North American Philosophical Publications

Hypocrisy and Moral Seriousness

Author(s): Roger Crisp and Christopher Cowton
Source: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Oct., 1994), pp. 343-349
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the North American Philosophical
Publications
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American Philosophical Quarterly
Volume 31, Number 4, October 1994

HYPOCRISY AND MORAL SERIOUSNESS

Roger Crisp and Christopher Cowton

Introduction to receive them. And

r?, loudly his unworthiness
so the sham continues until Orgon banishes
A HE word "hypocrisy" has its root in the
his own son from the house when he tries to
classical Greek verb hupokrinesthai, "to an?
confront his father with Tartuffe's duplicity.
swer." In Attic Greek, the verb could mean "to
General claims about the hypocrisy of pre?
speak in dialogue" and hence "to play a part
tence often turn out to be mistaken. For exam?
on the stage."1 From here it was a short route
ple, the hypocrisy of pretence need not be
to the hypokrisia with which the Pharisees are
motivated, as it clearly is in the case of Tartuffe,
charged in the Gospel of St Matthew.
are surprisingly by self-interest.5 Consider the Pharisees who
Accusations of hypocrisy
common in our culture, both at the personal attempt to trap Christ with the question about
and the political level. Judith Shklar goes so Caesar's tax.6 They claim to be approaching
far as to characterise our age as that in which him as a truly honest man who knows what
is...inexcusable."2 But, God requires, as if this is what they are con?
"hypocrisy...alone
the nature of cerned about, in fact hoping that he will con?
perhaps equally surprisingly,
is hard to grasp. In this paper, we vict himself by advocating the non-payment
hypocrisy
shall suggest that recent discussion of hypocrisy of tax to the Emperor. Their hypocrisy can
has foundered through a failure to recognise be seen as malicious rather than purely self
distinct forms of hypocrisy. We shall outline interested. Another common case of non
these different forms, and then consider vari? self-interested hypocrisy is that motivated by
ous views on what they have in common. shame. I may pretend to others that I have
some virtue not in order to gain anything
I. PRETENCE from them, but merely because I am too
The Oxford defines ashamed to admit my fault. I may even be?
English Dictionary
as follows: "The assuming of a lieve sincerely that it would be better for me
"hypocrisy"
false appearance of virtue or goodness, with to admit it.
dissimulation of real character or inclina? Nor need the motivation behind the hy?
tions, esp. in respect of religious life or beliefs; pocrisy of pretence be morally disreputable.
hence in general sense, dissimulation, Indeed pretence motivated by pretty well
pretence, ?
sham."3 anything even some inexplicable whim ?
The hypocrisy of pretence is exemplified can be hypocritical. It can even be other-in?
most vil? terested, and to that extent
famously by Moli?re's eponymous praiseworthy.
lain Tartuffe.4 Tartuffe tricks his way into the Consider an atheist mother who feigns a little
affections of the rich Orgon by pretending to piety to the visiting Mother Superior in order
a virtuous character he entirely lacks. When to increase her sincerely pious but exces?
chances of be?
Orgon first encounters Tartuffe, for example, it sively self-effacing daughter's
is in church, where the scoundrel would kneel ing accepted into the convent.7
nearby, sighing and weeping as he prayed. This case can also show that another gen?
When Orgon hears of Tartuffe's poverty, he eral claim ? that hypocrisy requires self-con?
has to force gifts on Tartuffe, who protests sciousness on the part of the hypocrite ? is

343

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344 /AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

an exaggeration.8 Tartuffe's motivations, of a fault that he knowingly possesses, can be

