Distant future harm cannot motivate current behavior directly.

Evidence

Long-range goals provide a vision of a desired future. However, having a vision is not enough. There are too many competing influences in the present for distant futures to regulate current behavior. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2942 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Ukifune has chosen to leave her world because she has two potential lovers—the two most desirable men in her world—and she prefers to have neither rather than to have to choose between them. Yet this woefully weak person has made a stalwart commitment. At first, she intends to leave the world by dying, but she fails in her attempt and is rescued by chance to a nearby nunnery. Her decision to become a nun is then purely opportunistic. Her only actual commitment is to leave her world. If she cannot be dead, she can at least be a nun, even though she may have little commitment to any of the ostensible beliefs of Buddhism. — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 243 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Distant future people fail to arouse the empathy that would curb environmental harm; Distant future goals cannot regulate present behavior amid competing influences. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2942; Remote or temporally distant harms fail to motivate because only vivid futures can — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2949 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Distant future goals cannot regulate present behavior amid competing influences. #corroborates (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2942
• An opportunistic, insincere commitment can still bind future behavior #complicates (0.80) — Russell Hardin, Trust and Trustworthiness, 243