Let’s say X is an action that’s immoral in some sense and profitable in some sense. There are three variables:
1) Do I say it’s immoral to do X?
2) Can I do X at a low cost to myself?
3) Is it “actually” immoral to do X?
“Power corrupts” says that 1 and 2 are anticorrelated when 3 is true. The quote I posted says that 1 and 2 are anticorrelated regardless of the value of 3, because people just do a cost-benefit calculation. That seems to cover both of your scenarios as well.
(You may or may not interpret that as saying that people don’t care about 3, which sounds pretty cynical but seems to be true in some cases.)
Let’s say X is an action that’s immoral in some sense and profitable in some sense. There are three variables:
1) Do I say it’s immoral to do X?
2) Can I do X at a low cost to myself?
3) Is it “actually” immoral to do X?
“Power corrupts” says that 1 and 2 are anticorrelated when 3 is true. The quote I posted says that 1 and 2 are anticorrelated regardless of the value of 3, because people just do a cost-benefit calculation. That seems to cover both of your scenarios as well.
(You may or may not interpret that as saying that people don’t care about 3, which sounds pretty cynical but seems to be true in some cases.)