Is It Okay to Do the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason?

DUCKWORTH: “Love it. Love the skirt. Amazing.”

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DUCKWORTH: I’m Angela Duckworth.

 MAUGHAN: I’m Mike Maughan.

DUCKWORTH + MAUGHAN: And you’re listening to No Stupid Questions.

Today on the show: is it okay to do the right thing for the wrong reason?

DUCKWORTH: I honestly don’t care. I was just doing it to feel good. 

DUCKWORTH: Mike, we have an email from Calvin, and I’m going to read it to you.

MAUGHAN: Okay, I’m excited.

DUCKWORTH: “As humans, we spend a lot of time exploring the idea of doing the wrong things for the right reasons, especially in movies and books. I think the undervalued idea is doing the right thing for the wrong reason. For example, a billionaire donates a lot of money to charity because it’s a tax write off. This billionaire has done a good thing, but for selfish reasons. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” I guess he means, is the action of donating a lot of money good or bad, given the intentions? “How should we encourage or discourage this? From, Calvin.”

MAUGHAN: Calvin, my first thought though is how do you know that the billionaire did it for the wrong reasons? I mean, yes, they got a tax break, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t also care deeply about the issue or cause. I mean, I immediately think of Bill Gates. Bill Gates is worth a ton of money. He and his then wife formed the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Yes, they get a massive tax write off. Yes, you could say it was the wrong reason because he wants to build up a reputation as this philanthropist in the last half of his life and he wants adulation and praise. But also, I think Bill and Melinda Gates, each in their own way, care deeply about the causes that they support.

DUCKWORTH: You want to say that, like, we shouldn’t assume that billionaires who get tax write-offs have poor motives.

MAUGHAN: Yeah that we’re assuming motives.

DUCKWORTH: You have lots of reactions that I have, but I think what Calvin is asking is, hypothetically, what if you had somebody and you could x-ray them and know what their inner motives were for doing something like donating to charity? And what if you could know with certainty that the primary motivation was, in fact, a selfish motivation and not an altruistic one, right? So, I think that’s what Calvin’s asking. I mean, I don’t even know myself, much less another person — you know, sometimes I’m like, why did I do that? I don’t know. So, I’m not going to pretend to know why Bill & Melinda Gates donated money. Full disclosure, I have gotten some of that money. So, I’ll say that I’ve been very grateful regardless of how they’ve given it.  And in some ways, I think this is a really open and shut question. I’m like, Calvin, come on, isn’t it a better thing that the Gates Foundation exists versus, like, it not existing? Like, I think most people would be like, “Sure, we’d rather have more donations, more virtuous acts. In some ways, it’s a simple question. And in other ways, it’s like an endlessly complex question that has no answer, you know, because I think this really does get to, what does it mean to do good? And I think Calvin’s raising this question because if somebody donates a lot of money — I mean, look, I work at a university and every time I walk into any building, I mean, the building is named, the doorway is named. I’m not kidding, like, they name the doorway.

MAUGHAN: Can I also just say, like, if I’m giving a bunch of money, I actually kind of feel dumb that it’s for a doorway.

DUCKWORTH: I mean, look, at a university, yes, we have taken to naming literally walkways, doorways, this part of the library, that vestibule.

MAUGHAN: Hospitals do it. They name a bench.

DUCKWORTH: The wing, the bench, yes. I live near a park where, like, the benches are named. The bricks are named, right? Like, you can buy a brick now, right?  I’ve even done that myself, so, you know, hello kettle, I’m pot. But, like, the thing that I love most — like I was in the MoMA recently, so Jason and I went to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And when you’re in that part, I guess the — I’m sure it’s named — where you buy your tickets, like, when you first enter,  I was just standing there, like, waiting for Jason to make the transaction, and I’m staring at this list of the donors, which, of course, they have tastefully, like, in the most beautiful font, but, like, in hierarchical order from, I think, greatest to lowest donor.  And I’m, like, reading these names of these, like, very wealthy families, or corporations, or philanthropic foundations. But at the end of every section, there was my favorite donor: “Anonymous.”  What, of course, everyone loves about that is that then you can have some confidence that the motive was pure.  And I think that’s Calvin’s getting at. It’s like, how much do we judge people by what they do? And how much do we judge people by their intentions?

