I disagree strongly with both your argument and conclusion. Self delusion is not a get-out-of-ever-being-immoral free card.
I don't see how the second sentence supports the first. I certainly wouldn't declare that self-delusion is a "get-out-of-ever-being-immoral free card" either, though the word "moral" is such a fast-moving target that I don't think I would even use it in the first place.
If you are considering a species which is capable of constructing sincere but false beliefs for pragmatic purposes basing a morality entirely around whether individuals 'believe' they are doing something wrong is outright absurd!
I'm certainly not doing that. Again the disagreement proves ephemeral. From the beginning I was simply clarifying that you and JoshuaZ were interpreting the two key terms differently ("disgraceful" and "evil"), which led to a fake disagreement.
This conversation was originally about whether their behavior was "disgraceful" and "evil" (which it was under your definitions but wasn't under JoshuaZ's), but now you've switched to arguing that self-deluded, socially destructive behavior is in fact nevertheless immoral. Well I guess I would agree with that, and I don't see why JoshuaZ wouldn't either.
So you agree their behavior is immoral but not that it is "evil"? Isn't this just a matter of degree?
See: You Be the Jury, The Amanda Knox Test
While we hear about Bayes' Theorem being under threat in some courts, it is nice to savor the occasional moment of rationality prevailing in the justice system, and of mistakes being corrected.
Congratulations to the Italian court system for successfully saying "Oops!"
Things go wrong in this world quite a bit, as we know. Sometimes it's appropriate to just say "hooray!" when they go right.
Discuss, or celebrate.