# Ethics or "Me First"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 18, 2005, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713 "2005-02-18T14:36:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/21 "2005-02-18T18:41:59Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > _Under what conditions, specifically, does it “pay” to be nice?_ I am not sure you can apply “specific” reasons to this. Can one say anyone does nice things for purely altruistic reasons? I would venture most people do something “nice” because they derive something from it. It could be just a personal feeling of satisfaction or (cynically) it may be that they see it as banking goodwill for a day when they may need a favor back. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/22 "2005-02-18T18:42:48Z")
IMNSHO, your friend’s attitude indicates that she is severely lacking in the honor and integrity department. If someone makes a promise to another, one should keep it. That is what is done in a wedding ceremony ("…forsaking all others…"). If that person then breaks the promise, the other party is injured _whether or not they know about it._ If your friend is so callous that she is willing to screw a married man, knowing that he is married, then she is willingly injuring his wife. Not a nice person. You, on the other hand, are doing the right thing by showing the basic courtesy of being nice to other people. I wish more folks did that… ---
**Author:** ![macabresoul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e68b1a/32.png) [@macabresoul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/macabresoul)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/23 "2005-02-18T18:51:08Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > But I do tend to agree with you, and think she is wrong. There are some places where her attitude might serve her well. For example, were she a drug dealer aggressively seeking or defending territory, or a warlord trying to retain control, or a leader in a battle or war. Here are the kinds of contexts where cynicism and selfishness pay off. I’m not calling her a psychopath, but these are the situations where psychopaths excel. They are custom-made for people who find no practical limitation on behavior: everything is permissible, if only you can find a way to do it, and the sooner the better; rules are made to be broken, and the more ingeniously you break them the more you gain; other people are a means to an end. If she does not agree that “any behavior is acceptable at any time without exception,” and I am 99% sure she doesn’t, then you have a way to find out what she’s thinking, and perhaps, a way to show her that her behavior is out of context. > > _Under what conditions, specifically, does it “pay” to be nice?_ Well it pays to be nice when you have a conscience to consider. Or maybe when you care about how your actions will effect other peoples feelings. I would not exactly call his friend a psychopath, but I understand what you mean. It’s not that being callous gives her any advantage in life, or that her selfishness pays off… It’s more like a pre-emptive strike to protect **her** from being the one getting hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/24 "2005-02-18T18:58:53Z")
I think your friend’s workaround for the Prisoners Dilemma is that she won’t get caught. There’s something to be said, from a purely competative standpoint, for successful deception, which I think gets left out of a lot of game theory discussions. Some of the mating habits of birds (and people) lend credence to the idea that sometimes it’s not the most-obviously fit, but rather the most successfully deceptive, who wind up on top (literally and figuratively). Perhaps the best way to go is to encourage ethical behavior in your partners whist flouting it yourself at any opportunity, all the while leaving your partners none-the-wiser. This approach might even maximize satisfaction, since it is only the perceptions of the cheated, and not the reality that informs those perceptions, that matters for that criterion. I don’t practice this approach myself, because I’m not smart enough to lie all the time and get away with it. Quite probably somebody out there is screwing me without my knowing it. I can’t let that bother me, though, because I’ll become paranoid and depressed. Rigid ethical standards are not easy things to argue for, unless we accept that we are either taken out of the deception game by innate altruistic drives, or we percieve ourselves as inferior deceivers, and cannot risk cheating. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/25 "2005-02-18T19:10:04Z")
Just a nitpick on the below. This only works in an infinitely repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma if the sucker plays Grim Trigger for each successive iteration. In practive, even after they end up with the sucker’s payoff, people often _still_ try to cooperate, leaving them subject to repeated victimization. A defector can model this, of course. You can remodel this as a signaling game with incomplete information. Each player forms beliefs about the likelihood that the other player will play Nash after a defection. If beliefs are consistent with Bayes’ Rule, dollars to donuts says that a consistent equilibrium can be found in which one player systematically victimizes the other player just infrequently enough to avoid Grim Trigger. Just food for thought for the other game theorists out there. > [@robertliguori](#): > > You will be wanting to explain the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma to your friend. It goes like this: > > Say that you and a friend are in a business relationship. If you are both honest, you