“It’s for Your Own Good": How People Justify Hurting Others

Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. —Demosthenes

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Markie (names have been changed) was squirming. She did not want to tell her husband she was chatting online with men. “I know it isn’t right,” she told me. “But nothing will come of it. They all live far away, and it is fun. It is hardly ever inappropriate. He wouldn’t understand because he is the jealous type, and kind of hyper. Plus, he never even takes me on a date.” She then argued that not telling him was for his benefit. “It would upset him. He is having a crappy time at work and would take this the wrong way and freak. This gives me something to do without bothering him.” Markie’s justifying illustrates a deluxe excuse: a false reason that claims to be a moral one. Markie convinced herself she was being helpful to the person she was hurting.

It is, of course, ironic that we excuse bad behavior by saying we are doing good. However, if I need a rationalization, why not go with one that makes me sound like a swell fellow? It feels better to claim I snap at the kids because I am such a hardworking provider. Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker calls this the moralization gap, in which people who behave badly argue they are, in fact, doing a good thing.

People put forth many magnanimous reasons for their behavior. One violent man told me he threw ice water on his wife to teach her: “It was for her own good. It was a lesson about consequences.” Like Markie, partners lie to each other to “protect” them from the truth. Not surprisingly, research has found that partners who claimed they were lying to protect their spouse didn’t want to be lied to themselves for any reason. They thought their reasons for lying were better than any their partner might have. As one scholar wrote, “People feel that deceiving their partners is not merely acceptable under some circumstances, but is in fact the proper and – perhaps from some ethical standpoints – the moral thing to do.” Or, as Leo Tolstoy said, “For the justification of sins there exist false arguments, according to which there would appear to be exceptional circumstances, rendering the sins not only excusable, but even necessary.”

A man we'll call Luke demonstrated this moralizing skill. In a research project, we asked him to discuss a medium-level relationship concern with his girlfriend, Iris. We left them alone and recorded their conversation for later analysis. They were rehashing an argument about a date:

Luke: You think I am always mad at something. And every time I say something you always snap back at me…and that makes me upset. Sometimes I might snap back, but I don’t mean anything by it.

Iris: Well, you’ve been coming across real irritable and real snippy, so I snip back.

Luke: See, I don’t see how. I guess I am not seeing it. All I ever do is I try to help you and say, ‘let me help you with this and that.’ And all you ever say is nothing, or, ‘I’ll do this, fine’…I don’t feel like I deserve that because I am just trying to be helpful.

It is convenient for Luke to suggest that his “snapping” is innocent — that he doesn’t mean anything by it — and that Iris’s is aggressive. He shows typical moralization gap reasoning as he claims the only reason he does anything is to “be helpful.” He used exaggerations like “all I ever do…” and “all you ever do.” If a spouse is using words like always and never, they are likely (maybe always) exaggerating. It would be an unusual partner who always was a certain way. When someone is in a moralizing mode, they see themselves as always right and others always wrong.

Adapted from Love Me True: Overcoming the Surprising Ways We Deceive in Relationships, Cedar Fort Publishing.

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