You wouldn't think there were good grounds for actively discouraging ethical behaviour, but where there's a will, there's a way. "When someone you regard as a peer sacrifices for an ethical cause," writes Eric Schwitzgebel, "it creates an ethical threat... most people appear to aim for moral mediocrity. They aim not to be good or bad by absolute standards, but rather to be approximately as morally good as their peers." He reaches this conclusion by analogy with the education system, where students discourage high achievement by their peers because it makes them look bad in comparison. I think there's more to it than this, though there's certainly an anti-achievement sentiment in some educational environments.
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