Perhaps a Little Too Snobbish a Thing to Say

Many people are in the habit of having notions that they want to believe so much that they just build their philosophy around--or subscribe to a philosophy that fits well with--these notions. I am going to tentatively point this out as a typical habit in "western" thinking.
Another way of pointing this out would be to say, we typically feel a great amount of guilt for a great amount of the things that we do, but rather than change these things we would seek to justify them, in such marvelously ingenious ways, that we come out fooling even our own selves.