Plausible deniability

There's a whole new genre of psychological studies that purport to conclude that some vice of an individual is useful to society as a whole. The invisible hand driving this is evolution in social species.

I think the research is interesting but doesn't justify the conclusions it is used to reach. Yes, people respond to incentives by cheating. Yes, they rationalize violating their ethics without giving them up. If hypocrisy is so useful, I guess that's why we still have Republicans!

Is this denial? Is it a utilitarian good? In a modern society, or only in a tribal one? The answers from this article are, I think, yes, yes, and huh?

The general form of the psychologists' reasoning seems to me to have a hidden premise that human nature can be rationalized as a good thing no matter what our sense of morality may tell us. In this non-normative world, deceit is a good thing because it's useful - just so long as there's not too much of it. The problem is, they are describing what is and then they are concluding that it must be good because it gave rise to us. I think we've been down this road before...

But maybe I'm just in denial about denial.