Moral Absolution Quotes

“By denying that he had ever played a role in the conflict, Adams was, in effect, absolving himself of any moral responsibility for catastrophes like Bloody Friday–and, in the process, disowning his onetime subordinates, like Brendan Hughes. 'I'm disgusted with the whole thing,' Hughes said. 'It means that people like myself... have to carry the responsibility of all those deaths.' If all of that carnage had at least succeeded in forcing the British out of Ireland, then Hughes might be able to justify, to himself, the actions he had taken. But he felt robbed of any such rationale for absolution. 'As everything turned out,' he said, 'not one death was worth it.”
― Patrick Radden Keefe, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland