"Conscience" is one.

When a man speaks of his conscience you at once, and quite rightly, begin to suspect him.

He is probably going to refuse some hard task which others are undertaking, to do something which is offensive to his fellows, or at best, in sheer obstinacy to insist on a course of conduct which he knows cannot be justified by reason.

Someone has defined "conscience" as the "deification of our prejudices"; the giving of a kind of divine authority to something we will insist on doing though it brings no good, even causes harm, to ourselves and offends and injures others, or the giving a name which should be sacred as commanding what we want to do for other reasons.

A staunch Nonconformist--one of the clearest thinkers and probably the finest preacher of the last generation--how he would have hated the phrase, but one cannot pause for another!--truly said of the passive resisters in his day, "There is a deal more of politics than of conscience in their action." Yet there are times when even the word conscience may have to be used, and no other will suffice.
Another is "Duty"-- so often put forward as the excuse for people doing something stupid, probably something they have been in the habit of doing and seem unable to give up, but which is really only a nuisance to themselves and also to others.