Virtue Tradeoffs in Everyday life

Is it usually possible to be virtuous in all ways, or do people experience ubiquitous tradeoffs among moral virtues? Past work has examined a limited set of virtue pairs (e.g., honesty vs. compassion, fairness vs. loyalty) and focused on situations where tradeoffs are likely to occur. Across two Day Reconstruction Method studies featuring representative U.S. samples, we describe the frequency and experience of tradeoffs among 12 virtues in everyday life. In Study 1, 377 participants reported virtue conflicts during 12,385 episodes across one week. In Study 2, 608 participants provided detailed information about one tradeoff episode. Tradeoffs most often involved honesty and courage, and qualitative codings showed that many (but not all) tradeoffs reflected a general tension between benevolence and integrity. Overall, however, prevalence estimates suggested that virtue enactments tend to be largely compatible in everyday life. People felt less happy when they experienced a virtue conflict or tradeoff, but it also mattered how they resolved them. People most often prioritized one virtue over the other (57%). Occasionally (12%), however, people were able to overcome the tradeoff by showing high levels of both virtues, and were most satisfied with their decision when they were able to do so. Finally, there was a general mismatch between people’s proclaimed virtue preferences and which virtues they actually prioritized when they experienced an everyday tradeoff. These findings highlight the importance of studying moral decision making in ecologically valid contexts and have implications for moral education.