Self-Justification

It seems that there is almost nothing in which men cannot justify themselves in their own eyes, if they set about to do so. The embezzler, for example, seldom steals money in his own mind or admission. He simply borrows, perhaps with the hope of putting it back. And the thief says to himself that he is simply taking what, in some rationalized way, should have been his anyway. Perhaps he says he is simply collecting a debt that somehow society owes him. And the swindler seldom swindles. He is simply working with his wits—or he may say to himself that his victim would not have used the money wisely anyway. Thus by a process or self-deception, by singing sweet songs to an accusing conscience, it is possible to find apparently plausible excuses for almost any questionable action or utterance. Sometimes men seek to conceal their real motives by saying to themselves that they are doing what they are doing for some ultimately worthy reason: In other words, while what they are doing may be wrong, they tell themselves that the ultimate end they have in mind is altogether right, and so the end justifies the means—which is a dangerous doctrine. Furthermore, the person who continually justifies himself in doing what he shouldn’t do finds it difficult to repent. In fact repentance is virtually impossible without a willingness to admit a mistake. Improvement is virtually impossible without a willingness to concede faults and inefficiencies. Evil and error have an easy time where there is a disposition to indifference or where there are no shocked sensibilities. But perhaps evil and error make their easiest advances in a situation of self-justification. And bad as they are in and of themselves, the disposition to justify them may be much worse—for, publicly or privately, the recognition of wrong, the admission of a mistake, is a prerequisite to repentance and improvement.