The Psychology of Hypocrisy by Lonnie Lee Best
I was very impressed by this article, arrived at by a Google search for the exact phrase, "psychology of hypocrisy". It actually addresses a number of problems that form the basis for the first part of my book. The first part of my book revolves around my aporia from hypocrisy. I could either write an impractical theory that people would preach and not practise, or an immoral theory that people would practise and not preach (discussed more fully in "An Aporia from Hypocrisy").
The reason for the aporia is the hypocrisy in the first place. If people did practise what they concluded was right, no problems would exist in the first place. It was simply that people did not want to recognise the moral legitimacy of the self-interest that they applied to their own lives that seemed to me to be the cause of the problem. Their morality was largely altruistic, along utilitarian lines. They had no intention of obeying their own ethics when it contradicted their self-interest, nor did they think that most other people would, nor would they punish anyone else for transgressing such a morality. This led me to serious doubts about the legitimacy of that morality, because it seemed for show only. It surely seemed to me to be more rational to preach something closer to what they would actually practise.
Lonnie Lee Best actually disagrees with this approach. He says that, far from solving the problem of moral hypocrisy, it actually makes you "worse than a hypocrite". It is not objective for people to make "their beliefs and perceptions of reality conform to support their own desires and imperfections". He calls this approach 'tautological rationalisation', and characterises it as a "lack of integrity" that "results in a distorted perception of reality". In other words, first you must decide what beliefs are objectively right, and then you must make your actions conform to those beliefs as best you can. Your actions may not conform to your beliefs perfectly, but even then, and to that extent, you can at least be an "honest hypocrite", with more integrity, and a clearer perception of reality, than a "tautological rationaliser".
This seems to me to be pointing to two different extremes. On the one hand, you have someone whose beliefs are simply never consistent with their actions, and they are hypocrites. On the other hand, you have people whose beliefs are necessarily with their actions, because they are rationalisers. It is tempting, therefore, to attempt to pass off integrity as a mean between hypocrisy and rationalisation, but I think that that would be misleading. On the one hand, integrity is not the result of toning down an excess on the side of hypocrisy, but rather of increasing a deficiency, of willpower. Likewise, integrity is not toning down an excess on the side of rationalisation, but of increasing a deficiency of objectivity.
I think that we have discovered how we are going to lead into the Part on methods of morals. We have now shifted the emphasis away from what our actions are to what ethics itself is, and what it requires. A discussion of the search for a method of morals will be the direct consequence of attempting to discover this.
This will also involve a discussion of meta-ethics, however. Some of the problem of hypocrisy, for example, seems legitimate because it might reveal an incompatibility between an ethic and human nature. Depending on the nature of ethics, this could mean that the ethics is not objective due to its inappropriateness to human nature. Here a discussion of Kant seems clearly desirable, vis a vis his claim that ethics is somehow prior to the kind of organisms we are, to the extent that no empirical information could have moral import. Yet surely his principled separation of ethics from psychology, anthropology and the like is a grave mistake. My critical comparison between him and Aristotle in my thesis helped to bring out why his ethics was mistaken, as well as suggest what an empirical theory of ethics might look like. So there might be room yet in the book for this very strong part of the thesis as well.
On the other hand, a prior issue again is to what extent meta-ethics can influence the processes of normative ethics. Obviously, at least some potential seems there. If someone bought into crude emotivism such as that espoused by Stevenson, it would seem to have a big impact on the way that she approached moral arguments. On the other hand, one could just as easily claim that a meta-ethical view like emotivism would not be practised consistently anyway, because people recognise the need implicitly for some kind of rationality in moral arguments. Likewise, the claim that ethics is relative to culture is difficult to practise consistently. We all to varying degrees judge other cultures by standards that are not their own.
This is where my notions of subjectivity and objectivity emerge about the relation between ethics and meta-ethics. This is discussed in "Subjectivity versus Objectivity in Ethics". Emotivism, as a form of subjectivism, would obviously apply to the arguments stated in that section as well, with the proviso that it might result in level 4 arguments rather than level 3 or 2 arguments. However, this does not seem to be illegitimate per se, because that is still a form of commensurability, even at that weak a level, and as such, it still legitimises moral disagreements. However, I think that emotivism would still ultimately lead to some kind of non-arbitrariness in ethics due to necessary presuppositions. If you value that other people value things, including changing their behaviour through non-coercive means, then you are presupposing that a rational approach is necessary. Any arational approach, after all, would be coercive.
