Ethics in Practice Part 1: Why I Can’t Just “Let It Go”
Ethics in Practice (3-Part Series): The neurodivergent ethics of pattern recognition
Someone recently told me I have a “flight response” to conflict.
This was a baseless statement aimed to explain why I chose to leave a situation that had become unsustainable. My decision to leave was framed as avoidance rather than an informed decision.
The reality? I had been facing the problem for months. I documented concerns systematically. I sought guidance from multiple sources. I tried to work within the system to create change. When those efforts failed, when the patterns became clear and the harm became predictable, I made a choice.
That choice was pattern recognition, not flight.
When Ethics Feel Like System Errors
My brain processes ethical violations differently than many people seem to experience them. When I encounter behavior that contradicts stated values, when I watch systems claim one thing and do another, when I see harm rationalized as necessity, my brain does not register interpersonal conflict or organizational politics. It registers a system error: a fundamental inconsistency that demands correction.
This is how my neurodivergent brain works, not metaphor.
I have consumed a lot of information on ethics and ethical philosophy the last month. After reflecting, I determined four components that help me create this particular form of moral clarity:
Philosophy gives me structured frameworks for analyzing right and wrong. Years studying ethics, epistemology, and systems thinking trained my mind to identify contradictions, test assumptions, and trace consequences across scales.
Neurodivergence gives me pattern recognition that operates whether I want it to or not. My autistic brain notices inconsistencies others miss, holds principles consistently across contexts, and struggles to accept “that is just how things are” when the underlying logic fails.
Self-awareness gives me the ability to monitor my own thinking, question my own motivations, and hold myself accountable to the same standards I expect from others.
Ethics gives me the intrinsic motivation to act, not because someone is watching or because I will be rewarded, but because the alternative feels cognitively AND emotionally impossible.
Together, these components create something that looks like stubbornness from the outside but feels like integrity from the inside.
Why Letting It Go Means Overriding Architecture
When someone tells me to just “let it go,” they ask me to override my fundamental cognitive architecture. They ask me to ignore patterns I cannot unsee, accept contradictions my mind cannot reconcile, normalize harm my values cannot tolerate, and pretend systemic problems are solely “misunderstandings.”
I cannot do this any more than I can choose to stop noticing grammar errors or forget someone’s name after learning it. This has nothing to do with holding grudges or being unable to forgive either; it is just the way my brain processes information and organizes the world.
Research by Ruth Karpinski and colleagues (2018) has shown that high intelligence combined with heightened sensitivity creates what they call overexcitability: intense awareness of environmental stimuli, injustices, and inconsistencies that others might filter out or minimize.
For many neurodivergent people, this overexcitability manifests as deep processing of ethical violations, strong reactions to unfairness, difficulty tolerating hypocrisy, heightened awareness of power dynamics, and pattern recognition that operates automatically.
And I am no different.
The Function of Pattern Recognition
When my brain flags an ethical violation, it does exactly what it evolved to do: protect against harm by identifying threats before they escalate. I notice when stated policies contradict actual practices, when language shifts to obscure accountability, when small violations normalize larger ones, when individual incidents reveal systemic patterns, and when people claim good intentions while producing harmful outcomes.
This pattern recognition has kept me safe. It has protected others. It has allowed me to advocate for change before crises occur. But it also means I cannot participate in systems that require me to ignore what I see. I see patterns I have previously witnessed emerge. Patterns that predict harm. Patterns that do not resolve through better communication or giving it more time.
My brain was doing what it does:
identifying risk,
analyzing options,
determining when a system cannot be fixed from within.
And then I acted on that information.
The Cost of Clarity (more on this in Part 2)
There is a cost to seeing patterns others do not see. Hannah Arendt, a German philosopher, wrote about the banality of evil: how ordinary people commit atrocities not through malice but through thoughtlessness, through the normalization of small harms until larger harms become acceptable. The protection against this normalization is thought.
Constant, vigilant, exhausting thought.
I cannot stop thinking about inconsistencies.
I cannot stop noticing when actions contradict values.
I cannot stop tracing consequences across systems.
This means I also cannot participate in environments where thoughtlessness is required for participation. And that often means leaving.
Why Ethics Matters
I am sharing this because I know there are other neurodivergent people who have been told they are too rigid, too sensitive, unable to let things go. Who have been pathologized for having boundaries, gaslit for noticing patterns, and punished for refusing to normalize harm.
Your pattern recognition is a feature, not a flaw.
Your ethical clarity is integrity, not stubbornness.
Your refusal to ignore what you see is responsibility, not flight.
The world needs people who notice patterns before they become crises, who hold systems accountable to their stated values, and who refuse to participate in structures that require thoughtlessness.
That is what my brain does. That is what many neurodivergent brains do. And that is something to protect.
Come as you are, take what you need. I will be here.
