On Being Too Moral
Everything Is True
Ada Hoffmann's author newsletter
It's old news now, but sometimes I still think about that study that went viral two years ago, purporting to show that autistic people are "too moral," and that this was somehow a deficit.
In the study, autistic and neurotypical subjects were given a task where they could choose to support a bad cause (a street cleaner that promises to exterminate street animals) in exchange for a financial benefit to themselves. Sometimes, the task was in public and everyone could see what the subject had chosen; other times, it was in private and the subjects were promised that no one would know.
Neurotypical subjects were more likely to support the bad cause if they were in private, compared to when they were in public. Autistic subjects made just about the same choices in public and in private, and they were also less likely overall to support the bad cause.
The researchers described the autistic people's choices as "atypical" and connected them to other supposed deficits, such as a deficit in theory of mind. Apparently the researchers thought that autistic people should have realized that no one would know they had done, and should have subsequently done the thing that benefited them most - but they failed to do so. In the eyes of the researchers, this moral behavior seems strange; it seems to constitute a failure to understand the reality of the situation.
Or maybe I'm giving the researchers too much credit. Maybe they saw a difference between autistic and NT behaviors, and decided that since the autistic behavior was different, it must be a deficit.
(In autism research, this happens a lot.)
Anyway, it got me thinking. The autistic people in the study obviously - to me at least - weren't being too moral! I think they were being a good amount of moral.
But is it theoretically possible to be "too moral"?
A lot of autistic people, at the time that the study came out, said no. It is not theoretically possible. It's a contradiction in terms.
I think that I actually disagree with this.
What "too moral" looks like
The other day I asked my therapist if she thought I was a bad person. I get so reflexively anxious, I told her, about what other people might think of me. What if I'm so preoccupied with this that I never bothered to developed other, more authentic forms of morality? What if all my moral thoughts are actually shallow, and fake, and based on extrinsic punishments and rewards? What if, when I unlearn my habits of people-pleasing, there's nothing else underneath them to keep me from treating people very badly indeed?
(This was not the first, or even the 25000th time that I've asked someone plaintively if they think I'm a bad person. It won't be the last. But enough about me.)
My therapist said that she doesn't think this is very likely. Usually, she said, people like me are considerate of other people almost to a fault. We give people the benefit of the doubt when we see red flags or feel uncomfortable, because we think being kind and forgiving and understanding like that is the right thing to do. We let people cross our boundaries because we think that they need whatever it is they're asking of us more than we needed that boundary.
I'm still thinking about that.
If your sense of morality gets you hurt - not as a meaningful sacrifice for a good cause, but just because you don't think it's moral to stop people from hurting you - then perhaps it's safe to say you are "too moral."
I'm thinking about the levels of moral OCD that I often see from well-intentioned neurodivergent people on Twitter. Young people especially, who say that they're terrified of "being problematic," that they know no one would owe them forgiveness if they made a mistake, that there are stories in their heart they long to tell but cannot because the fear of telling them wrong, and accidentally causing harm in the process, is simply too great. (Of course it's young marginalized people who feel this fear most keenly, and not the people who actually have the most power to do harm.)
If you cannot speak your own truth or follow your own cherished dreams, because your morality tells you that you might accidentally harm someone by doing so - then perhaps it's safe to say you are "too moral."
These types of morality can actually hamper the greater good, by keeping people so afraid that they are not willing to grow, to express their true feelings, or to create safety for themselves - all of which are activities that not only increase your own wellbeing, but ultimately also increase your capacity to do good.
Autistic people are as prone to these types of false morality as anyone else, and probably more. And, in the interests of growing and becoming healthier, we have as much a need as anyone to unlearn them.
Becoming less moral
You might rightly say that I am not really talking about people who are "too moral"; I am talking about people who need to learn to be moral in a different way. I'm not saying people should go out and start kicking puppies! What I'm really talking about is the need to grow towards a different kind of morality.
Where we still do good, but we hold to our boundaries, even if it ruffles some feathers.
Where we still do good; where we mitigate risks when we can, and apologize when we need to; but where we still let ourselves risk making mistakes in the pursuit of something good, because mistakes are how we grow.
Where we still do good, but we understand that we are the only ones who can make sure our needs are met - and we consequently place at least as high a value on our own needs as we do the needs and judgments of others.
Where we can tell the difference between our values and other people's judgments in the first place.
But I think there is value in the concept of being "too moral," regardless.
Because when we are unlearning a type of morality that is ultimately unhealthy for us, we will naturally worry that we are turning evil. We will worry that we are going to hurt people. That's just how it works. An excessive fear of hurting or offending other people is where the old morality gets its power. And people who don't want us to change, because they are used to taking more from us than we can healthily give, will stoke those fears on purpose.
So if we can't tolerate that kind of fear, even for a minute?
If we can't bring ourselves to speak our truth, or stand up for ourselves, or do something else that we know that we need, because we are so afraid that maybe it might be wrong?
Then perhaps it's safe to say that we have, in fact, become too moral.