.

00:27:24 Speaker_03
Right.

00:27:25 Speaker_02
Now, interestingly, John Huntsman donated a lot of money to University of Pennsylvania.

00:27:29 Speaker_03
My office is in Huntsman Hall.

00:27:31 Speaker_02
And I worked with John Huntsman a little bit toward the end of his life.

00:27:34 Speaker_03
I did not know that.

00:27:35 Speaker_02
A wonderful, wonderful man, did so much to defeat cancer and support cancer research, started the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which is here in Utah, among many other things.

00:27:46 Speaker_02
But it was interesting because the University of Utah basketball stadium is the Huntsman Center. There's the Huntsman Cancer Institute. You're at Huntsman Hall, right? His name is everywhere.

00:27:57 Speaker_02
And I remember talking not with him, but with someone who worked very closely with him, because I was curious about this difference. Why is he so insistent about putting his name everywhere?

00:28:06 Speaker_02
Is it just ego that he wants to be remembered and have a legacy? And this person said that what she had learned from being around him is that he wanted to put his name places to basically challenge other billionaires.

00:28:20 Speaker_02
and say, look, I'm giving all of this money. I want to set an example of a socially responsible member of society and demonstrate leadership, basically saying all of you should be doing the same thing.

00:28:34 Speaker_03
I have never thought about that angle. Every time I walk by any plaque of donors, I always love anonymous more than I love anyone else.

00:28:44 Speaker_03
I have never thought about the fact that there might be some motive to create, I don't know, positive peer pressure, right? That you could say, hey, I need to set a social norm of other people like me giving, and I do that best with my own name.

00:28:59 Speaker_03
Maybe what this reveals is that even though it is a human reflex to judge, to come to these snap judgments of character, how little we know, right?

00:29:10 Speaker_03
If I sat and thought about it, if I tried to list five reasons why John Huntsman would have endowed my office building, I would never in a million years have come up with the motive that you just named. So, Mike, here's what I think.

00:29:24 Speaker_03
Tell me if you agree. I think it is complicated. I think when we do a small or large act of kindness, it is so often for multiple reasons. Maybe when other people judge us, they will get it wrong. Maybe they'll get it right.

00:29:43 Speaker_03
Maybe they'll discount one reason because they see another.

00:29:47 Speaker_03
But I have to say that the most practical thing I'm taking away from the conversation we had inspired by Calvin's question is that the more the merrier when it comes to reasons for doing something that is the right thing.

00:30:03 Speaker_03
tax write-off, warm glow, social approval, create a social norm. To me, as an individual who wants to do more of those acts, the more the merrier from my standpoint. It is not the kind of old-fashioned

00:30:20 Speaker_03
view of like, oh, the purity of one motive is what we're looking for. I think that's psychologically naive.

00:30:28 Speaker_03
And a psychologically realistic view of morality is multiple motives for doing the right thing are better if you are therefore more likely to do the right thing more often.

00:30:39 Speaker_02
When it's overly simplistic, I think that you can separate it the way Kant wanted to, by saying either it's good or there's something bad if you also feel good about it.

00:30:50 Speaker_02
And so I would just say, I agree with you in this, that the goal is let's create a better society where people are doing the right thing. And if that has multiple motives behind it, so be it.

00:31:02 Speaker_01
More is more. Coming up after the break, a fact check of today's conversation. And now here's a fact check of today's conversation.

00:31:22 Speaker_01
Angela says she thinks that the major donors named on the collection wall in the main lobby of the Museum of Modern Art are listed in hierarchical order according to donation size. This is incorrect. They're listed in alphabetical order.

00:31:37 Speaker_01
Mike quickly describes certain greenwashing practices associated with the egg industry. A 2023 publication from Consumer Reports offers greater clarity here. Organic eggs must be from hens-fed grains grown without synthetic pesticides or GMOs.

00:31:54 Speaker_01
They cannot be raised in cages and must be given some outdoor access. which may entail something as minor as a small concrete porch.

00:32:03 Speaker_01
Perhaps the most misleading labels are those that describe the eggs as natural, which people often mistake for organic. But as an egg is indeed a natural food, the label has no additional meaning.

00:32:17 Speaker_01
There are also farm-fresh eggs, which come from a farm— just like all other eggs. Even if the farm in question is an indoor space where chickens are crowded in cages.

00:32:29 Speaker_01
Finally, Angela says that University of Pennsylvania psychologist Jeffrey Goodwin's research concludes that we judge people's moral character before we judge qualities like warmth and competence. This is slightly misleading.

00:32:43 Speaker_01
Goodwin's research doesn't say anything about the time course in which people judge moral character.

00:32:48 Speaker_01
although he personally hypothesizes that people judge traits like warmth and sociability first because these characteristics are more surface-level and easier to pick up in an initial interaction.

00:33:00 Speaker_01
However, his research does find that moral character information plays a more important role than qualities like warmth and sociability in determining the impressions we form. That's it for the fact check.

00:33:12 Speaker_01
And remember, we'd love to hear your thoughts on doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Send a voice memo to NSQ at Freakonomics.com and you might hear your voice on the show.

00:33:28 Speaker_01
Coming up next week on No Stupid Questions, when is it worth it to make excuses?

00:33:34 Speaker_03
I was going to meet you, Mike. I was so going to meet you. I tried to start the car, but turns out that my sister-in-law had borrowed it, so it wasn't even there.

00:33:43 Speaker_01
That's coming up on No Stupid Questions. No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes Freakonomics Radio, People I Mostly Admire, and The Economics of Everyday Things.

00:33:56 Speaker_01
All our shows are produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. The senior producer of the show is me, Rebecca Lee Douglas, and Lyric Bowditch is our production associate. This episode was mixed by Greg Rippin.

00:34:08 Speaker_01
We had research assistance from Daniel Moritz Rabson. Our theme song was composed by Luis Guerra. You can follow us on Twitter at NSQ underscore show and on Facebook at NSQ show.

00:34:21 Speaker_01
If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to NSQ at Freakonomics.com. To learn more or to read episode transcripts, visit Freakonomics.com slash NSQ. Thanks for listening.

00:34:41 Speaker_02
Man, go a little easy. Your name doesn't have to be everywhere.

00:34:49 Speaker_00
The Freakonomics Radio Network. The hidden side of everything. Stitcher.