MAUGHAN: Or what we assume their intentions were.

DUCKWORTH: Or what we assume to be their intentions. And that’s another layer, because you don’t ever know.  Look, there’s some research on this, but I first want to start with my own story. So, when I was at Oxford, I dipped my toe in the water of taking philosophy classes. And I know I’ve shared with you before that, like, at some point I realized that I was a much better psychologist than philosopher. But I did take these classes where they would introduce  the basics of the Western philosophical canon and how to think about morality —  like, the fundamental distinction that’s made in Western philosophy between being a utilitarian and a deontological or deontological  reasoner about, like, whether something is right or wrong. And you know more about this than I do, but, you know, my understanding of utilitarianism is, like, doing the greatest good for the greatest number. It’s like a calculation. But deontological reasoning is, like, there are certain things that are categorically right and categorically wrong.  So, I remember learning about Immanuel Kant and that Immanuel Kant, you know, said that if you have a feeling of joy when you do a moral act, and if you are primarily motivated by the warm glow of that moral act, it is no longer moral — that you have to do things that are categorically right or categorically wrong for the sake of their being categorically right or categorically wrong, and then of course he had system behind that. But I remember that so vividly, because it made no sense to me. So, I guess I, I wonder what you think about the very idea that if, for example, one of the motives you have for making a donation to the Museum of Modern Art or volunteering is that it will make you feel good — not a tax write off. Now this is much fuzzier territory, but it makes you feel great. Do you side with Immanuel Kant that, like, that’s no longer a moral act? Or do you side with Angela Duckworth who says, like, oh my gosh, like, are you kidding? Of course it’s a moral act.

MAUGHAN: Look, I, I do understand where Kant is coming from in that the act of just doing the right thing because it’s the right thing, with no expectation of reward, including the warm, fuzzy that you feel, I agree is the purest of motivations. At the same time, I think it’s silly to divorce your own response from the act itself. Meaning that like — 

DUCKWORTH: But wait, wait, I want to challenge you on the first thing, like, why is it pure? Why do we have to divorce emotion from morality?

MAUGHAN: I don’t think we do. I understand where Kant’s coming from in theory. And I think that in theory what he’s talking about works. I think that in practice it’s impossible to actually divorce them.

DUCKWORTH:  I mean, look, I want to agree with you that in practice it’s hard, but, like, I just don’t understand why theoretically it’s better for there to be reason and no emo — you know, your head and not your heart. Like, why is that better?

MAUGHAN: Because one you’re doing for self-reward. And the other you’re just doing because it’s right.

DUCKWORTH: Ah, you’re saying that it’s more pure in the sense that it’s truly altruistic. Like, it’s truly other-centered.

MAUGHAN: A hundred percent other-centric.

DUCKWORTH: Oh, interesting. Okay.

MAUGHAN: Because once you introduce yourself, to it it becomes selfish to some degree — which, by the way, I think is fine.  I think we all have — I mean, it’s easy to be like, “Ah, billionaires,” but also like, I’ll give you an example from myself.  In high school, I think I signed up for, like half of the clubs on campus —  including  volunteering.  Now, did I really want to be involved in every club? No. I think, if I went back to a 16-year-old Mike Maughan, I think he was really interested in getting into college.  And I think I wanted the belonging. High school and junior high, come on, they kind of suck a little bit. And you want to, like, be surrounded by people. You want to have activities to go to. Like, there were a lot of selfish reasons. I think I also probably did good through some of those. But like,  I’m just saying if you volunteer out of self interest, but then you find out that you really like it, and you benefit the world from it, and it’s something that you really care about, but you only found that out because of self-interest, then there’s a really positive externality that flows from that.

