Contemporary Moral Dieting

David Brooks has a good column in today's The New York Times:  "The Moral Diet." 

In it, he discusses key points in a new book by Dan Ariely, The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty.

(For those with online user access, Mr. Ariely is also interviewed by The Wall Street Journal in this 20-minute video, posted last night.  The Duke University professor also penned this May 26 essay, "Why We Lie," in The Wall Street Journal.)

Mr. Brooks finds fascinating the presently prevailing Good Person Construct, which is a shift from moral conceptions that prevailed in the past:

But these days, people are more likely to believe in their essential goodness. People who live by the Good Person Construct try to balance their virtuous self-image with their selfish desires. They try to manage the moral plusses and minuses and keep their overall record in positive territory. In this construct, moral life is more like dieting: I give myself permission to have a few cookies because I had salads for lunch and dinner. I give myself permission to cheat a little because, when I look at my overall life, I see that I’m still a good person.

The Good Person isn’t shooting for perfection any more than most dieters are following their diet 100 percent. It’s enough to be workably suboptimal, a tolerant, harmless sinner and a generally good guy.

Obviously, though, there’s a measurement problem. ...

As we go about doing our Good Person moral calculations, it might be worth asking: Is this good enough? Is this life of minor transgressions refreshingly realistic, given our natures, or is it settling for mediocrity?

There is a measurement problem, and successful pursuit of virtue, I too fear, indeed is now defined by mediocrity.

But there is also perhaps another problem.  Is this moral pursuit to be conducted within the limits of individual human effort alone?

Mr. Brooks discusses Mr. Ariely's book in terms that may be true to the author's approach.  I have not read the book, so I cannot say.  But the language pervasive in the column about moral pursuit, and the Good Person Construct in particular, is decidedly individualistic.  It is about "moral self-image," what I do on my moral diet.  It is not about forces or agents outside of me that, in concert with me, are critical to solving the measurement problem, or the mediocrity problem, or the "good enough" question.

Maybe we need perspective and help from outside of ourselves to find our real moral selves -- and rightly to appraise what moral rectitude actually is.