...but businessmen check them out - and those two were merchants.  If they stray too far from the facts, they go bankrupt.

Let me tell you what that is - a rationalization.  It's giving something the appearance of rationality, of reason, when it doesn't have the reality of it.  It's finding a way to justify what you want to do, any way.  It's finding an excuse from somthing you've already done - a way to make it seem to be good, when it really isn't.  That's all you're doing here - tying to find a way to make the wrong things you want to do, seem right.  All your arguments really boil down to, 'I want power, so I'm going to take it.' ...

Because... it's the only way he can avoid massive guilt.  Once he gave in to temptation, he became a convert to his own particular vice, with all the fanaticism of any convert.  You might say he's acquired a vested interest in sin, and to disown it would be to ruin him.