Hypocrisy and Moral Demands

But there are two kinds of hypocrisy: the "bad" kind, where you endorse a standard for other people but make excuses why it doesn't apply to you; and the "good" (well, less bad!) kind where you are honest enough to admit that the standard does apply to you but don't live up to it. So the (honest) Christian is guilty of single hypocrisy but not of the double hypocrisy. I think that P4 fails to take this distinction into account — you can be sincere in endorsing a moral standard while being hypocritical in not applying it.

Mike
Very interesting argument. I have a question concerning P4. Are you presuming that if S genuinely endorses M that S will not intentionally perform A if A is not consistent with M, or otherwise defensible in terms of some other moral standard that overrides M? I understand your argument to be maintaining that S knows in advance of doing A that S will occasionally do A such that P2 or P3 applies. Example: if M is do not lie and A is telling a lie, then if S knows that M is what is required but will in fact occasionally do A, S is being hypocritical and therefore does not really endorse the standard not to lie.

But why cannot S maintain that he endorses M and that it should be implemented in his actions, but knows that he will at times violate M. But, he also knows that he is wrong in doing so(all things being equal). He is willing to admit that he is fallible and will, at times, fail to live up to that which is required. Why is this being hypocritical - it seems that S is just being honest about his ability to consistently live up to M. I take it that moral standards, especially Christian (religious )ones, seem to be rather difficult to enact at all times. I take it that is why we need grace and forgiveness. The point is that we try to do M and admit our shortcomings when we fail to do M. I do not see this as necessarily being hypocritical, simply part of being ethical.

So it can't be true that Christians genuinely endorse the moral standard they profess for everyone.

In that case, I'm not sure what you mean by "endorse". Generally it refers to agreement or approval, and in that sense it's surely something necessary for morality in the first place. (To be truly culpable, you need to know that something is wrong and do it anyway.)

Anyway, yes, I do think there is virtue in admitting to hypocrisy, why not? It's obviously less virtuous that not being hypocritical at all, but it's more virtuous than doing the bad thing and then lying on top of that and saying that it was really a good thing.

I'd say, rather, that I'm talking to someone who professes belief in the sanctity of marriage, but does not genuinely believe it.

I wonder why he'd say it then, but I guess this fits certain celebrities or politicians (for example) who find it expedient to pretend they agree with social norms even though their behavior says otherwise. That's yet another possibility, a sort of "reverse hypocrisy".

Mike...

Interesting...but I think many (especially Catholic) Christians will reject P3.(iv) on the following grounds: human nature is fallen, in need of redemption, and prone to sin. Thus, so long as S shares in fallen human nature there will always be mitigating reasons for performing A, whatever A is, is the form of human moral imperfection and akrasia. Even St. Paul tells us "that which I do not want to do, I do."

So then P3.(iv) can never be satisfied, given human nature, and that means that no one ever "strongly hypocritically fails." In which case, P2 is also false. Since S cannot know that S will strongly hypocritically fail (assuming no one can "know" a falsehood). And thus your intermediate conclusion that every Christian knows he will fail in a way that will make it appropriate to charge him with hypocrisy doesn't follow.

Interesting argument. It might generalize. Here's a principle that everyone should endorse:

Never do bad

Yet no one will endorse that without being hypocritical

(Perhaps what this shows is that not all forms of hypocrisy are an evil over and above the non-hypocritical evil deeds one commits.)

Hi Mike
It is not so much that we do not know that we are hypocrites - I happen to agree with your argument (I know that this does not happen often)up to the point that you make your conclusion in the last paragraph. What I am suggesting is that being hypocritical is part of our moral nature - we are not perfect beings - and that if we know that we should live up to the requirements of M we also know that we will not always live up to M and even sometimes knowingly and freely violate M. This seems to be part of your argument. At times we will knowingly and freely be hypocritical and we should be negatively sanctioned for this failure. But, this failure is part of what it means to be ethical in so far as no one is perfect - we are going to sometimes fail to do what we know (and endorse what) we should do (and even tell others that they should do, while we do not). It would be hypocritical to think we are not being hypocritical. It would be an example of what Sartre means by 'bad faith.' Being hypocritical seems to be part of living an ethical life (and by this I do not mean that we are doing the right thing - only that what we are doing is subject to normative evaluation) is to recognize our moral shortcomings and trying, even if we knowingly and freely occasionally fail (the myth of Sisyphus) to do the right thing. I think the error that you make, if there is one, is to make the move from being hypocritical to not genuinely endorsing M, especially if we know that we are hypocritically failing to live up to the requirements of M. After all, we will use M to be critical of S and in order to use M we have to genuinely endorse it. We can only be correct in our evaluation of being hypocritical if we endorse M and use it to evaluate our actions. If we did not endorse M then there would be nothing that we would be hypocritical relative too.