DUCKWORTH: I mean, I have long thought about these high-school students who are, you know, energetically padding their resumes with volunteer activities because they want to seem like they are community-minded and they also want an essay that they are going to have, you know, something altruistic to write about when it comes time to turn in their application for college. And I think the possibility that somebody starts down a path for all the wrong reasons, but the path leads them somewhere different, and they’re not the same person at the end of the journey — I think that’s actually something that I should keep in mind, because I also rush to judgment about those things. And they reflexively make me not respect the act itself. But probably more often than we think, our motives are mixed. And maybe it’s not only a good thing to recognize that, but also to recognize that the motives can shift over time.

MAUGHAN: Exactly. And I think that’s what’s so important about some of these examples. So, think about another one. You apologize after an argument for the wrong reason — not because I think I’m wrong, but because I know that it will avoid further confrontation and it will ease the tension.  I think that that’s probably good and maybe in the process of that, we begin to start perspective taking and understanding how somebody else thinks.  I just think that there are positive externalities that can come from even mixed motivation or the wrong motivation when you did the right thing.

DUCKWORTH: Is that what happened to you? Like, you said that in high school you ran around and signed up for all these, I guess, “virtuous” volunteer activities  thinking like, “How do I get into college?” But then, did they change you? 

MAUGHAN: I think the experience of being involved in different pursuits with really good people is what changed me. It was less about this organization or that club, and more about the fact that it put me in association with other really good individuals. Was I then put in environments where I could go enact change and make a difference? And was it an interesting training ground on some of the impact I’ve been able to make later in life? Yeah. It also did that too.  One thing I’m curious about — I was interested that you went to this idea, which I love, by the way, of utilitarianism versus deontological morality, because I’m curious to talk with you about something that I read about “psychological egoists.”

DUCKWORTH: Yeah. I haven’t heard of that expression, “psychological egoists.” Yeah — go on. I’m listening.

MAUGHAN: So, I read this article by a professor of philosophy at Alfred University named Emrys Westacott. And Westacott talks about this idea that there are some things that we’re genuinely doing right. So, for example, a motorist stops to help someone whose car is broken down on the side of the road. An extreme example, a soldier falls on a grenade to protect others from the explosion. We could call these selfless acts. Now, “psychological egoists “— and I, I want to just say “cynics,” and let me explain, but as Westacott describes, they would say, okay, well, maybe what the motorist is really thinking is someday I might need help because my car could break down on the side of the road and I want to have a culture where people help those in need.  We act like these are other-facing or other-oriented tasks, and I think maybe that person genuinely feels when they do that, that it is. But then the psychological egoist would say, “Well, maybe the person is hoping to impress other people or trying to avoid feelings of guilt or looking for that warm, fuzzy feeling. 

DUCKWORTH: Right, so there’s all different variations of like how your motives could be mixed from I only want to help this person, that is the only thing I care about — I don’t care about how I feel, I don’t care about reciprocity, I don’t care about living in a society where that becomes the norm. So, I think that’s kind of what Calvin’s question is getting at. I think what we’re probably both going to violently agree with is that it is the nature of human nature to have emotions, to have mixed motives. And by the way, that doesn’t necessarily cheapen the virtuous act.  Mike, I would like our listeners to tell us what they think about this question of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. Record a voice memo in a quiet place with your mouth close to the phone and email us at NSQ@freakonomics.com. Maybe we’ll play it on a future episode of the show. Also, if you like No Stupid Questions and want to support us, please do the right thing for the right reason and tell a friend about it. Or spread the word on social media or leave a review in your favorite podcast app. 

Still to come on No Stupid Questions: When does doing good lead to doing bad?

 DUCKWORTH You compliment somebody, you donate to charity, you do an hour of volunteer work, you recycle your container in the morning, then later on in the day, you are more likely to act in an immoral or unethical way.

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Now, back to Mike and Angela’s conversation about doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

DUCKWORTH: Let me bring a little bit of data to this question. There’s a, a study called “Selfish or Selfless? On the Signal Value of Emotion in Altruistic Behavior.” And it was done by a team of scientists at University of Pennsylvania. And the question at hand is so central to this conversation, which is: when we know that somebody has experienced a warm-glow feeling from doing a charitable act, do we think more or less of it? Do we think more or less of the person who got the warm glow? 

