Many people subscribe to some kind of "situation ethics" or a pragmatic approach, regarding each new situation as unconnected to any kind of principle or greater reality. To them concepts like "honesty" and "justice" seem useless abstractions. "Why," they ask, "should I act honestly if I might obtain greater profit by deception?" Although they fancy themselves as practical, they eventually find themselves fenced in by their past blunders. Occasionally they may seem to "get away with" their dishonesty, but in other cases they suffer the consequences. Because there is no practical way to distinguish between the two kinds of situations in advance, they cannot avoid the negative repercussions of a policy of dishonesty in the long run. In a similar manner, their breaches of other moral principles lead to practical disaster in one way or another. Since their concrete-bound consciousness does not enable them to detect a pattern to their misfortunes, they can only conclude that they are born "losers," defeated by fate or bad luck.