Morality

a short series

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

I’ve been working on a few pieces on morality. It’s not a sexy topic, but it’s inseparable from interpersonal narcissism and how people justify their behaviour toward others. This series is an attempt to examine how morality is currently understood, and the assumptions that have shaped that understanding.

Morality is often discussed as though it were a stable personal attribute, something a person possesses by virtue of holding the right beliefs, values, or political commitments. In the pieces that follow, I explore how this view operates when people are under social pressure.

One article looks outward at morality as it’s studied, taught, and legitimised by experts. I ask why moral psychology and ethics repeatedly fail to explain real behaviour, especially in public life, institutions, and conflict. I describe how these fields tend to overestimate reasoning and underestimate incentives, emotion, status, and self-protection.

The other article looks inward at how individuals experience themselves as moral. I examine the conditions under which judgment breaks down resulting in moral incongruence. I discuss how people are often capable of coherent moral reasoning when nothing is at stake, and how that consistency erodes in predictable ways once there’s a cost.

Both pieces make the same basic claim from different angles: morality is less about what people believe or say, and more about what governs their judgment when there’s something to lose.

Together, these pieces continue to challenge the idea that moral clarity comes from identity, education, or alignment with approved authorities. They treat morality as a form of self-governance that requires restraint, discipline, and structural support, not just good intentions or correct views.

I’m not trying to make anyone feel immoral, just as I’m not trying to convince anyone that we’re narcissists. If we want to make sense of the moral failure visible in our institutions and society, we need to understand how morality actually operates in this age of narcissism.

Thanks for reading and supporting my work,

Nathalie

Where do your ideas about morality and moral behaviour come from?

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Hacking Narcissism is for people trying to make sense of and effectively navigate a morally distorting and chaotic age. When moral development is disincentivised, people lose reliable reference points for discernment and struggle to distinguish between what’s real, what’s performative, and what’s covertly shaping their perception.

Narcissistic traits are expressed in everyone (often referred to as Cluster B traits). They flourish during periods of moral decline because they help secure status, protection, and significance in environments where norms of what appears correct, rather than what is grounded in moral principles, regulate behaviour. The effect of this behaviour is experienced in all types of relationships, including in workplaces, where people can be punished for violating norms they never agreed to and were never made explicit.

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