will make a moderate amount of money each. If one of you is honest and the other cheats, the cheater will make huge amounts of money, and the other gets nothing. If you both cheat, you get only a very little. > > Now, it looks on the surface that the best thing to do is cheat. On average, it gives you the best choices, and ensures that you will never be cheated on without cheating yourself. However, this thought experiment leaves out one very important factor: the possibilty of dealing with your friend again. > > If your friend cheats on you, you will cheat on him in all future relationships, giving the two of you very little. However, if you both work honestly, you will get a moderate amount of money, and continue to do so. After many iterations, it becomes clear that whatever you can get away with by cheating a trusting partner will be less than the moderate amount you get many, many times. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/26 "2005-02-18T19:13:06Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I pretty much follow the Golden Rule as my guiding ethical light. It may not be profound and may have situations where it falters but I find it gets me by in most cases in my life. I would disagree. I think it _is_ profound, and I don’t know of any situations where it falters. That is, as long as you don’t use an overly literal interpretation as was being done in an earlier post. > [@](#): > > I have challenged her on this. She, like anyone else, does not like getting taken advantage of or have her feelings hurt (and so on) and will get mad about it when it happens to her. What she has done is distanced herself from that hurt. She plugs any pain she feels into, “Screw it…I don’t care”. I think she is being dishonest with herself and burying her feelings as a defense mechanism and while it may assuage her pain in the short term I think it has festered down deep and made her a particularly cynical person. This attitude ultimately shows through in her personality so “friends” are hard to keep for her as well as any meaningful relationships with a significant other. In the end it becomes a self reinforcing attitude. She makes friends, treats friends badly (or at least not well or at the very least far too casually) and loses friends. It is weird to watch…like a revolving door into her life. In her mind these friends have proved unworthy anyway so screw them. She’ll take her pleasure when and where she can and move on to the next person ad nauseum. She is a (usually) fun woman to be around and she is attractive so there is no shortage of new faces stepping up to the plate for their turn. > > I have tried to point this out to her but she does not see it. In her worldview everyone does this and the alternative is for idiots to get walked on. She sees no benefit in expending the energy for the long term. Sadly, the world is full of people like your friend. It may sound trite, but you can’t help her unless she _wants_ to change. And even if she suddenly decided she _did_ want to change, such deeply ingrained attitudes and behaviors are very difficult to change and take a lot of work. I really don’t think appeals to logic are going to do it. However, beauty fades, and she’s not going to be able to rely on her looks forever, so she WILL have to change eventually. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/27 "2005-02-18T19:21:44Z")
Actually, on reflection, I’m also motivated not to cheat by plain old guilt, so I think I’m also limited by altruism. I can’t see a single benefit to myself for feeling guilty about something I will never get caught for, but I must acknowledge I have exactly those sort of emotions. So I’m a poor deceiver on two counts: I lack the guile to manipulate others in such a way as to maximize my satisfaction while they are blissfully ignorant, and even when opportunities to transgress with impunity present themselves, I am hamstrung by guilt. I perhaps make a very poor competitor. ---
**Author:** ![Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/58956e/32.png) [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/28 "2005-02-18T20:58:28Z")
**Whack** , don’t answer this if you don’t want to, but do you have the hots for her? From your description of her, I have trouble understanding why you’re hanging around otherwise. It sounds like having conversations as you describe would only make her contemptuous of you. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/29 "2005-02-18T21:07:45Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > I think your friend’s workaround for the Prisoners Dilemma is that she won’t get caught. There’s something to be said, from a purely competative standpoint, for successful deception, which I think gets left out of a lot of game theory discussions. Actually I think she does not give a crap if she is caught. She’d rather not get caught of course but if she does she shrugs it off. This is due (in my view) to the fact that she does get caught on a regular basis. She is quite simply a terrible liar. It takes no effort on the part of others to catch her. Mostly she walks herself into it by doing things as described above where she goes to a bar frequented by the person she blew off and then runs into them. Or she will spill the beans inadvertently while talking to you (e.g. she was supposedly home sick last Thursday and then in the course fo conversation tells you a story about her night out last Thursday). That said I do take your point and think there is something to it and is worthy of discussion. