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Viliam_Bur comments on Rationality Quotes September 2012 - Less Wrong
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As it is probably intended, the more reminders like this I read, the more ethical I should become. As it actually works, the more of this I read, the less I become interested in ethics. Maybe I am extraordinarily selfish and this effect doesn't happen to most, but it should be at least considered that constant preaching of moral duties can have counterproductive results.
I suspect it's because authors of "ethical remainders" are usually very bad at understanding human nature.
What they essentially do is associate "ethical" with "unpleasant", because as long as you have some pleasure, you are obviously not ethical enough; you could do better by giving up some more pleasure, and it's bad that you refuse to do so. The attention is drawn away from good things you are really doing, to the hypothetical good things you are not doing.
But humans are usually driven by small incentives, by short-term feelings. The best thing our rationality can do is better align these short-term feelings with out long-term goals, so we actually feel happy when contributing to our long-term goals. And how exactly are these "ethical remainders" contributing to the process? Mostly by undercutting your short-term ethical motivators, by always reminding you that what you did was not enough, therefore you don't deserve the feelings of satisfaction. Gradually they turn these motivators off, and you no longer feel like doing anything ethical, because they convinced you (your "elephant") that you can't.
Ethics without understanding human nature is just a pile of horseshit. Of course that does not prevent other people from admiring those who speak it.
Yes. And it works this way even without insisting that more can be done; even if you live up to the demands, or even if the moral preachers recognise your right to be happy sometimes, the warm feeling from doing good is greatly diminished when you are told that philantrophy is just being expected, that helping others is not something one does naturally with joy, but that it should be a conscious effort, a hard work, to be done properly.