Economic training cannot overcome intellectuals’ deep ethical preference for non-profit motives

Evidence

Adorno gave an example of what he meant: If we are confronted with the statement, based on some alleged authorities in humanistic sociology, that the so-called rural population is resistant to technical and social innovations because of its essentially conservative spirit, we will not be satisfied with explanations of this sort … We will … for example, send interviewers familiar with farmers into the country and encourage them to persist with further questions when farmers tell them that they stay on their farms out of love for their homeland and loyalty to the customs of their fathers. We will confront their conservatism with economic facts and investigate whether technical innovations were unprofitable in businesses below a certain size, whether these would require investment on such a scale that for a business of that type the technical rationalization offered would become unrational. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1931 (#complicates, via linked claim)

In actuality, moral conduct is too diverse, determined by too many factors, too situationally variable, and too selectively inextricable from self-sanctions to be adequately explained in terms of hierarchically categorized forms of reasoning. The stage progression in moral reasoning essentially marks increasingly sophisticated justifications for behavior in various moral predicaments. Higher levels of moral “maturity” do not necessarily foretell stronger commitment to humane conduct. This is because justifications, whatever their level, can be applied in the service of harmful activities as well as benevolent ones. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 199 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Empirical research can expose ideology by confronting subjective motives with objective economic facts — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1931; More sophisticated moral reasoning does not predict more humane conduct — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 199

Related

• Empirical research can expose ideology by confronting subjective motives with objective economic facts (similarity 0.85)
• More sophisticated moral reasoning does not predict more humane conduct (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Empirical research can expose ideology by confronting subjective motives with objective economic facts #complicates (0.82) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1931
• More sophisticated moral reasoning does not predict more humane conduct #corroborates (0.80) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 199