In an interesting and important essay titled ‘The Soul's Conquest of Evil’, Professor W. W. Bartley III argues that it is virtually impossible for a person to subdue his or her own evil will. Bartley claims that it is a conditio sine qua non of the human conquest of evil that a person possesses self-knowledge, but he is pessimistic about the human capacity to gain the self-knowledge needed to triumph over an evil will. Bartley quotes with approval the words of C. G. Jung:

It is Bartley's contention that the search for self-knowledge is a costly and perilous venture, undertaken successfully by only a few exceptional individuals. Prima facie, what Bartley and Jung say seems to be not without plausibility; most of us find it hard to be good precisely because we fail to acquire that clarity of vision which is so important if we are to struggle successfully to be moral beings.