We can try to deceive not only others but also ourselves when we don’t want to do something.
Besides, maybe this professor will just give him a “bad” grade too, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to waste his time writing the paper.
Sometimes, we try to deceive not only others but also ourselves by trying to support an action that isn’t good with good reasons. We try to make ourselves feel that it is okay to do something that we’d normally feel was wrong by mixing good reasons into our thought process. Consider a student who doesn’t want to do a paper for a psychology class.
Ray is texting a friend when he remembers he has a paper due for his psychology class the next day. He is loath to do the paper, especially since he was having kind of a fun chat. He feels guilty about the idea of not starting the paper at the same time, however. He knows he should do it.
He is thinking about whether or not there are any good reasons he shouldn’t do it when he realizes his friend recently became angry with the professor of this psychology class. His friend thought she deserved a better grade on the paper than she received. Now, Ray knows that his friend often writes papers quickly and even jokes about not looking them over to check them after writing them, but he suddenly has the idea that he still doesn’t like that this professor “made his friend angry” and that he’d be standing up for his friend by refusing to do work for this professor. Besides, maybe this professor will just give him a “bad” grade too, and it wouldn’t be a good idea to waste his time writing the paper. Thinking over his reasons, which he believes involves avoiding wasted time and standing up for a friend, he suddenly feels better about the idea of not doing the paper. He even tells the friend he is texting what he decided to do and why.