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/30 "2005-02-18T21:14:52Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > So you would find it perfectly acceptable to entice her SO to cheat? After all… I may be misunderstanding you; this is a fairly brief post. Is your full question something like, “So, given that you believe she would not mind being cheated on, would you find it perfectly acceptable to entice her SO to cheat?” If so, then yes (assuming I were single). If it wouldn’t bother her, then I’d have no problem with it, even though it’d bother me to be cheated on myself: my goal is to respect her desires, not to pretend that she and I have identical desires. However, if your full question is something like, “So, given the fact that she would not mind enticing someone else to cheat (but would mind being cheated on), would you find it perfectly acceptable to entice her SO to cheat?” If so, then no, I would not find that acceptable. The Golden Rule, as I interpret it, requires me to behave unto others as I **would have them behave unto me** , not **as I expect them to behave unto me**. And that, again, means respecting her desires, even if she would not respect mine. That said, there are limits on this. If someone cancels dates with me more often than I find reasonable, then I’ll stop making dates with them. If I find out they’re lying to me about why they’re cancelling dates, then I’ll stop making dates a lot sooner. I play role-playing games, for example. Some players I know will show up every single session, almost fanatically. Other players I know will cancel if they’re feeling tired from work, and will sometimes even forget to call me to cancel. The players in the first group will find that I spend a lot more time coming up with interesting subplots for their characters, will give them a lot more time in the spotlight. The players in the second group will find that their characters are never integral to the night’s story, and are unlikely to get invited back to the next game I run. Even if they desire to be part of the group, they’ve made it clear that they’re not going ot respect my desires to have a coherent group; the Golden Rule doesn’t require me to martyr my own desires to theirs. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/31 "2005-02-18T21:16:10Z")
Grr…that example was supposed to have a last part to it, which is that, if they invite me to a game they run, I won’t feel free to cancel on a whim: I’ll behave in what I consider an appropriate manner, despite how they behaved in my games. The Golden Rule requires such. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/32 "2005-02-18T21:18:14Z")
> [@Hoodoo Ulove](#): > > **Whack** , don’t answer this if you don’t want to, but do you have the hots for her? From your description of her, I have trouble understanding why you’re hanging around otherwise. It sounds like having conversations as you describe would only make her contemptuous of you. She is a friend with benefits. Benefits being the more operative word here and this is her choice of relationship even more than mine. In the near term I get to have some fun, she gets to have some fun and we are both on the same page about it (clearly verbalized). In the long term I know there is no way there could be anything more between the two of us…she says the same about me. Hopefully I’ll find a nice woman to hang with and will reduce this relationship to distant friends (I am 100% a one woman guy so will not continue with her on the side). FTR: She is frequently contemptuous of me but I do not care enough about her opinions for it to bother me in the slightest. You may remember I said she is attractive and apparently she thinks the same back else she would not keep inviting me over. I have seen a “nice” person buried in there somewhere. It peeks out on rare occasion before she slams the door on it. My description above may come across as too callous about our relationship. I do consider myself as her friend and wish the better part of her could get out (hence this thread). That said I agree with others here that it is not likely. More’s the pity. ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/33 "2005-02-18T21:50:33Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Hopefully I’ll find a nice woman to hang with and will reduce this relationship to distant friends (I am 100% a one woman guy so will not continue with her on the side). Anybody else find this funny? It just doesn’t scan right to me. Look, you’ve shown her that there is absolutely no downside to being a total bitch. Yay for you. See, quite often, bad behavior i self-correcting: if you abuse your friends, they generally go away. But if you enable her behavior, it’s very easy for her to sit back and feel superior about her choices. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/34 "2005-02-18T21:57:29Z")
Beauty can make for a very successful sociopath, not the least because the abused feel rewarded to have been given attention, however exploitative. Ethics pretty much go out the window in that scenerio. It’s get while the getting’s good. As mentioned above, beauty fades, but perhaps she’ll have other tricks up her sleeve. I wouldn’t bother trying to “fix” her ethics, or lack thereof. You’re fucking a hot woman with her permission, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Quite frankly, I’d use it as an opportunity to get your dirtiest kinks out if she’s game, and then move on to something more emotionally fulfulling. There’s little sense in troubling your conscience over a person who lacks one. If she has a conscience but refuses to show it, it’s not your fault. I do realise, of course, that, as an ethical person, you may feel guilty about some aspects of mutual exploitation, or may simply give more than a rat’s tail about her wellbeing (hence your caring so much). In your shoes I’d be at a disadvantage, as I’d likely get too emotionally attached, and when the inevitable finally came, I’d experience not a little pain. For a variety of reasons I make a poor male slut, much to my chagrin at times. Have fun, and best of luck. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/35 "2005-02-18T22:13:54Z")