Mike
Addendum: Of course we could be hypocritical about being hypocritical. Does this create a paradox?

"My argument is closer to one in philosophy of language than it is to one in ethical theory. It has to do with what one can sincerely assert or affirm."

I am not that knowledgeable in the phil of language but it seems to me that if I remember Austin's argument in A Plea For Excuses correctly that one might never find oneself in the situation where the only option left is the one you describe. It is conceivable that one can sincerely subscribe to, and endorse, M - one should be kind, (your example of knowing that I should be kind, but sometimes I will be cruel is a good example)- while knowing that at times, based on past experiences,and unpredictable as to when they will occur in the future, that I will violate M that could satisfy the idea the I do know in advance of violating M that I will do something wrong and when I do it I will know that I did something wrong. But, because of its unpredictability, I can ask to be forgiven for doing so if I feel remorse for what I did. This sort of behavior does seem to be part of our linguistic practices. By asking to be forgiven (excused) I admit that what I did was wrong, but..... If this is so, the we can sincerely endorse M and sincerely know (believe) that we will violate M. (We can be sincere hypocrites.)

There is a question concerning the use of 'will' in saying that 'I know that I will do something that violates M in the future.' Do we mean that it is necessary or only highly probable that I will violate M. What is its modal status? If it is the latter, then it seems that your last option, after all others have been eliminated, may not arise, or need not arise. Maybe a more explicit argument would be helpful - I know that I would like to see it.

I'm struggling to think of a case in which I violate some standard I hold that would NOT count as a case of akrasia. If there are no such cases, then 2 and 3 are false. Can you give an example of such a case?

There are, I grant, cases where my failure to be kind has nothing to do with weakness of will. It may, e.g., have to do with lack of attention; something else is on my mind, etc. But this would, I presume, count as a mitigating excuse. Cases in which I fail to be kind because I "just don't care"--I imagine those are more appropriately described as cases in which I care about something else more than I care about being kind.

Mike

This is a very interesting argument! I would like to use it in my courses this year, if it is alright with you.

Simply put, this just seems (in Bealer’s sense of seeming) wrong. Let us assume M – we should be kind, all things being equal. We are at times unkind therefore 5 and 6. Let us further assume that S performs 1000 actions that fall under M, but that only 1 of them exhibits being unkind. It just does not seem correct to conclude either 5 or 6 from this even though S knows that he will be unkind. It seems to me that if we know that we are flawed regarding our ability to always do what we should then this mitigates against our accepting 5 and 6.

Besides, substitute ‘we should not be hypocrites’ for ‘we should be kind’ as M. We then get the conclusion that do not genuinely believe or seriously affirm that we should not be hypocrites. But we cannot believe or affirm the contrary – that we should be hypocrites - because according to your argument 5 and 6 follow. We end up not being able to believe or affirm anything where it is the case that we know we will (probably) do what is not required by M. Your argument is a skeptical argument (and a good one at that)!

I suggest that one way out of this is to grant the validity of your argument but to ignore your argument in practice the same way we ignore Descartes’ Dreaming Argument because most of our linguistic practices that we employ in normatively (or epistemically in Descartes case) evaluating our actions (beliefs) are undermined, if not destroyed, by it. In practice, we judge whether or not we believe and affirm something by how we react to that which we claim to believe and affirm. In the example of S performing 1000 actions that fail under M with only 1 (or a very few) failing to be consistent with M it is the evidence of the 999 positive actions that lead us to conclude that S believes and affirms M. I know there is a paradox of the heap here, but I think that if S only did 600 positive actions under M and 400 negative actions under M then we might well conclude that S does not actually genuinely believe or seriously affirm M. We know that we will be negatively sanctioned if we are caught acting hypocritically. This practice of being negatively sanctioned is a constraint on our being hypocritical - we try to limit doing that which violates M.

