The Immorality of Power:

The psychology of power: power corrupts, but it corrupts only those who think they deserve it. Or at least that is the premise of an article in the Economist that looks at the actions and thought processes of the powerful (and those who believe they are powerful). It's an interesting read and people like Emperor Palpatine Cheney and Pope Palpatine immediately spring to mind as living evidence of the phenomenon discussed. They each believe that they are far above "the little people" and seem to have utterly lost the ability empathize with others whether they be tortured "enemy combatants" or children and youths sexually abused by priests. Others are to be held accountable, but they themselves are exempt from moral accountability. The article may also help explain the mindset of womanizing married politicians who like to meanwhile pontificate on family values even as the commit adultery themselves. Here are some highlights:

*
REPORTS of politicians who have extramarital affairs while complaining about the death of family values, or who use public funding for private gain despite condemning government waste, have become so common in recent years that they hardly seem surprising anymore. Anecdotally, at least, the connection between power and hypocrisy looks obvious. Anecdote is not science, though.
*
To investigate this question Joris Lammers at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands, and Adam Galinsky at Northwestern University, in Illinois, have conducted a series of experiments which attempted to elicit states of powerfulness and powerlessness in the minds of volunteers. Having done so, as they report in Psychological Science, they tested those volunteers’ moral pliability. Lord Acton, they found, was right.
*
Taken together, these results do indeed suggest that power tends to corrupt and to promote a hypocritical tendency to hold other people to a higher standard than oneself. . . . the powerful do indeed behave hypocritically, condemning the transgressions of others more than they condemn their own. Which comes as no great surprise, although it is always nice to have everyday observation confirmed by systematic analysis. But another everyday observation is that powerful people who have been caught out often show little sign of contrition. It is not just that they abuse the system; they also seem to feel entitled to abuse it.
*
This sense of entitlement is crucial to understanding why people misbehave in high office. In its absence, abuses will be less likely. The word “privilege” translates as “private law”. If Dr Lammers and Dr Galinsky are right, the sense which some powerful people seem to have that different rules apply to them is not just a convenient smoke screen. They genuinely believe it.
*
Perhaps the lesson, then, is that corruption and hypocrisy are the price that societies pay for being led by alpha males (and, in some cases, alpha females).