Wordwizard

1) If I acted that way, I would be similar to any other criminal.
2) If I acted that way, I would be similar to any other man that has no moral principles.

Does '1' say that I am a criminal?
Does '2' say that I have no moral principles?

Gratefully,
Navi

In both cases, the logic of the construction says yes.

However, in practice people often speak without wording their utterances too carefully, in a manner that makes them sound as though they are saying the opposite of what they actually mean. (For instance, I regularly hear "It's impossible to underestimate the effect of X on Y" when they actually mean "It's impossible to overestimate [...]")

So, AS USUAL, you have to take the context into account.