Method
Hypocrisy
Overview
Hypocrisy is the practice of feigning what one is not or professing what one does not believe. The word "hypocrisy" entered the English language c. 1200 with the meaning "the sin of pretending to virtue or goodness". Today, "hypocrisy" often refers to advocating behaviors that one does not practice. However, the term can also refer to other forms of pretense, such as engaging in pious or moral behaviors out of a desire for praise rather than out of genuinely pious or moral motivations.
Definitions of hypocrisy vary. In moral psychology, it is the failure to follow one's own expressed moral rules and principles. According to British political philosopher David Runciman, "other kinds of hypocritical deception include claims to knowledge that one lacks, claims to a consistency that one cannot sustain, claims to a loyalty that one does not possess, claims to an identity that one does not hold". American political journalist Michael Gerson says that political hypocrisy is "the conscious use of a mask to fool the public and gain political benefit".
Hypocrisy has been a subject of folk wisdom and wisdom literature from the beginnings of human history. Increasingly, since the 1980s, it has also become central to studies in behavioral economics, cognitive science, cultural psychology, decision making, ethics, evolutionary psychology, moral psychology, political sociology, positive psychology, social psychology, and sociological social psychology.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
They cannot enter into that absurd idea of duty which influenced us, nor go along with any of the actions which follow from it. There is still, however, something respectable in the character and behaviour of one who is thus betrayed into vice, by a wrong sense of duty, or by what is called an erroneous conscience. How fatally soever he maybe misled by it, he is still, with the generous and humane, more the object…
Adam Smith, The Essays of Adam Smith
States what Hypocrisy is; the author is tied to Hypocrisy in the knowledge graph.
It is undeniable that our contemporary civilization favors this sort of hypocrisy to an extraordinary extent. One might even venture to assert that it is built upon such a hypocrisy and would have to undergo extensive changes if man were to undertake to live according to the psychological truth. There are therefore more civilized hypocrites than truly cultured persons, and one can even discuss the question whether a…
Sigmund Freud, Reflections on War and Death
States what Hypocrisy is; names Hypocrisy several times.
Die a hypocrite; hypocrisy is a very good thing; I have heard say it is the homage which vice pays to virtue. A little hypocrisy, friend, can’t cost you much.
Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire, Vol. IV of XLIII. Romances, Vol. III of III, and A Treatise on Toleration.
States what Hypocrisy is; the author is tied to Hypocrisy in the knowledge graph.
Philosophers who discussed Hypocrisy
Related ideas
- Gilbert Ryle
- Jesus
- Greek language
- Gospel of Luke
- Gospel of Matthew
- John Calvin
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Behavioral economics
- Positive psychology
- Adam Smith
- Wisdom literature
- Anti-intellectualism
- Self-knowledge (psychology)
- Niccolò Machiavelli
- Propaganda
- Social psychology
- Dhammapada
- Utilitarianism
- Voltaire
- Buddhism
- World War II
- Bible
- The Buddha
- Quran
Place in the tradition
Part of Evolutionary ethics.