MAUGHAN: So, it’s solely the personal warm glow that we’re referring to. 

DUCKWORTH: Yeah this isn’t about tax write off — I mean, there are lots of things that you can get out of doing quote-unquote “virtuous” or “altruistic” acts: This in particular is asking about this Kantian question of like, well, what if you feel something?  And  across six studies, what the conclusion was is that when we learn about somebody who is an emotional do-gooder, they do something moral because they feel good, they have a “warm glow” from doing it — you know, the question is like, do we feel better about that person? Do we judge them higher or lower in moral standing? And I think Kantians might say, like, well, lower, right? Because now you have mixed motives, like they’re doing it to feel good, but they’re also doing it to do good. But in fact, if you actually just ask lay people — not philosophers, not professional psychologists, just people — we actually consider emotional do-gooders to be more moral. And the reason, I think, makes so much sense to me. That is for us, a signal that there is sincerity on the part of the actor. So, I guess one could argue like, “Oh, you have mixed motives. You’re just trying to feel good.” But I think most of us consider that to be a sign of genuine concern, genuine compassion, genuine empathy.  And I’ll share with you, I mean, I have good days and I have bad days. And when I’m very stressed, it’s so interesting to me that — without conscious awareness, but in retrospect I catch myself doing it — I do things that are nice to make myself feel better. And sometimes it’s as trivial as, you know, Jason and I like to take a walk after dinner. We’re such old people. Like, we take our evening stroll.

MAUGHAN: You actually should do that. All the research I’ve been reading says it’s one of the best things you can do.

DUCKWORTH: What? Take a walk after dinner?

MAUGHAN: Take a walk after dinner. It helps with digestion and lowering your glucose levels and all sorts of stuff.

DUCKWORTH: Okay, well, Jason and I do that — and, by the way, I don’t think that mixed motive cheapens the act, but like, we were not doing it to lower our glucose levels. We were just doing it to, like, you know,  talk, and we enjoy it. And when I’m having a bad day, I have noticed that I will be, like, watching the other women in particular who are doing their constitutions around the same park, and I will wait to see one that has an outfit that I like, and then I will stop her, and I will say, “Love it. Love the skirt. Amazing.” And that little flicker of a smile. That you know, I remember doing this recently and this woman was wearing this, like, flowy white skirt and she was older than me and she was walking with her husband, and he stopped in his tracks — after I, you know, gave this unsolicited comment — and he said, “See, honey?” And they just both laughed. And I was just like, look, I have brought 12 seconds of joy to not one stranger, but two, and then I amble off and I feel this warm glow. And I don’t know that that makes me more or less deserving of moral credit. I honestly don’t care.  I was just doing it to feel good. But I remember when I learned about Immanuel Kant and the categorical imperative and, you know, something is only moral if you reason it so, that if everybody did this, then everybody would be better. I mean, I remember thinking that it ran against my mother’s example. So, my mother is, like, the kindest, most generous person I know, without exception. I mean, truly. And when she does things, it makes her feel good. She gets that warm glow. So anyway, I feel like this research study was brilliant in that it asked a very basic question, right? How do we read that signal? The fact that we read it as positive, that we read it as a gesture of sincerity or a symptom of sincerity, I thought that was really telling.

MAUGHAN: Well, I’m curious, going back to Calvin’s question, would you view complimenting the woman in the white skirt that you were doing the right thing, complimenting her, for the wrong reason, which was to boost your own —

DUCKWORTH: To make myself feel good. Like, “I’m having a bad day. I think I’m going to compliment this woman’s flowy skirt.” I mean, when I did it, I wasn’t even thinking about it in moral terms.  I mean, I was thinking about it as in, “If I keep this compliment to myself, then she won’t feel good.”

MAUGHAN: So, at least it was a sincere compliment. Like, you really did actually like it?

DUCKWORTH: Oh yeah, I don’t just, like, pick the next person and say like, “Love the fit.” I think that could do more harm than good by the way, right?  I do wait to see somebody whose outfit I do like.

