Pledged amends deflect criticism but cannot substitute for repentance, and feigned remorse soon founders.

Evidence

Armstrong plans to make amends to those whose lives he harmed, although he emphasizes that he has just “started the process.” Pledged amends can fend off criticism of wrongdoing. At the outset of a reparations process, one should not expect restitutive action from the offender beyond acknowledging that one is sorry. However, a hard-driving flaw does not lend itself readily to moral self-censure or repentance. Given Armstrong’s history of falsehoods, people are likely to distrust the sincerity of his redemption. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 247

Categorization

• XREF: The gap between performative apology and genuine moral self-censure parallels how rationalized support for discriminatory policy deploys ritualistic language without inner conviction; connects to vault claims about authoritarianism and Cooper’s social-conservatism argument.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 247