I have found not a single main measure on which ethicists appeared to act morally better than comparison groups

From Does It Harm Philosophy as a Discipline to Discuss the Apparently Meager Practical Effects of Studying Ethics? by Eric Schwitzgebel.

In a series of studies published from 2009 to 2014, mostly in collaboration with Joshua Rust (and summarized here), I've empirically explored the moral behavior of ethics professors. As far as I know, no one else had ever systematically examined this question. Across 17 measures of (arguably) moral behavior, ranging from rates of charitable donation to staying in contact with one's mother to vegetarianism to littering to responding to student emails to peer ratings of overall moral behavior, I have found not a single main measure on which ethicists appeared to act morally better than comparison groups of other professors; nor do they appear to behave better overall when the data are merged meta-analytically. (Caveat: on some secondary measures we found ethicists to behave better. However, on other measures we found them to behave worse, with no clearly interpretable overall pattern.)

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In a pair of studies with Fiery Cushman, published in 2012 and 2015, I've found that philosophers, including professional ethicists, seem to be no less susceptible than non-philosophers to apparently irrational order effects and framing effects in their evaluation of moral dilemmas.

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More recently, I've turned my attention to philosophical pedagogy. In an unpublished critical review from 2013, I found little good empirical evidence that business ethics or medical ethics instruction has any practical effect on student behavior. I have been following up with some empirical research of my own with several different collaborators. None of it is complete yet, but preliminary results tend to confirm the lack of practical effect, except perhaps when there's the right kind of narrative or emotional engagement. On grounds of armchair plausibility, I tend to favor multi-causal, canceling explanations over the view that philosophical reflection is simply inert (contra Jon Haidt); thus I'm inclined to explore how backfire effects might on average tend to cancel positive effects.

The blog post is about a secondary issue - the argument made by an interlocutor that revealing reality might have real world consequences, therefore that that might possibly justify a continued misrepresentation of the world. To his credit, Schwitzgebel will have none of that.

Schwitzgebel is dealing with two different, and equally interesting issues.

First is the natural assumption that those who are interested in moral values would be more likely to demonstrate superior behavior and associated decision-making. We know that this is not true for experts in general. Dominance in one domain of knowledge does not make a person either better behaved or a better decision-maker. Domain expertise often comes at the cost of contextual awareness, making holistic decision-making a challenge.

The second issue is whether instruction about ethical behavior is effective in cultivating ethical behavior. Apparently not. So what does? I can come up with half a dozen reasonable hypotheses, some of which are likely to be at least partly correct. But it is a consequential question.

How do we help coach and bring forth better behavior (individually and societally)? It is not about training. That is what we always do and the evidence for effectiveness is not only not robust, it is frequently negative (the boomerang effect.)

It is nice to appear to be doing something but it would be better to actually achieve something positive. Enough with these wasteful and inconsequential consciousness raising, Soviet-style reeducation type efforts (Starbucks), and let's do the hard work of figuring what actually might make things better.