MAUGHAN: I think that that’s fine. You made other people feel good. You feel good.  If you’re okay with me taking this into the business world for a minute,  this idea of authenticity, I think, is really important. And I think where businesses often get in trouble is that they will do maybe the right thing for the wrong reason, and I think you can — and I’m going to use a term I don’t love right now — I think you can “get away with that” if it’s aligned with sort of your mission and your values. It’s when there’s this incongruence between what you’re doing and what you say that it doesn’t really work. So, have you heard the term “greenwashing,” for example?

DUCKWORTH: I have not.

MAUGHAN: So, “greenwashing” is this idea that companies can mislead consumers about the environmental benefits of their products or services, and they’ll put things on the packaging that says something like, “eco friendly,” or “environmentally responsible”  to make you think that they are more sincere in their efforts to help protect the environment or do things in a right way, but they’re not.

DUCKWORTH: Wait, so in “greenwashing,” the idea is that you’re signaling virtue but you’re actually not even doing anything. Not just that you’re signaling and doing it, but like, faux signaling, right?

MAUGHAN: Right, or maybe what you’re doing is so inconsequential. I mean, my immediate thought is about eggs, right? So, there,  there are  different classifications of the chickens. And some of them I think are highly misleading. There’s “cage free.” That means that they’re not kept in a cage,  but the reality is the chicken might, instead of being kept in this little box, is kept in a little square.  There’s “organic,” which might mean nothing other than they’re fed organic feed, but they can be kept in a really tight container.

DUCKWORTH: It’s like a real estate ad where they’re like, “Amazing marble fireplace.” But there are no windows and it’s, like, seven-foot ceilings and there’s a leak in the bathroom, right? But you’re saying that this would be an example of not a virtuous act —. 

MAUGHAN: Right. They’re just trying to do the bare minimum. 

DUCKWORTH: For the wrong reasons.

MAUGHAN: Yeah. People respond to incentives. The incentive may be for you complimenting someone is that you feel good and you needed to get yourself out of a funk. We can also bastardize those incentives when we do things like  greenwashing, right?  Because then people pretend to do the right thing because the incentive is so strong to be viewed in that way.

DUCKWORTH: Well, it’s a good example to bring up, because, for better or for worse, we do judge each other. And I know there’s this expression like, “Don’t be judgy.” I think it is the nature of people to judge each other. We are constantly judging each other as good or bad.  So, the original theory for decades was that  if you meet somebody and you start to get to know them, we would judge them on two different dimensions. One is warmth and the other one is competence. And the idea was that very quickly we’d come to these judgments. And there were all kinds of theories about, like, why it would be good to know these two things. And by the way, what you would want to be is somebody who’s judged warm and competent.  But recent research by a moral psychologist named Geoff Goodwin, who happens to be in my department at my university, suggests that before we do that even, perhaps, like, you know, the strong signal is like, can I trust you? Are you morally of good character or not? So this idea that we shouldn’t be judgy, I guess it sounds good, but I just think it’s naive. And I think when we ask questions, as Calvin does, you know, what if someone makes a charitable contribution and does it for the wrong reasons — I think the reason why these questions are interesting is that we are all judging. We look at an action and we’re guessing the intention. Or we assume we know.

DUCKWORTH: I mean, sometimes we really feel like it’s so obvious.  You know, psychologists who have thought about this much longer and harder than me — I’m thinking about this review that was done just a couple years ago. “How Inferred Motives Shape Moral Judgments.” And, they make, I think, a really compelling case that at the end of the day, when we witness an action, right: you happen to walk by me and Jason as I am complimenting the woman in the white skirt,  and you overhear this flattering comment. That’s an action. I took an action, right? You can see the outcome of that action — like, the woman turns to her husband, they share a moment of joy. Okay. That’s a positive outcome. But immediately, because you are human, you are going to ask yourself, why did she do that, right? You make some guess about my intention. And then I think if you detect that that motive was primarily well-intentioned — meaning, like, primarily something that we call virtuous, then you judge me of good character,  especially if you see this again and again, you think it’s, like. who I am. But I think the key to all of this is that, like, everybody wants to know: why did that person donate? Why did that person join the club?  It’s a natural question to ask. but I think it’s all laddering up to we are probably, whether we like it or not, making judgments of character.  That’s important. But I also want to say this: I think Calvin would want to know about moral licensing. So moral licensing — is this, like, well known outside of psychology research?

