Criminals are not always born that way. What people do and who they become partially owes to what opportunities they were given and how society influenced them. We are all born with different vulnerabilities, and there is a certain amount of luck that goes into who succeeds and who fails. This lawyer’s point is that sometimes our harsh punishments allows us to ignore our involvement.

The paradox is called “self-licensing.” There have been a lot of experiments exploring this phenomena. In 2011 at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, researchers gave placebo pills to two groups of people. They told the first group the pills were multivitamins with dramatic health benefits. To the second group, they told the truth: the pills were worthless.

The group that thought they were taking health supplements smoked more, exercised less, ate bad food, and were more likely to participate in “hedonic activities that involve instant gratification but pose long-term health hazards.” That’s stuff like casual sex, wild parties, and excessive drinking. By taking a health supplement, people were less likely to be healthy. By doing one good thing, they licensed themselves to do other bad things.

This phenomena has been used to explain why studies have found shoppers at eco-friendly grocery stores were less altruistic than people shopping at conventional stores. It has explained why people who purchase energy-efficient products often end up using more energy, and why some Barack Obama supporters were more likely to express racist views. Malcolm Gladwell has used it to explore how the Royal Academy’s praise of Elizabeth Thompson’s painting allowed them to block her from entering as its first female member.