> [@Stonebow](#): > > Anybody else find this funny? No. > [@](#): > > It just doesn’t scan right to me. Why? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/36 "2005-02-18T22:14:12Z")
> [@Stonebow](#): > > Anybody else find this funny? It just doesn’t scan right to me. > > Look, you’ve shown her that there is absolutely no downside to being a total bitch. Yay for you. See, quite often, bad behavior i self-correcting: if you abuse your friends, they generally go away. But if you enable her behavior, it’s very easy for her to sit back and feel superior about her choices. Perhaps. I see your point and pondered it myself awhile back. When I first met her I just saw a seemingly cool, attractive woman that I had fun with. At first as her real personality started becoming apparent I just chalked it up to occasional bad behavior almost any person can display from time to time. As it continued I realized this was not an aberration but a common theme for her and I broke up with her. She then called me back just to have some fun (drinks and more). I debated whether I should do that or not and figured why not? So here and there I get to scratch that itch and as far as that goes we work remarkably well together. Same seems to go for her. I have already removed my “heart” out of the relationship and told her as much. It is what it is…very much a shallow, take care of some basic needs friendship. Perhaps this does enable her. While I would like to show her that her choices for dealing with friends and lovers is not so great it is not my mission in life to see to it that she learns this lesson. In the meantime, with all this understood between the two of us, I see no harm in continuing. I would say she does lose in the end as should I start dating another woman seriously (and I fully expect to…soon in fact as I may have already found one…fourth date tonight in fact) I will sever what little bit of a relationship is left to us. At that point I will be only a distant friend…one who says hi to her on the street or in a bar should we run into each other and perhaps a card on holidays. I may not be the greatest thing to ever land on the planet but I am a good and faithful friend and believe you can never have too many of those. I gave this relationship an honest try and she largely ignored it. Without trying to pat myself on the back too much I count this as her loss…not mine. FTR: She knows full well if I meet another woman I will do exactly as I described above and she is “fine” with that. I told her in no way can she expect me to merely sit at home at her beck and call when she feels the “need”. I put “fine” in quotes because my hunch is she will not be happy with it but feels I have zero chance of finding another woman and she can continue as she pleases. She is wrong on that count as I do manage to get my share of dates (wouldn’t mind more but I do well enough so no real complaints). ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2005, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/37 "2005-02-18T22:25:02Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > I do realise, of course, that, as an ethical person, you may feel guilty about some aspects of mutual exploitation, or may simply give more than a rat’s tail about her wellbeing (hence your caring so much). In your shoes I’d be at a disadvantage, as I’d likely get too emotionally attached, and when the inevitable finally came, I’d experience not a little pain. For a variety of reasons I make a poor male slut, much to my chagrin at times. Have fun, and best of luck. I am more like you than may be apparent here. I do wonder at the ethics here. Am I exploiting her even if it is with her full knowledge and consent? I am obviously here just to “get some” and that is all and will drop it in a second when something more permanent presents itself. That all makes me vaguely uneasy (but obviously not enough to stop). That said I am certain she would do the same thing back (and will if [when] she bores of this fling). I too tend to get emotionally sucked in where sex is involved usually. I am more akin to sterotypical female feelings in this regard than male feelings (oddly my friend is more akin to stereotypical males as this one goes). I struggled with this for a bit. Each time I was with her seemed to renew some feelings I wanted to be done with. But as luck would have it she is so good at being a jerk towards me it became easy to distance myself. All I have left is a feeling of a light friendship and have found a comfort zone with it all. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2005, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713/38 "2005-02-19T01:10:34Z")
All this analysis and no one has used the word projecting yet. She treats people badly. Then she can’t trust anyone because she can’t help projecting her own behavior onto everyone else. Now the only safe people are the weak people who want to treat people badly, but can’t (beacuse everyone want to treat others badly and only cowardace would prevent them). And she has to treat them badly, too, to be sure they’re still safe and because weak people deserve to be treated badly. Of course, I’ve never met the woman. I just felt that the conversation needed the work projecting. She sounds tiring to be around. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ethics-or-me-first/290713.md?page=1)