Mike
Addendum: does your argument presume an all or nothing outcome. If so, why do we have to accept this? Do we, in practice, presume that in order to believe in M we must in fact always do what M requires? In practice, we do not always accept and act upon what our senses are 'telling' us (magic?)and this does not seem to count against our relying on our senses in most cases. So why should we assume that in order to genuinely believe and seriously affirm M we have to maintain that we must always do what M requires of us?

I deny P4. For instance, akrasia is compatible with a lack of "excuse or mitigating reason or justification". Akrasia need not excuse, mitigate or justify (I am inclined to think that genuine akrasia never excuses, mitigates or justifies, but I don't need that strong claim). Likewise, it is compatible with one's not having an excuse, mitigating reason or justification that one should have a non-mitigating reason (or at least only slightly mitigating).

For instance, that a moral duty is inconvenient to fullfill is a non-mitigating reason for failing to fulfill the duty. It is a reason that explains the choice, and that renders the choice rationally comprehensible, but does not excuse or justify, and if it mitigates at all, it does so only slightly. (I.e., one is slightly less to blame for failing to fulfill an inconvenient duty than for failing to fulfill a convenient duty.)

Now, if it be insisted that "non-mitigating reason" means a reason that in no way mitigates, then I deny P2. I do think all choices are made sub specie boni, and the good pursued in the choice does somewhat mitigate the wickedness of the choice, in the sense that if one had done the evil for a lesser apparent good, one would have been even more blameworthy. (I suppose if a choice were made for the sake of a good than which there is no lesser good, then there would be no mitigation on my view. But I doubt that there is a good than which there is no lesser good. For instance, if G is a good, then a 50% chance of getting G is a lesser good.)

Another point is that the argument as it stands appears invalid: 5 does not follow from 3 and 4. From 3 and 4, all that follows is that there will be a future time (namely, the one at which I violate the duty) at which I won't genuinely believe M. It doesn't follow that I presently don't genuinely believe M.

I have been reflecting on some of the implications of your (skeptical) argument. Given your argument we do not seriously affirm M, or genuinely believe in M. If this is the case, then how can we even believe that M is a sound normative principle? The argument seems to make normative ethics impossible. If we maintain that we are being ethical by following M we are being hypocritical, given 2 - 4, therefore we are not acting ethically even if we happen to be acting kindly towards others at the time. If it has to be the case that in order to believe in M then it must be the case that M, we can give no reason why we should act kindly because we cannot seriously or genuinely assert that 'we should be kind' is a normative principle because we do not seriously affirm or genuinely believe in 'we should be kind'. Your argument seems to make moral discourse meaningless, especially when we substitute 'we should not be hypocrites' for 'we should be kind' as M. The only way out is to deny 2 and make it "I know that I will be unkind but there will be an excuse or mitigating reason or justification when I fail to be kind'.

Anyway, thanks Mike for a very interesting and thought provoking argument!

"The fact that such a reason will explain your acting contrary to M entails that you don't genuinely believe M. To put it the other way, if you genuinely believed M, then no non-mitigating reason would explain your failure to comply with M's recommendations."

Isn't this just a denial of akrasia altogether, a la Plato? Akrasia is doing what you know you ought not to do. When a smoker has another cigarette whilst saying, "I really shouldn't," do you deny that the smoker genuinely believes the principle that cigarettes are bad and to be rejected?

I don't want to belabor this; I may be just confused. Given that you think "my will is weak" is a mitigating reason, I'm having trouble thinking of any non-mitigating reason. You have given the example of "just not caring to do M." I suggested that these are probably instances of caring about something more than M (which would bring us back within the realm of akrasia). Your reply suggested that you think there are lots of cases of "just not caring to do M" that are not best understood as cases of caring about something more than M. I'm not familiar with such cases, and I think that w/r/t basic moral principles such cases would be rare. I agree, though, that if one did encounter such a situation, one would have good evidence that one didn't really believe M.

"That's an interesting point, and it crossed my mind. But I don't think it works. Look, suppose I believe now that I should not be unkind, and also believe that I will this afternoon be unkind without the slightest mitigating reason. I therefore believe that I can be in the same situation I am in now, in all respects of reasons to act, and fail to be kind. If that's so then I am now in a siutation of not genuinely believing M. What am I missing?"

