**
We
don’t make choices based on our explicit preferences. Instead, we have a gut
feeling about what we want, and we go through a process of mental gymnastics,
applying all kinds of justifications to manipulate the criteria. That way, we
can get what we really want, but at the same time keep up the appearance—to ourselves
and to others—that we are acting in accordance with our rational and
well-reasoned preferences.
**
We’ve
seen that honesty and dishonesty are based on a mixture of two very different
types of motivation. On the one hand, we want to benefit from cheating (this is
the rational economic motivation), while on the other, we want to be able to
view ourselves as wonderful human beings (this is the psychological
motivation). You might think that we can’t achieve both of these objectives at
the same time—that we can’t have our cake and eat it too, so to speak—but the
fudge factor theory we have developed in these pages suggests that our capacity
for flexible reasoning and rationalization allows us to do just that.
Basically, as long as we cheat just a little bit, we can have the cake and eat
(some of) it too. We can reap some of the benefits of dishonesty while maintaining
a positive image of ourselves.