MAUGHAN: I mean, I think it’s decently known. I think, uh, when I think “licensing,” I don’t always go to moral licensing. I think more about licensing in general. For example, if I exercise in the morning, then I’m like, “I can have a donut.”  But, yeah, talk about moral licensing. 

DUCKWORTH: I’m sure Immanuel Kant would have, you know, a lot to say about how this is bad. But in general, the idea of moral licensing is that when you behave in a moral way — you compliment somebody, you donate to charity, you do an hour of volunteer work, you recycle your container in the morning — then later on in the day, you are more likely to act in an immoral or unethical way. It is the idea of kind of like having a bank account of morality and you can withdraw or deposit. But what makes all the difference is just like the net balance. So, if we do something good, one of the downsides, potentially, is that we might do less good later if we have this bank-account view of being a good person.

MAUGHAN But, sorry, just to understand on moral licensing, are you saying that we take nine steps forward in a good direction and then license ourselves to take one step backward, so it’s a net eight steps forward? That, I think, great. If it’s take one step forward and then one step backward, that’s much tougher.

DUCKWORTH: I don’t think the studies make that distinction. I think what you’re saying is that if somebody will cut themselves a little bit of slack because they did a really big, great, virtuous act, you’re seeing the societal bank account growing.

MAUGHAN: Right. It’s net positive overally, and that’s a very good thing, because if it really is like this net sum and, “Oh, I did something good, now I can do something bad,” then you net out at zero. So, hopefully it’s not that balanced.

DUCKWORTH: Well, I mean, even something as trivial as making a small donation, I think one thing that Calvin’s question clearly points to is that there are so many motives. There’s the warm glow. There’s the virtue signaling. There’s the tax write off. There’s the moral licensing. So, it’s complicated. And I would say, Mike, that we don’t like that kind of complexity, and so that’s why we are so perennially interested in these questions. Like, we want to know whether it was good act or a bad act because we don’t like the idea that, “Well, it’s complicated.”

MAUGHAN: So, Ang, one other thing I wanted to touch base on was something you brought up earlier, which is this idea of anonymity and how you’re at the MoMA and you’re looking at all these things and your favorite donor in each category is anonymous, because I will admit that I immediately assign a greater moral value to someone who did something anonymously because it’s like, “Oh, they did it just for the right reasons. They don’t want any credit.”  Now, interestingly, Jon Huntsman, donated a lot of money to University of Pennsylvania.

DUCKWORTH: My office is in Huntsman Hall. 

MAUGHAN:  And I, I worked with Jon Huntsman a little bit toward the end of his life.

DUCKWORTH: I did not know that!

MAUGHAN: A wonderful, wonderful man. Did so much to defeat cancer and support cancer research, started the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which is here in Utah, among many other things. But it was interesting because the University of Utah basketball stadium is the Huntsman Center. There’s the Huntsman Cancer Institute. You’re at Huntsman Hall, right? His name is everywhere. And I remember talking, not with him, but with someone who worked very closely with him, because I was curious about this difference. Why is he so insistent about putting his name everywhere? Is it just ego that he wants to be remembered and have a legacy. And this person said that what she had learned from being around him is that he wanted to put his name places to basically challenge other billionaires and say, “Look, I’m giving all of this money. I want to set an example of a socially-responsible member of society and demonstrate leadership.” Basically saying all of you should be doing the same thing.