This may be somewhat plausible in the case of "this afternoon", but not in the case of "some time in the future". The reason is that the following claim is probably true:

(*) If I now genuinely believe that I should not be unkind, then I will genuinely believe this this afternoon as well.

But if one replaces "this afternoon" with "next month", it becomes less probable. And if one replaces it with "in seven years" it becomes even less probable (though still probable). After all, not only is there the possibility that I might become perversely convinced of the error theory about morality, but there is the not extremely remote possibility that I will suffer a head injury which will either change my personality or will make me incapable of having beliefs of the relevant kind of complexity.

I am not saying that this is a very serious problem for your argument. You can fix up your argument by supposing that you won't have a head injury, that perverse arguments won't convince you, etc.

But there is still a bit of a worry. I don't know if you've had it happen to you, but it happens to me not very rarely that I find myself motivated to do something wrong, and this in turn gives rise to an intellectually perverse temptation to cease to believe that the wrong is a wrong. Humans find it a strain to act contrary to their moral beliefs, and so motivation to do A can lead to temptation to cease to believe A is wrong.

It could, then, be that the apparently akratic unkindness is not really akratic: just prior to being unkind, one temporarily ceases to genuinely believe that unkindness is wrong, though one might parrot the words "unkindness is wrong", as in Aristotle's example of the drunk who recites wise maxims without genuine understanding. The after the unkindness is done, the belief returns, and one is (hopefully!) horrified at what one had done.

Now this won't work for every case, since it presupposes an intellectual akrasia that precedes the unkind action, and the intellectual akrasia cannot be accounted for in the same way on pain of a vicious regress. So I think your argument can be rescued from this worry.

"I have the will to be kind, let's say, but I don't have the interest in being kind."

I can't make sense of this. "I want to be kind, but I'm not interested in it?" That can't be. "I'm physically able to be kind, but I'm not interested in it?" That makes grammatical sense, but surely will is something different than physical capability. The smoker is physically capable of resisting the cigarette. So, I'm still having trouble getting a sense of just what you think akrasia is. You seem to have something "specific" in mind when you talk about weakness of will, but I can't quite make out what distinguishes it. To use Aristotle's typology: you seem to think that in addition to continence, incontinence, virtue, and vice, there is some other category in which you rationally approve of the right, desire the wrong, and do the wrong and yet are not akratic.

"I take it that when someone sincerely asserts that he believes moral principle M, he is doing more than expressing his current epistemological position vis a vis M. He is expressing his commitment to M. Isn't that right?"

Maybe not. Suppose I say: "The sovereign ought to act for the good of her people." I am affirming a moral principle. Now, that moral principle does apply to me, but only in circumstances that I have good reason to think will not obtain. While I could in principle be expressing my commitment to acting for the good of my people should I become a sovereign, in practice I am simply asserting a proposition that I know to be true. This is even more clear for more specialized cases.

I think your argument might benefit from separating (at least) two illocutionary forces that could be involved in affirming a moral principle: an assertive and a committive force. These two forces induce different kinds of sincerity. There is assertive sincerity and committive sincerity. I can have assertive sincerity without committive sincerity. It's less clear, but I think I can have committive sincerity without assertive sincerity. For instance, I could have a personal commitment to refrain from eating meat for ascetical reasons, while believing it is permissible to eat meat. To fit in with vegetarian friends, I could then lie: "Eating meat is wrong." In my lie, I don't have assertive sincerity, but maybe I do have committive sincerity.

With these distinctions in place, I take it that you arguing not that we don't have assertive sincerity but that we don't have committive sincerity.

Now, committive sincerity may need a further subdivision. There are two senses of "commitment", what one might call the objective and the subjective. At an old-fashioned gas station where you pump first and pay later (hard to find these around Waco), by pumping gas, you become objectively committed to pay for it. But a hardened thief need have no corresponding subjective commitment: she may pump the gas and leave without the least inner resistance, though she may nonetheless know it to be the case that this is wrong and even that pumping the gas objectively committed her to pay. Similarly, one can have a subjective commitment without any objective commitment. For instance, a generous gas station owner, just prior to retirement, might post a sign saying: "Today, all gas is free. Just pump up your tank and go! Thank you for your business." I might be deep in thought about the nature of commitment (yes, I know, I shouldn't be driving if I am!) and not notice the sign. By pumping the gas I would become subjectively committed to pay, but there would be no objective commitment.