course, are quite transparent to him, though found in the Gospel of St Luke. The president
we can perhaps imagine his deception be? of the synagogue criticizes a woman for com?
coming so successful that he begins to take ing to be cured on the Sabbath. Christ ob?
even himself in. But the pseudo-pious mother jects, "What hypocrites you are!... Is there a
may be quite unaware from the start of what single one of you who does not loose his ox
she is doing. or his donkey from the manger and take it
Must the hypocrite be condemned by his out to water on the Sabbath?"14
own avowed standards?9 Surely not. Like In hypocrisy of blame, however, the fault
Thrasymachus in the first book of Plato's Re? criticised (which may of course be a genuine
public, Tartuffe sees morality merely as a de? fault) need not be that possessed by the
vice that the strong can use to exploit those critic.15 Imagine an industrious Mafia boss
weak enough to accept it.10He would be will? expressing moral indignation about his son's
ing to avow any moral standards whatsoever, idleness and lack of motivation. Indeed the
and he would therefore be a hypocrite even vice often appears to lie particularly in the
were those standards to require little or noth? fact that the fault of the critic is worse than
ing in the way of sincerity. that criticized. The Sermon on the Mount in
Must hypocrisy be a pretence to genuine, the Gospel of Matthew provides a famous ex?
or near-genuine, virtue?11 Again, it seems not. ample. Christ asks, "How can you say to your
Consider, for example, the dissembling teen? brother, "Let me take the speck out of your
ager who pretends allegiance to the repulsive eye," when all the time there is that plank in
code of honour of his neighbourhood gang in your own? You hypocrite! First take the plank
order to gain acceptance. Nor need "virtue" out of your own eye, and then you will see
be understood here in a narrowly moral clearly to take the speck out of your brother's."16
sense. Any kind of excellence or perceived As in the OED, is often defined
hypocrisy
excellence can be pretended to hypocritically. in terms of the hypocrisy of But
pretence.17
Take the case discussed by Szabados of the the hypocrisy in the cases we are now discuss?
intellectual snob Mme. de Cambremer in
ing consists not in any pretence but in wrong?
Proust's Cities of the Plain, who pretends to ful blaming. Of course, hypocrisy of pretence
being a serious art critic in order to win the will often involve hypocrisy of blame. The
respect of the avant-garde; or Mr Bounderby,
president of the synagogue may well have
in Dickens's Hard Times, who falsely claims a been criticizing the woman as part of a strat?
very deprived background in order to point up egy of appearing virtuous to his followers.
his present advancement.12 Indeed it is not just But pretending is quite different from blam?
excellences but desirable qualities in general and can come Consider an?
ing, they apart.
that can be pretended to by the hypocrite. other case where the hypocrite is unaware of
When Richard III courts Lady Anne inAct TL, his hypocrisy. A father, who is otherwise ex?
Scene II of Shakespeare's play, his hypocrisy is criticize other for a
emplary, may parents
a pretence merely to being an admirer. fault that he himself has in relation to his own
The hypocrisy of pretence, then, seems to
children, such as overprotectiveness. He is
consist in any kind of pretence to virtue, to and when certain
pretending nothing, yet
whatever its motivation, and whatever the are pointed
aspects of his own behavior out
nature of the simulated virtue. to him, he may well admit to hypocrisy. This
case also serves as another counter-example
II. BLAME
to the claim that hypocrisy must be wilful and
The hypocrisy of blame is well illustrated self-conscious.
It might be said that criticisms such as this
by one view of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who
? it is said ? publicly castigated gays for im? father's always imply and are intended to im?
morality when he was himself gay.13 Another ply that the critic does not possess the criti?
cized fault. This, however, need not be true.
example of this pure species of the hypocrisy of
blame, in which the critic censures others for The harm done by overprotectiveness may

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 HYPOCRISY AND MORAL SERIOUSNESS / 345

perhaps have just occurred to the father is unable to give up, then she cannot be re?
through his seeing how another parent treats quired to give up, since "ought" implies
her children in a certain situation. It may be "can," to use Austin's phrase.
no part of his intention, nor must we take it This kind of hypocrisy is to be distin?
to be, to imply anything about his treatment guished from that of blame. The teacher, for
of his own children. The father's realization example, is not blaming anybody. Perhaps his
of his own overprotectiveness and hence his pupils do not put their hands in their pockets.
may be quite sincere. And, of The hypocrisy of inconsistency lies in the ut?
hypocrisy
course, lack of implication is even clearer in tering of some (overriding) moral require?
cases where the fault criticized differs from ment that does apply to oneself and then
that possessed by the critic. failing to live up to it.
Hypocrisy of blame, then, consists inmoral
criticism of others by someone with moral IV. COMPLACENCY
faults of their own.
The Pharisees again provide us with an