DUCKWORTH: I have never thought about that angle. Every time I walk by any plaque of donors, I always love “Anonymous”more than I love anyone else. I have never thought about the fact that there might be some motive to create, I don’t know, positive peer pressure, right? That you could say, “Hey, I need to set a social norm of other people like me giving, and I do that best with my own name.”  Maybe what this reveals is that even though it is a human reflex to judge, to come to these snap judgments of character, how little we know. right?  If I sat and thought about it, if I tried to list five reasons why Jon Huntsman would’ve endowed my office building, I would never in a million years have come up with the motive that you just named. So, Mike, here’s what I think. Tell me if you agree. I think it is complicated. I think when we do a small or large act of kindness, it is so often for multiple reasons. Maybe when other people judge us, they will get it wrong, maybe they’ll get it right, maybe they’ll discount one reason because they see another. But I have to say that the most practical thing I’m taking away from the conversation we had inspired by Calvin’s question is that the more the merrier when it comes to reasons for doing something that is the right thing — tax write off, warm glow, social approval, create a social norm. To me, as an individual who wants to do more of those acts, the more the merrier from my standpoint.  It is not the kind of old-fashioned view of like, oh, the purity of one motive is what we’re looking for. I think that’s psychologically naive. And a psychologically realistic view of morality is: multiple motives for doing the right thing are better if you are therefore more likely to do the right thing more often.

MAUGHAN: Well, and it’s overly simplistic, I think  that you can separate it the way Kant wanted to by saying either it’s good or there’s something bad if you also feel good about it. And so, I would just say, I agree with you in this that, that the goal is: let’s create a better society where people are doing the right thing. And if that has multiple motives behind it, so be it.

DUCKWORTH: More is more. 

Coming up after the break: a fact-check of today’s conversation.

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And now, here’s a fact-check of today’s conversation:

Angela says she thinks that the major donors named on the Collection Wall in the main lobby of the Museum of Modern Art are listed in hierarchical order, according to donation size. This is incorrect. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Mike quickly describes certain greenwashing practices associated with the egg industry. A 2023 publication from Consumer Reports offers greater clarity here. “Organic” eggs must be from hens fed grains grown without synthetic pesticides or GMOs. They cannot be raised in cages and must be given some outdoor access, which may entail something as minor as a small concrete porch. Perhaps the most misleading labels are those that describe the eggs as “natural” which people often mistake for “organic,” but as an egg is indeed a natural food, the label has no additional meaning. There are also “farm fresh” eggs which come from a farm, just like all other eggs, even if the “farm” in question is an indoor space where chickens are crowded in cages.

Finally, Angela says that University of Pennsylvania psychologist Geoffrey Goodwin’s research concludes that we judge people’s moral character before we judge qualities like warmth and competence. This is slightly misleading. Goodwin’s research doesn’t say anything about the time course in which people judge moral character — although he personally hypothesizes that people judge traits like warmth and sociability first because these characteristics are more surface level and easier to pick up in an initial interaction. However, his research does find that moral character information plays a more important role than qualities like warmth and sociability in determining the impressions we form.

That’s it for the fact-check. And remember, we’d love to hear your thoughts on doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Send a voice memo to NSQ@Freakonomics.com, and you might hear your voice on the show!

Coming up next week on No Stupid Questions: when is it worth it to make excuses?

DUCKWORTH: “I was going to meet you, Mike. I was so going to meet you. I tried to start the car, but it turns out that my sister in law had borrowed it, so it wasn’t even there!” 

That’s coming up on No Stupid Questions.

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No Stupid Questions is part of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which also includes Freakonomics Radio, People I (Mostly) Admire, and The Economics of Everyday Things. All our shows are produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. The senior producer of the show is me, Rebecca Lee Douglas, and Lyric Bowditch is our production associate. This episode was mixed by Greg Rippin. We had research assistance from Daniel Moritz-Rabson. Our theme song was composed by Luis Guerra. You can follow us on Twitter @NSQ_Show and on Facebook @NSQShow. If you have a question for a future episode, please email it to NSQ@Freakonomics.com. To learn more, or to read episode transcripts, visit Freakonomics.com/NSQ. Thanks for listening!

MAUGHAN: Man, go a little easy. Your name doesn’t have to be everywhere.