When I simply affirm a genuine moral principle, I don't typically become objectively committed to the moral principle. The moral principle was already binding before I affirmed it. In some circumstances, I could gain a new objective commitment, as when I promise my wife not to do A, where A is wrong--I now have two grounds for an obligation not to do A, the prior wrongness of A, and my promise. But it seems mistaken to think that ordinary affirmations of moral principles are like that. (But baptismal vows are like that.) So only subjective commitment comes into play typically.

Now, the question is: Can I have subjective-committive sincerity when I affirm a moral principle that I expect to go against? I think so. Take this case. I am strongly committed to not lying, no matter what. This strong commitment is compatible with there being circumstances where I would go against the commitment, for instance under torture. I affirm (in fact, I do): "It is always wrong to lie." I can do so with assertive and committive sincerity, even though I know that there are possible circumstances in which I would likely go against my commitment. But suppose that five minutes earlier an angel told me that I would be tortured in a couple of hours, and that the only way to stop the torture would be by lying. I think the mere belief that I probably will go against my commitment does not significantly decrease my subjective commitment. And it does not remove my belief that it's wrong to lie. So I can still, with both kinds of sincerity, affirm: "It is always wrong to lie", even though I no longer believe that I will keep to this commitment. (The angel didn't say that I will lie. So I can still hope I will stay truthful, but fear that I will lie.)

However, it is more troubling to suppose that I can with committive sincerity affirm that it is wrong to lie when I expect to lie in a couple of hours under ordinary temptation. Still, I am inclined to think it is possible. Commitments change in strength. Temptation may work by removing the subjective commitment, leaving only, to put it in Kantian terms, the motive of duty.

Hi Mike,

Building on Alexander's post,

It seems to me there is somewhat an equivocation lurking beneath the surface of the argument. When I sincerely affirm the principle M, I would also find morally blameworthy the person who violates M. So, not only do we sincerely affirm the principle M, we also normatively affirm the principle M. But, in my knowledge that I may at some time violate M, given my own fallibility, I am not also normatively affirming my violation of M. That is to say, I am not saying it is morally okay that I violate M, I am merely affirming that I will probably violate M as a matter of non-moral fact, but when I do violate M I am still morally blameworthy. So, in order to yield a contradiction from 2 and 3 and 4, I would need to suggest that I don’t find the person who violates the principle M morally blameworthy when they fail to live up to moral standard M.

But it seems to me that we would still find the person who violates moral standard M morally blameworthy. In fact, if they affirm the principle M at time t in situation S, and still violate principle M at t in S, I think we often would find the person MORE morally blameworthy, since not only are they violating a moral principle, they are also a hypocrite. But, when people generally violate moral normative principles do we really explain that fact by suggesting those persons don’t hold principle M? It seems to me that it is entirely possible to violate moral principles or act wrongly while holding M, and we might hold that person all the more blameworthy. This point can be made a little stronger by rejecting that it necessarily the case that if a person judges he or she ought morally to do something, he or she is motivated to some degree to do it: call this “judgement internalism”. Consider Copp’s example from his paper “Moral Obligation and Moral Motivation”:

“Alice was raised to believe...that our moral obligations are determined by the commands of God. She was also raised to believe that God is a vengeful ruler and that He wills us to take an eye for an eye. On principle of an eye for an eye, Alice believes that capital punishment is obligatory in cases of murder, and she belileves she has an obligation to support capital punishment. But she is deeply compassionate, and she is quite out of sympathy with what she takes to be God’s vengefulness. Because of her compassion she is not motivated in the least to support capital punishment. She is in fact active in opposing it, even though she believes she is morally forbidden to do so.” (Copp, 1995, pp 190-191)

But if Copp’s example is taken seriously then judgement internalism is false; there is no necessary link between believing that one ought to morally do something, and motivation for that person to do it. But if judgement internalism is false, then the argument seems unsound. Why? 4 seems to presuppose that the only explanation to violate a moral principle, given that the person has no excuse or justification or mitigating reason, is that the person doesn’t believe the principle M, but that seems to rely on a version of judgment internalism. 4 seems to suggest that necessarily if a person violates moral principles, given the person has no excuse justification or mitigating reason, then the person doesn’t believe the moral principle. But if Copp is right there is no necessary link between the given some counter examples.