Moral Philosophy
Every incentive contains ethics. Virtue, consequence, duty, justice, care.
Whose good is being served — and whose is being externalized?
Canonical thinkers
- Aristotle
- Immanuel Kant
- John Stuart Mill
- John Rawls
- Confucius
Seed concepts
- virtue ethics
- consequentialism
- deontology
- justice
- liberty
- care ethics
- utilitarian
- rawls
- hayek
- aristotle
- stoicism
- confucian
- buddhism
- moral
- ethics
Underlined seeds link to their full glossary entry. Plain seeds are pending a definition page.
Typed connections
Full graph →How this layer reinforces, counteracts, or depends on the rest of the system.
- Creates risk of·LayerPersuasion & Behavior Design creates risk of this layer
Influence techniques that exploit System 1 can erode the consent moral philosophy requires.
- Generalizes·LayerThis layer generalizes Leadership
Every leadership decision is a value trade-off — moral philosophy is the layer that names which trade was made.
Elements in this layer
17 HBEsTreating one kind of thing as if it belonged to a different ontological category.
Who do you count as fully human, deserving consideration?
Competing loyalties that compromise judgment.
Stacking fines on low-income defendants creates debt traps and recidivism.
Eroding the will to act, even when capacity remains.
Perceived fairness of outcomes, process, and treatment.
Headcount cuts pop short-term margin but collapse morale, institutional knowledge, and execution.
Contingency-fee structures shape which cases get filed.
Fixed sentencing rules remove judicial discretion and inflate incarceration without reducing crime.
Insulation from risk changes the risks people take.
Past good behavior makes us feel entitled to later bad behavior.
Deriving 'is' from 'ought.'
Judging only results ignores ethics of process and rewards shortcuts that look like wins.
Caseloads far above professional norms guarantee weak defense for the poor.
A 'good' act gives moral permission for a later 'bad' one.
Visible information about decisions, processes, and tradeoffs.
Anger, outrage, compassion