How do you deal with those people who use some sort of "moral judo"...?

Question

instead of admitting their guilt in a situation? When they try to manipulate you and convince you it's never their fault, they can never s***w things up, they just act according to their personal morals, they stand up for themselves no matter what, etc.? How can one deal with such people?

Answer 1

How important is it for you to deal with those people? Basically you have 2 choices:

1)Be prepared to compete with your own intellectual judo.

2)Pay no attention to them, and just know what you know.

Answer 2

The way to deal is to just "act" accordingly because its a hypocrite world.

Answer 3

oh those creatures suck the life out of others, some are truly mentally ill, others are the product of a terrible childhood where fault was much too harshly punished. I wish I could help them. the holier than thou make me sick.

Answer 4

I have a co-worker who gets like that sometimes. Usually I just ignore her, knowing that she's got the problem, not me. You're never going to convince those kind of people that they're wrong, so it's not worth the effort to convince them otherwise. I'm happy with who I am, and that's what counts.

Answer 5

Do it back. In fact, Socrates believed morals could only be aquired through reasoned debate.

Beware, and call them on, common flaws in moral reasoning: Misattributing blaim ("it never would have happened if you hadn't..." "I was drunk") Minimizing or denying intent ("I was only..." "I was just tryint to..."), Debasing the victem (if there is a victem "He's always starting it...") Minimizing consquences ("People are always doing it..." "Everyone does it..."), deflecting censure ("I only did it once...") ancd justifing the cause ("If I wasn't so stressed I would be forced to react that way...") etc

Otherwise, people do have different morals, and there are very few innate morals. So you have to learn to express your moral code and put it across the them, or they will never adopt it. And you have to argue why they screwed things up, why they are to blaim, why they are wrong, or they will just ignore you. They may do that anyway (depends on their personality) but others involved may respond to your arguments better.

Argue calmly. Do not shout, nag, or get emotional. It ruins the argument, and makes you appear hysterical.