Markets Make Us Less Moral

Most of us would agree that harming others on purpose and for no reason is immoral. Social scientists have long assumed that marketplaces are to blame for many a compromised moral. There's no shortage of historical examples: take the slave trade, or buying indulgences from the church, for instance. Now science has weighed in to confirm this hunch: a marketplace degrades a person's morals. That was what German researchers found in an experimental set-up that put people's morals up against money in a market. The researchers split participants into three different groups that represented different market-type situations. In the first group, participants were presented with two options: A) receive 10 euros (about $13) for accepting the death of a lab mouse, or B) forgo the money and save the mouse's life. (The mice in question were young and healthy but had failed to exhibit certain genetic traits, so they were ...