Portraying a protagonist as a red herring antagonist

You shouldn't have trespassed on that person's property, but you stopped a vicious dog from attacking that baby. You felt it would've been immoral to do nothing, and the only option remaining to you was to commit an immoral act to stop another immoral act.

You're forgiven. Thank the jury on your way out.

 

He's a character I've worked on for a long time.

An easy way to explain his character is that he's a lot like how Leon Orcot sees D in Petshop of Horrors. He can play the part and lay on an innocent charm very thickly, but underneath is a thick disdain for human nature. He'd look at a body post autopsy and comment about someone willing to pay forgood mo for the organs rather than let them rot in a bag (seriously, if a body has an autopsy, the organs are put in a biodegradable bag and put into the chest cavity).

If I had one thing I'd call his redeeming feature, it is that he wouldn't lay a finger on a young child or an expecting mother. There's a certain sanctity to it that he respects and how children deserve a chance to prove him wrong.

 

It sounds like the difference is almost, though not quite, semantics. We'd do the same thing for the same reasons. We'd just use different words for it--well, and it sounds like you would feel more guilt about the not-ideal action than I would.