People exploit narrow semantic definitions to reframe their wrongdoing as innocent

Evidence

With increasing allegations that he was a cheater, Armstrong consulted a dictionary: “So I looked up the definition of ‘cheat.’ And the definition of ‘cheat’ is ‘to gain an advantage on a rival or foe that they didn’t have.’” He concluded that he did not fit the description. “I didn’t view it that way; I viewed it as a level playing field.” He was equalizing the competitive baseline, he reasoned, rather than gaining a competitive edge. One has to cheat to win. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 240

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates moral disengagement via semantic redefinition and equalization framing in a vivid, concrete case.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 240
• XREF: connects to: Implied malice is a fiction masking the objective standard of criminal liability — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1658; Pizzagate believers decoded innocent words as sexual-abuse code. — Anna Merlan, Republic of Lies, 216; Disputes over terminology for historical wrongs encode the same victim-perpetrator viewpoint gap. — Nurit Shnabel and Johannes Ullrich, Identity Needs in Intergroup Relations:…, 105