Moral evasion

I read this today, and found it thought-provoking. The context is Leviticus 4:1-5:13, particularly the beginning of chapter 5, and comes in the midst of a discussion of an overly casual attitude to sin and a self-absorbed individualism:

" The social philosopher David Selbourne has recently listed eleven reasons why people engage in moral evasion today. They protest that
1. there's nothing we can do about it
2. it's never been any different
3. there's no quick fix
4. it's the price of a free society
5. you must move with the tide
6. you can't turn back the clock
7. the problem is more complex than you think
8. it's beyond the reach of the law
9. you're focusing on the wrong issue
10. who are you to talk?
11. everyone's doing it so who are you to object?

None of these excuses would have been acceptable to Israel. People were not permitted to take refuge behind casual pretexts, and so were unable to avoid responsibility, as verse 1 stresses in its assertion that they will be held responsible. As a people bound together by covenant they had obligations to one another; their whole identity was based on their relationships. Sin, though personal, was never a private matter. All sin was against society, and members of that society were charged with the responsibility both to guard against it and to do what they could to correct it."

- pp.73-74, Derek Tidball, The Message of Leviticus