To think morality only exists when people are being watched?

[ShadowMotiveJay]

When no one’s looking rules seem optional. AIBU to think decency is more about optics than conviction?

So - no, I think people make moral decisions even when they don’t think they’re being watched.

But! I have long been amused the ability of commuters to ignore others / push people out the way / pretend they haven’t seen pregnant women or the elderly etc - and I don’t believe they’d do the same if travelling with a companion.

So I think there is truth in the idea people will behave differently if they think they’re being watched / with someone whose opinion matters to them.

Nope. Realised I had inadvertently not paid for something in ikea the other day (it was in a bag hanging from the trolley). Looked back at the long chaotic queue and tried to persuade myself to just take it (was probably about £2) but literally couldn’t do it.

For some perhaps, but for many (if not most) doing something morally wrong would make one feel very uncomfortable. A guilty conscience is not an easy thing to live with - even if absolutely no-one knows about it. YOU know and there's no getting away from it.

For instance - if I found a £20 note in the street I'd keep it without much guilt. But if I found a purse or wallet with ID in it I couldn't take the money. I'd try and find the person and return everything intact.

No I don't agree. Over time my morals have improved as I've done a lot of soul searching and had multiple horrible experiences that have changed my life. I don't believe I ever had awful morals. I'm most weary of the outward do gooders who would post their achievements online. The community do-gooders and popular families I've encountered have shown me really questionable behaviour and unkindness behind closed doors.

I won't put anything on SM and don't use it. The only judge is me. This is important to me.

I believe so many more people are low on morals than I ever realised and perform for approval when inside they're dead of empathy, care and compassion.

The worst I do morally is to not pay for parking in the town centre car park. I rarely ever pay. I am yet to get a ticket but will have to suck it up if that time comes and pay for that. I would never want to screw another person over so wouldn't care if no one knew that I'd handed a purse in etc. I absolutely would always. I think the town centre car park thing is laziness on my part and a bit of a fuck you to the system. I'm not sure why I don't pay but I don't.

That's not morality, that's rule-following.

Generally speaking, people tend to follow their own morals unless it's particularly difficult. These may be stricter, or less strict, than the rules of the society around them.

There’s probably research that bears this out, OP. There is definitely research that shows people are prepared to inflict pain on others if a perceived authority figure tells them it’s ok to do so.

No I don't agree at all. I live by my values whether I am being watched or not, its called integrity and it's something that many, perhaps most people hold dearly.

Is this a variant of you can’t be moral if you don’t follow God, or something of that ilk?

Really good point. Rule following is not the same as morality. I am not comfortable following certain rules. I know I am intrinsically a decent person high in empathy and compassion. I think these two things then feed into this ' morality'.

If I thought Lidl would survive the £2 loss another poster referred to - I actually wouldn't give a shit and would keep on walking. I don't believe this reflects upon my morality or intrinsic decency at all tbh 🤷.

I wouldn't steal because of the personal risk. I don't need to at this moment in life fortunately. Again, I don't believe this is any reflection at all on my ' goodness' as a human. I look at the street people stealing and often think life was a total bastard to them and in this situation I'd be bloody stealing.

@merryhouse thanks for clearing that up. You're totally right.

I think it was The Moral Maze on Radio 4, they were talking about the subject of morality. The question posed was this .

If there were only two people left alive on the planet, you and another stranger. And you killed that stranger because you liked their watch and wanted it for yourself. Would you have done anything "wrong", as there wouldn't be any other person left who could judge your actions?

Thought it was interesting.

I disagree, my moral
compass is ingrained in me, it doesn’t stop working when I’m not being watched.

I wasn’t talking about religion. I just meant the way some people behave differently when there’s no audience.

I have family that are so messed up but perform so well publicly. It's taken me years and years of counselling to try understand this head fuck.

I believe the amount of people that are intrinsically lacking in empathy and therefore performing continuously, is higher than anyone wants to accept. It's the empathy and compassion tendency that is the driver for all this imo. Many are almost totally lacking but have learnt how to pretend.

What have done, OP? You can tell us here, it won't go any further 🤞

What would be in interesting is to try to guess the user name before opening the thread.
My guess was LimeGreenBicycle.

This.

Nothing scandalous, just thinking out loud about why people behave better when they know they’re being observed

ArmpitAmberParakeet

AIBU to think that OP only exists to post bollocks?

So you think if someone is caring for a baby, animal or disabled person who didn't have a voice they'd mistreat them when no one was around?
I hope that isn't the case, there are some bad people out there but I think the majority of people are good.

No.

I play a lot of single player computer RPG games. So I have to make decisions, some of them good, some of them bad, some of them which will hurt characters in the game.

To reiterate, these are single player games, so no other real people in them, the only people my decisions are going to affect are fictional characters.

And I still can't bring myself to make the "bad" decision, the one that will kill a character I care about at benefit to myself, or the one where I have to commit genocide to save a character I care about.

I go into a game thinking "This time I'll try an evil play through", and every time the moment the opportunity arises I still end up picking the good option.

If I can't even pick the immoral choice in a game, where the stakes are entirely fictional, there's no chance I'll be able to do it in real life, even if no one's watching.

Hitler, Idi Amin and Genghis Khan were being observed.

I’m definitely not saying most people would mistreat someone vulnerable. I meant it more in the everyday sense - how people behave when no one is there to give social approval or disapproval. Things like cutting corners, being polite only when it ‘counts’ or acting differently in private vs public. Most people are good. I was talking about the gap between public behaviour and private behaviour, not about harming vulnerable people.

Yes, some people do indeed do that. But not all people. As a broad-brush generalisation, someone who is acting on their morals will do so regardless of observation because morality isn't about other people's views of your behaviour, it's about your own views.