The reason for the aporia is the hypocrisy in the first place. If people did practise what they concluded was right, no problems would exist in the first place. It was simply that people did not want to recognise the moral legitimacy of the self-interest that they applied to their own lives that seemed to me to be the cause of the problem. Their morality was largely altruistic, along utilitarian lines. They had no intention of obeying their own ethics when it contradicted their self-interest, nor did they think that most other people would, nor would they punish anyone else for transgressing such a morality. This led me to serious doubts about the legitimacy of that morality, because it seemed for show only. It surely seemed to me to be more rational to preach something closer to what they would actually practise.
Lonnie Lee Best actually disagrees with this approach. He says that, far from solving the problem of moral hypocrisy, it actually makes you "worse than a hypocrite". It is not objective for people to make "their beliefs and perceptions of reality conform to support their own desires and imperfections". He calls this approach 'tautological rationalisation', and characterises it as a "lack of integrity" that "results in a distorted perception of reality". In other words, first you must decide what beliefs are objectively right, and then you must make your actions conform to those beliefs as best you can. Your actions may not conform to your beliefs perfectly, but even then, and to that extent, you can at least be an "honest hypocrite", with more integrity, and a clearer perception of reality, than a "tautological rationaliser".
This seems to me to be pointing to two different extremes. On the one hand, you have someone whose beliefs are simply never consistent with their actions, and they are hypocrites. On the other hand, you have people whose beliefs are necessarily with their actions, because they are rationalisers. It is tempting, therefore, to attempt to pass off integrity as a mean between hypocrisy and rationalisation, but I think that that would be misleading. On the one hand, integrity is not the result of toning down an excess on the side of hypocrisy, but rather of increasing a deficiency, of willpower. Likewise, integrity is not toning down an excess on the side of rationalisation, but of increasing a deficiency of objectivity.
I think that we have discovered how we are going to lead into the Part on methods of morals. We have now shifted the emphasis away from what our actions are to what ethics itself is, and what it requires. A discussion of the search for a method of morals will be the direct consequence of attempting to discover this.
This will also involve a discussion of meta-ethics, however. Some of the problem of hypocrisy, for example, seems legitimate because it might reveal an incompatibility between an ethic and human nature. Depending on the nature of ethics, this could mean that the ethics is not objective due to its inappropriateness to human nature. Here a discussion of Kant seems clearly desirable, vis a vis his claim that ethics is somehow prior to the kind of organisms we are, to the extent that no empirical information could have moral import. Yet surely his principled separation of ethics from psychology, anthropology and the like is a grave mistake. My critical comparison between him and Aristotle in my thesis helped to bring out why his ethics was mistaken, as well as suggest what an empirical theory of ethics might look like. So there might be room yet in the book for this very strong part of the thesis as well.
On the other hand, a prior issue again is to what extent meta-ethics can influence the processes of normative ethics. Obviously, at least some potential seems there. If someone bought into crude emotivism such as that espoused by Stevenson, it would seem to have a big impact on the way that she approached moral arguments. On the other hand, one could just as easily claim that a meta-ethical view like emotivism would not be practised consistently anyway, because people recognise the need implicitly for some kind of rationality in moral arguments. Likewise, the claim that ethics is relative to culture is difficult to practise consistently. We all to varying degrees judge other cultures by standards that are not their own.
This is where my notions of subjectivity and objectivity emerge about the relation between ethics and meta-ethics. This is discussed in "Subjectivity versus Objectivity in Ethics". Emotivism, as a form of subjectivism, would obviously apply to the arguments stated in that section as well, with the proviso that it might result in level 4 arguments rather than level 3 or 2 arguments. However, this does not seem to be illegitimate per se, because that is still a form of commensurability, even at that weak a level, and as such, it still legitimises moral disagreements. However, I think that emotivism would still ultimately lead to some kind of non-arbitrariness in ethics due to necessary presuppositions. If you value that other people value things, including changing their behaviour through non-coercive means, then you are presupposing that a rational approach is necessary. Any arational approach, after all, would be coercive.