This just occurred to me:
Most people don't murder. The base rate of homicide (in modern global society, as opposed to for instance the Yanomamö) is quite low, so it may well be that people simply don't want to murder very much, and that it is not so much any separate prohibition preventing them. Murdering is presumably messier and more inconvenient in real life than in the movies, and aside from any moral feelings there are all the social repercussions such as the law or the vengeance of the survivors.
Murder is very rare. Even rape is more common; but unfortunately, issues around rape draw in a lot of potentially mindkilling politics.
So, perhaps less extreme examples would be a more fair representation: things that have a higher base rate in society, such that there actually is some difference perceptible that might be explained primarily by differences in people's level of morality. Shoplifting, say, or cheating on school papers, or deceiving one's sexual partners, or taking credit for someone else's work?
Today's post, Fake Morality was originally published on 08 November 2007. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
Many people provide fake reasons for their own moral reasoning. Religious people claim that the only reason people don't murder each other is because of God. Selfish-ists provide altruistic justifications for selfishness. Altruists provide selfish justifications for altruism. If you want to know how moral someone is, don't look at their reasons. Look at what they actually do.
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