Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I plead guilty on all accounts. During the four-hour February break mecca from metropolitan New York to quaint countryside Ithaca, one yammering asshole did not make it home. He was dumped, ever so spontaneously, at a Nyack McDonald’s — in broad rush-hour daylight mind you — post cursing me out. Call it petty, call it extreme. As arbiter of my vehicle, I call it karmic retribution.

For context, said yammering asshole was my boyfriend’s long-time right hand man, so when he wanted to tag along for ‘meet the parents’ weekend, I spared him a seat. He’s a notorious campus character with questionable ethics but it wasn’t till he called me “sick c*nt” that the great ditching — and bromance dissolution — transpired. Moral conflict in close relationships is so often background noise until it manifests in personal attacks and consequences. Then, and only then, does it usually trigger divorce. 

Excuse the morality police — we aren’t moral hypocrites, but self-motivated moral regulators that balance risk, convenience and connection satisfaction. Ethical hiccups are tolerated until costs outweigh benefits. Hence the question of how much values influence our inner circle is answered by social survival instincts and basic human psychology. Consequently, most moral disputes are swept under the rug if they don’t pose a direct threat.

The trade off between tolerance and compromising integrity wouldn’t be possible without loyalty. Loyalty is a key component of intuition, described by Moral Foundation Theory as an instinctive force that may dominate fairness, harm or honesty. Via this lens, we don’t ignore principles for friendships but outweigh them with loyalty. It becomes a staple of identity as betrayal is associated with abandoning both the connection in question and a past version of the self. 

The........

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