[westoncb]

I pretty much agree with this perspective on ethics, but I think there is an important component missing. An individual person doesn't have fixed ethical responses; you'll find a huge amount of variation based on the person's estimate of what they lack at the moment. Take someone with poor ethics who's sated and they'll behave better than someone with excellent ethics who's starving.

This has an impact on your quote because the urgency with which one pursues these rational incentives is going to depend on that person's estimate of their need (i.e. how much they perceive themselves to be lacking, in a very broad sense which includes needs of kin, emotional needs, etc.).