Maybe more like we bend the compass to see what we want to see in it.
I'm reminded of a line from the title assassin in 'Grosse Point Blank'... "When I left, I joined the army, and when I took the service exam my psych profile fit a certain... moral flexibility would be the only way to describe it... and I was loaned out to a CIA-sponsored program, and we sort of found each other. That's how it works."
Probably more the latter ('casting it as moral because they are in a position to do so') than the former ('know what they are doing')... IMO, most people, most of the time, think they're doing the right thing, from their perspective. However I'd want to leave room for the idea that they may not be weighing, or even conscious of, systemic moral and ethical factors.
I think I am more, silently, responding to your second comment,
> That’s an interesting systematic perspective if you can get to the view that morals/ethics are subjective and a response to social standing.
I tend to view morals and ethics as part of an objective Platonic (technically, Judeo-Christian) ideal. So the 'subjective' description rubs me the wrong way, though it is an accurate description of the observed effects.
That’s an interesting systematic perspective if you can get to the view that morals/ethics are subjective and a response to social standing. Almost sounds as a Nietzche-ian perspective