Large-scale corruption builds incrementally from small moral compromises

Evidence

Criminal transformations usually begin with small offenses. As time goes on, larger infractions are justified by successive moral compromises. Eventually one becomes a different person, whose life is characterized by major moral failings. Some of these disastrous life courses are akin to a Shakespearean tragedy in which a character flaw drives one to self-destruction. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1482

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• QUESTION: The staircase metaphor of moral compromise deserves closer examination — is the incremental path always descending, or can small good acts also compound?
• CANDY: A punchy elevator observation: big moral failures are built from a chain of small justifiable compromises.

Related

• Major moral failings develop through small offenses accumulating into self-justifying identity change. (similarity 0.90)
• Becoming cruel happens gradually through a slippery slope of minor tolerated harms. (similarity 0.79)