Ethical self-improvement – Knowledge – SZ.de

The best version of yourself is always in the distant future. As if people are striving to enter their ego utopia, they are telling themselves that they will one day – sure, I promise! – It will improve. Most often, these are very vulgar goals, driven by a petty ego. Of course you want to be slim, beautiful and fit, life will finally be like a prom at a pony farm. Others want to waste less time, be a better father, be a better mother, make more money, spend less, etc: Wishlists contain long lists, often with the same goals. It is clear that man as such, respectfully, and universally generalizing, feels like a fundamentally imperfect being and hopes for immediate and lasting improvement if this one thing changes. Obviously, this also applies, at least to some extent, to the field of ethics. Here too, people dream of a better selves in which they can finally live a happy life.

Psychologists just led by Jesse Sun from Washington University in St. Louis Publish a study on the PsyArXiv prepress server, which can be interpreted in this way. The scientists surveyed more than 1,800 participants and asked them to provide information about their claims to the moral self and the main motivation for change. The majority of study participants indicated that they wanted to improve moral qualities. So their goal was not so much to address perceived shortcomings as to improve existing characteristics. Mostly, participants said they wanted to feel more empathy for others. In addition, many people wished they were more open, honest, productive, respectful, and friendly.

Only good deeds look good

Between 40 and 48 percent of the participants – two slightly different survey questionnaires were organized for the study – said they see themselves as the main beneficiaries of their transformation into a better person. Thus the imagined ideal self was conceived as a source of one’s life satisfaction. At first glance, psychologists see this as surprising: Good deeds should be about others rather than the ego. According to the prevailing and perhaps somewhat naive view, anyone who helps his fellow human beings acts for the benefit of others.

On the other hand, it makes people feel good when they do good – and there’s nothing wrong with that. It is better to do good with a basic motive than to do no good. Above all, people strive to maintain an image of moral integrity to the outside world. Many vociferous and persuasive arguments in the form of debates, for example, can be interpreted as a general competition for prestige, as science author Will Storr argues persuasively in his must-read book The Status Game. Roughly speaking, those who don’t compete for money and the status it goes with instead argue with others about who might be considered the “best person.” as such “Moral superiority” is what US philosophers Justin Tose and Brandon Warmick call This form of vociferous moral boasting.

This could explain why the people in the current study by psychologists led by Sun (Anonymous) stated that they wanted to become a morally better person primarily for their own satisfaction. Anyone who wears an aura can be sure to impress others. Thus the circle closes: the desire for external and internal or moral beauty is similar in that both variables promise status and prestige. This is what everyone seeks in the end.