Plato asked a question once: Most people make an effort to behave in a morally correct way, but suppose you had a ring that made you invisible? Would you make the same effort to behave morally?

The relationship between morality and society is complicated, and one that philosophers and thinkers have tried to parse out for a long, long time. Thomas Hobbes reminded us that the human life in a state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. Not a pleasant experience. Societies are an innovation we developed to improve upon that experience. And a necessary part of that innovation is making personal sacrifices for the machine to work.

Most of us make an effort to conduct ourselves in a way that helps society function. But Plato wondered whether many of us would drop that effort should the opportunity arise. Most of us (I like to think) wouldn’t say cruel things to another person’s face, but what sorts of things do we say when we know they can’t hear?

The question is, do we only make the effort to behave "properly" because we know we can be seen? Because there are consequences and we can be held accountable? This idea crops up in many different places. Be honest, you’ve probably taken a little liberty when you felt you could get away with it. How many of us have taken the free plastic cup “for water” at a fast food restaurant and filled it up with soda? It’s not like it’s a major theft, right? Nobody will know. They won’t miss it. They might never even see me again. We've all had the thought: I know I’m not supposed to, but what’s the harm?

I watched an RSA video once that made an interesting claim: we all want to be able to think of ourselves as “good people,” and at the same time we all want to benefit from dishonesty. It described extensive studies they carried out. Across 30,000 subjects, they found about 12 “big cheaters” who “stole” a cumulative total of $150. They also found about 18,000 “little cheaters,” who “stole” a total of...$36,000. And this, they claim, is reflective of our society. Most of the cheating is done by average people, who rationalize their actions with “what’s the harm,” and it ends up having a huge impact, far more than that of the really big cheaters. I argue that you can expand this idea across almost all of moral philosophy. Most of the deviations from moral “rightness” are little steps here and there by people looking for a little extra benefit. And the reason they’re so small is because we can only rationalize so much. We know that people are watching, we know that we have expectations on us, and we know that we are accountable for ourselves. And most of all we want to feel like we are good members of society, like they say. But we aren’t above taking that little step off the straight and narrow.

One man steals the door, and the house is cold. A hundred men each steal one brick, and the house collapses.

It seems, to me at least, that many people will sacrifice some of their adherence to social/moral conventions if there’s a benefit in it; most especially if they feel like it can’t be linked to them. Look at social media, message boards, and anonymous chat rooms; people will even say cruel and callous things just to dabble if they feel like they can get away with it. This is part of the appeal of open-world games like Grand Theft Auto and games with good versus evil morality systems like Fallout. They give people a chance to explore the things that aren’t socially or morally acceptable, with no permanent consequences to themselves, or to their communities. Anonymity, escapism, the rings that make us invisible in their own ways.

A lot of people I’ve encountered have a really strong moral sense in an ideological way. They have big ideas about justice and fairness and equality. But a lot of the same people will steal things from restaurants, lie about their identities to get rewards, and say some pretty nasty words when they can keep their identities secret. I’m not above it all either. I’ve taken the water cup and filled it with soda. But the interesting thing is that, comparatively, it’s much easier to not take that cup than to adhere to these big moral ideas about the world. Universal ethical standards are really hard just to discuss, let alone to subscribe to. And so many people have an easier time saying we should be kind to people from other countries than actually being kind to the person serving them their coffee.

I think this also has something to do with why we especially dislike people who benefit in big ways from dishonesty (or what we believe to be acts of dishonesty). Not only are we upset that they are violating the rules we all are supposed to mutually agree to follow, but on some level, we’re upset that we aren’t benefiting at the level they are. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard gripe about those getting jobs through personal connections, and yet I know for a fact that 9/10 of those people would use a personal connection to get a job they wanted without a second thought. They’re not mad at the system, they’re mad that someone else was more successful within it. It’s that way for a lot of things.

Bringing it back to Hobbes, we sacrifice a number of things in order for our society to work. And it looks like many of us want to find ways to get some of those freedoms back whenever we can. It makes sense, I understand completely why people would. But it’s an interesting idea that as soon as people are comfortable, they start wishing to be a little invisible. Think about that.