21 Mar 2026 · 5:36
A license to sin: When Doing Good Makes Us Do Bad
Moral licensing
Can doing something good make us feel more justified in doing something we know isn’t so good?
In this episode of Circuit Breaker: Rewiring Your Decisions, we explore Moral Licensing — the psychological effect where past good behaviour can give us a sense of permission to act less virtuously later. We look at how our choices can shape our self-image, and how feeling like a “good person” may influence the decisions that follow.
But when does feeling proud of a good deed become a reason to let ourselves off the hook? Discover how moral licensing can affect our behaviour, complicate our sense of right and wrong, and reveal the surprising ways we justify our choices to ourselves.