People want to think in terms of people and their actions, not in terms of systems and their structures. That's the problem.
Show a programmer a system that requires constant on-call burning out the team—they'll tell you (if they've been around) heroics are a sign it's broken, not to find more heroes. Definitely not to pull the person working on systemic issues off that nonsense and get them a shift.
Show them an equivalently structured broken system in a different field and they'll demand heroics.
I can't give you an example of an action, because I don't know, and I'm not talking about actions. I'm saying the approach itself is wrong and any action it suggests won't be effective.
Moralizing has a brutal, self-perpetuating metaproblem that makes people more and more convinced it works the more it doesn't. Actions based on moralizing will be chosen if suggested and they will not work, so any moralizing framing needs to be rejected right away, even if you can't suggest a better action.
The liberal attitude is that the moral character of individuals does not matter for social order so long as the right rules and institutions are in place. Part of Confucius’s point, and that of any conservatism worthy of the name, is that rules and institutions are ineffectual without individuals willing to subordinate their desires to them. And individuals who do not seek the good (so as to “rectify their hearts”) and the true (thus pursuing the “investigation of things”) can neither curb bad desires nor cultivate good ones. The brute force of legal coercion cannot substitute for this missing moral fiber.
Moral fiber is important. Choosing ineffective, superficial actions that feel righteous over unrewarding slog that leads to moral good seems like the opposite of that.
Show a programmer a system that requires constant on-call burning out the team—they'll tell you (if they've been around) heroics are a sign it's broken, not to find more heroes. Definitely not to pull the person working on systemic issues off that nonsense and get them a shift.
Show them an equivalently structured broken system in a different field and they'll demand heroics.
I can't give you an example of an action, because I don't know, and I'm not talking about actions. I'm saying the approach itself is wrong and any action it suggests won't be effective.
Moralizing has a brutal, self-perpetuating metaproblem that makes people more and more convinced it works the more it doesn't. Actions based on moralizing will be chosen if suggested and they will not work, so any moralizing framing needs to be rejected right away, even if you can't suggest a better action.