Selling your integrity for a promotion is a Faustian bargain.
Faustian bargain
idiomAn agreement in which a person abandons his or her spiritual values or moral principles in order to obtain knowledge, wealth or other benefits.
Origin
first recorded 16th c.From the medieval legend of Faust, who made a contract with the Devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures. The story first appeared in print in an anonymously written chapbook, Historia von D. Johann Fausten (1587), which purported to contain tales about the life of the German alchemist and magician Johann Georg Faust (c. 1466 or 1480 – c. 1541). It was particularly popularized by two plays, Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragicall History of D. Faustus (first published 1604) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust (published 1808 and 1832).
The politician made a Faustian bargain, trading his long-held principles for the promise of absolute power.
By accepting the corrupt funding to save his failing company, the CEO entered into a Faustian bargain that would eventually destroy his reputation.
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drive a hard bargain
To negotiate forcefully.
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Faustian deal
A Faustian bargain.
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Faustian dilemma
Having to choose between an option that promises short-term gain with foreseeable adverse long-term consequences, and an alternative option with no short-term gain and possibly even short-term suffering, but promising an eventually better future than the first option.
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fool's bargain
A bad bargain; one that leaves the person accepting it worse off.