Thank you for writing this; it is an inspiration to many thoughts!

Seems to me that according to "Copenhagen interpretation of ethics", knowing yourself makes you less moral; or makes your life more difficult if you want to remain moral.

If you don't understand your brain's [player's] Machiavellian moves, you cannot be blamed for them, as long as your [character's] intentions are pure. You simply do whatever feels right to you at the moment, and then you reap the rewards of the unconscious strategy given to you by evolution. You execute the shrewd moves with perfect innocence, and the outcome feels like good luck, or even good karma for... some random thing.

("My success is a result of my positive thinking and hard work. It is completely unrelated to the fact that I stabbed my former friends in the back when they outlived their purpose, and always kissed the asses of powerful people. No; I have simply found out that some people whom I considered friends in the past actually suck, and instead I decided to spend my time with genuinely awesome people whom I admire. And now I observe, full of gratitude, that the Universe has rewarded my constant striving for virtuous life.")

On the other hand, suppose you read a lot about evolutionary psychology, and get good at understanding your brain's motives. Your brain prompts you a Machiavellian move, and despite feeling the genuine desire to act that way, you also clearly see it for what it is. ("My friend's behavior feels really annoying recently; sometimes I am so irritated I wish we would just stop seeing each other. On a different level, I am also aware that he is no longer a useful ally to me. I have surpassed him in education, wealth, and social status; he can no longer offer me anything of use, other than sharing a few childhood memories. The time I spend with him these days would be much better spent networking with people in my current professional and social circles. A funny thing that I notice is that the exactly same behavior of his seemed really cool while we were at the high school, when he was a popular kid, and I was just an unpopular nerd who by sheer luck became his friend.")

The problem is, now that you [the character] see your brain's [player's] moves' true meaning, you become complicit if you decide to follow through. It still feels like the desirable thing to do; you just no longer have the privilege of denying the strategic value of it. So you do it anyway, but now you feel dirty. (Or you don't do it, but now you feel like a sucker, because you are aware that most people in your situation probably would have done it, and would have benefited from doing so.) When you follow your brain's path and reach success, you know exactly what to contribute it to, and it probably doesn't make you proud. It is tempting to simply pretend that some things didn't happen for the reasons they did.

Didn’t you post this exact thing already [LW · GW], a few months ago?