That when you commit a "wrong" act, your conscience is screaming "no!" but loses the battle for the drivers' seat to some other element of your consciousness, s

That when you commit a "wrong" act, your conscience is screaming "no!" but loses the battle for the drivers' seat to some other element of your consciousness, such as anger ("crime of passion" murder of a cheating spouse) or desperation to meet physical needs (stealing to feed a meth habit). The idea of sometimes-opposing parts of your consciousness vying for control is an ancient and quite popular idea. It is, for example, the basis of justice in the Republic (that the balance of power among the parts of your soul is correct). >Would the bank robber have to say, "well I know this is wrong, but..." Yes! The end of that sentence is "I needed the money" and that kind of thing happens all the time. The thesis of the article is that this kind of violence is in fact very small-scale compared to violence committed with complete faith in its own justice. Which is pretty plausible: state military action, non-state terrorism, the criminal justice system, "legitimate" administrators of corporeal punishment, etc. operate on a much larger scale than wives killing their husbands for the life insurance money. The latter is the primary focus of the enormously popular television genre of police procedurals and obviously pretty far forward in people's minds, where international relations and the ethics of spanking may not be.