Moral Licensing as Virtue-Credit Wrong Attractor: A Displacement Framework Analysis

This paper applies the Displacement Framework to moral licensing, examining it as a wrong-attractor state in which accumulated virtue-credit reduces the displacement cost of subsequent ethical violations. Using formal apparatus of D(ξ), Φ, and attractor basin geometry, we show how moral self-image becomes a wrong attractor whose basin deepens with each virtuous act, paradoxically licensing deviation from ground-state ethical behaviour.

Nine propositions characterise the credit-accumulation mechanism, depletion dynamics, and return paths toward continuous ethical alignment. Published as part of The Phronesis Issues preprint series.