The thing about morality

What is the price of morality? The inquiry presents a trade-off between ethical standards and material benefits where individuals are willing to overlook behavior that would typically be considered unacceptable in exchange for perceived economic gains. For instance, plastic makers were willing to produce “forever chemicals” despite their health and environmental consequences. These companies made fortunes, yet it came at a cost—one deemed too high for society by both the courts and the people.

There exists a moral threshold where we prioritize ethics over economic gain. There is a line that separates the acceptable from the unacceptable, where we act in accordance with our values over our checkbook. Yet in American politics, we repeatedly witness a disturbing pattern where voters rationalize compromising fundamental moral principles for promised financial benefits, as seen in the 2024 presidential election.

Post-mortems from political scholars and news pundits attribute President-elect Donald Trump’s victory to America's disapproval of the current administration's handling of the economy as the primary factor for Vice President Kamala Harris' loss. Despite a laundry list of character flaws, many of these individuals justify their vote based on a "policy over personality" stance, an attempt to separate economic decisions from moral ones.

Arguments for this calculus stress the urgency of one's ability to pay bills and make ends meet as necessities akin to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Indeed, these basic needs are undoubtedly essential to living, but at what cost?

It’s easy to mistake this investigation as an inquiry of privilege. One might even respond to the premise of the question with the assertion,"If I'm barely living check-to-check, I don't have the luxury to concern myself with matters of civility." That is a fair argument. Yet, the ability to separate economic interests from moral concerns is itself a position of privilege—one that is not typically afforded to marginalized groups in society.

The price of this privilege comes at a high cost—one that challenges our cultural conventions and moral standards. Compromising morality for financial benefit can lead to the erosion of social norms, increased division in society, and the normalization of dangerous behaviors. The value of short-term monetary gain is not worth the impact these trade-offs have on society.

Just as marketers must make ethical decisions about how they market, we, citizens, must make moral decisions about how we engage in behavior, like the way we vote. This requires balancing the short-term and the long-term, weighing the tangible and the intangible, and considering the needs of others even if it means a temporal loss for you—especially those in privileged positions.