Compensatory effects in moral judgment: two rights don't make up for a wrong.

Ratings of the morality of persons described as having committed moral and immoral behaviors indicate that good deeds do not make up for bad ones. The overall goodness of a person is determined mostly by his worst bad deed, with good deeds having lesser influence. Addition of moral deeds does improve ratings of sets containing low-valued items, but, consistent with previous research, this compensation appears to be. limited. Data suggest that performance of very immoral deeds limits the highest level of morality a person can achieve. The value of that limit appears to depend upon both the immorality of the bad deeds and the virtue of the good ones.