 |
The first steps along the path are morally ambiguous, and the right decision is not always clear. We make an early, apparently inconsequential decision, and then we justify it to reduce the ambiguity of the choice.
|
048 |
 |
How do you get an honest man to lose his ethical compass? You get him to take one step at a time, and self-justification will do the rest.
|
053 |
 |
A richer understanding of how and why our minds work as they do is the first step toward breaking the self-justification habit.
|
053 |
 |
…our efforts at self-justification are all designed to serve our need to feel good about what we have done, what we believe, and who we are.
|
054 |
 |
…once reciprocity kicks in, self-justification will follow… The power of the flower is unconscious.
|
074 |
 |
Because we are not irrational or mean-spirited, any negative feelings we have about another group are justified; our dislikes are rational and well founded. It’s the other groups’ negative feelings we need to suppress.
|
079 |
 |
Once people have a prejudice, just as once they have a political ideology, they do not easily drop it, even if the evidence indisputably contradicts a core justification for it.
|
084 |
 |
Prejudice justifies ill treatment we inflict on others, and we want to inflict ill treatment on others because we don’t like them. And why don’t we like them?… Because we need to feel we are better than somebody.
|
091 |
 |
We need a few trusted naysayers in our lives, critics who are willing to puncture our protective bubble of self-justifications and yank us back to reality when we veer too far off.
|
092 |
 |
…when we write our own histories, we have the same goals as the conquerors of nations have: to justify our actions and make us look and feel good about ourselves and what we did or failed to do.
|
097 |
