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Imagine that you’re in the middle of a job interview, and the interviewer asks you whether you think it’s important for women to wear bras to work. What would you do? Tell the interviewer that the question is inappropriate? Refuse to answer it? Would you feel angry that someone would ask you this question?

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The cases might be different, but the underlying principle people on both sides of the aisle appeal to is the same: The ends justify the means. Or, more specifically: Our ends justify the means.

The problem is with the “our.” Whether we are talking about your ends or my ends doesn’t just affect whether we think the ends justify the means; it also affects how we view the means themselves.

We’re all familiar with our tendency to evaluate ourselves more leniently than others when it comes to our moral failings. We are able to rationalize all sorts of questionable actions for ourselves that we would condemn in others.

Well, this hypocrisy doesn’t stop at ourselves. We also extend this hypocrisy to members of our ingroup and to those who benefit us in some way through their transgressions. We judge their behavior less harshly than identical behavior by someone who is not in our ingroup or someone who doesn’t benefit us. What’s even more troubling is that this isn’t something we just pay lip service to; research shows that when another person’s Continue Reading