Morality resembles a self-enforcing contract between present and future selves.
Evidence
Although helping strangers without expectation of return can be rewarding in its own right, I may also help them because of a personal rule for fairness at times when I would rather cheat and could do so without social consequences. Then I do behave as if I had made a social contract. The contract is real, but exists between my present self and my expected future selves. Like the oral contracts among traders that Baumard et al. list (sect. 2.1.3, para. 1), my contract is self-enforcing. I may still get away with cheating, by means of the casuistry with personal rules called rationalization; or I may instead become hyper-moral, if I am especially fearful of giving myself an unfavorable self-signal (Bodner & Prelec 2001). Either deviation moves me away from optimal social desirability, but my central anchor is just where Baumard et al. say it should be.
— Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality, 231
Categorization
DEFINE: Defines rationalization as ‘casuistry with personal rules’ and introduces the self-contract and hyper-morality as the two deviant poles.
XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s reading purpose: the fumi-e destroys the self-contract by forcing a definitive public lapse, which on this account should be devastating to the priest’s moral self-image. — connects to: Human moral behavior may originate in mere conformity to convention, not genuine morality. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 541; Morality serves a self-directed ego function of constructing moral identity. — Nicolas Baumard, A mutualistic approach to morality: The…, 546; Interests crystallize into perceived moral commitments through psychological supervenience. (+1 more)