III. INCONSISTENCY example:

Alas for you, lawyers and Pharisees, hypo?
Closely related to, and yet distinct from, crites! You pay tithes of mint and dill and cum?
hypocrisy of blame is the hypocrisy of incon? min; but you have overlooked the weightier
sistency. In Matthew 23.13, Christ advises his demands of the Law, justice, mercy, and good
listeners to pay attention to what the Phari? faith. It is these you should have practised, with?
sees say because are in the seat of out neglecting the others. Blind guides! You
they
and goes on, "But do not follow their strain off amidge, yet gulp down a camel!
Moses,
practice; for they say one thing and do an? This is the Podsnappery, in Dickens's
depicted
other." Were McCarthy to have been a practic? Our Mutual of those who take
Friend, morality
ing gay, he would provide another example. in very unimportant ways, ignoring
seriously
Again, one can indulge in the most flagrant its demands where their fulfilment appears
hypocrisy of inconsistency without pretence.18 costly.22 This type of hypocrisy is often as?
Consider a teacher who tells his pupils not to cribed to groups, such as "the Victorians."
put their hands in their pockets because it looks Again, there are close connections be?
slovenly and ruins one's clothes and yet always tween this fourth variety of hypocrisy and
has his own hands in his pockets. Again, those discussed above. Being complacent
nicotine addicts may preface their instructions may be part of a pretence to virtue or itmay
to their children not to smoke with, "I know involve blaming others for minor blemishes
I'm being hypocritical, but...."19 while ignoring one's own perhaps greater
It might be said that the smoker here may faults. And complacent hypocrites may say
be merely weak-willed, not hypocritical. For one thing and do another. But none of these
she is openly admitting to smoking. The must be the case. Complacent hypocrites are
hypocritical smoker would not admit to hy? often just that? complacent. They pretend to
pocrisy. Rather she would in public urge people nothing, and offer no prescriptions, thus pro?
not to smoke, and smoke secretly in private. tecting their complacency from criticism on the
But this is to assume that hypocrisy must be grounds of the first three kinds of hypocrisy.
the hypocrisy of pretence. The mere fact of Like another character from Book I of the Re?
not practising what you preach is often and public, the old man Cephalus, morality for
ordinarily taken to constitute hypocrisy.20 them is a small part of life, a set of duties to be
Of course, it may be that the smoker is ad? performed like household chores.23 This is not
dicted to nicotine to the point that she really to say that their concern for morality is con?
cannot do anything about it. In this case, she sciously insincere. It may well appear to them
would be misusing the term "hypocrisy." to be be serious and genuine. What makes their
Hypocrisy of inconsistency consists in failure to concern hypocrisy is the extremely undemand?
live up to a self-professed moral requirement ing nature of their morality and their unwilling?
that does in fact apply to oneselt If the smoker ness to reflect upon it.

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346 /AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

V. WHAT DO THESE KINDS OF A approach might be to find a com?

fourth
HYPOCRISY HAVE IN COMMON? mon virtue
in opposition to which the various
types of hypocrisy may form a coherent
We have outlined four apparently distinct
whole.28 The obvious virtue to examine is
vices. Why are they called by the same name?
integrity.29
One answer might be historical. Much of the
One problem here is that integrity is as
sense we attach to the notion of "hypocrisy"
hard to characterise as hypocrisy. Another
comes from its use in the Bible. Since it is
difficulty is that even Tartuffe, the paradigm
often used there as a general term of moral
hypocrite, can on various grounds be de?
criticism, roughly equivalent to the Greek
scribed as possessing integrity. Consider, for
word poner?a ("wickedness"), we should not
example, the conditions Gabriele Taylor sug?
expect that the traits we now refer to as hypo?
gests a person must meet to possess integrity.
critical will have much in common.24
First, she must preserve her identity.30 Imag?
A historian of the language could perhaps
ine that Tartuffe is a Thrasymachean of the
puncture this argument. We are anyway disin?
strongest kind: he has decided on reflection
clined to believe it, because of the close con?
that consideration for others is a sign of
nections, some of which we have mentioned,
weakness and that the strength of the purely
between the various kinds of hypocrisy. The fact,
self-interested person is the only charac?
for example, that they are so often found to?
teristic worthy of admiration. He is utterly
gether does not appear merely contingent. committed to his project. So why should he
These connections provide a second possi? not retain his identity, even after he is finally
ble explanation of the breadth of the notion
exposed? Second, she must be capable of
of hypocrisy, based on Wittgenstein's analogy
evaluating different courses of action.31 Tar?
of family resemblances.25 It may be a mistake
to look for an essential characteristic com? tuffe is certainly capable of this, despite the
mon to all cases of hypocrisy that makes facts that his evaluative framework differs
them what they are. Perhaps there is merely profoundly from that of most people and that
a complex web of dependencies and relation? his exposure proves him in the end to lack
ships of a weave sufficiently close to enable practical wisdom. Third, she must not repeat?
us to go on using the concept. edly act against her evaluations.32 Here Tay?
The Wittgensteinian answer may turn out lor has in mind an agent's evaluative
to be correct. But it should not be assumed judgements, not her expressed judgements or
to be so a priori. We must adopt it only after those implied by her behavior. Tartuffe never
the failure of all attempts to elucidate a com? acts against his evaluations in the former
mon strand linking the various species of hy? sense. Taylor is wrong to say that Tartuffe

pocrisy, and then only tentatively. "does not act on what he really values."33 For
Aristotle has provided contemporary phi? what he really values is his own self-interest
losophers with many important insights into or the strength of those who always act so as
the nature of virtue and vice. So we might to further their own self-interest, and he al?
look to him for a solution to our problem. ways acts on such a value. Nor is there here
Unfortunately, however, hypocrisy, like jus? any "break between motive and action."34
tice, seems to be one of those character traits Finally, her identity must not be threatened
that causes a problem for Aristotle's "doctrine by competing identifications. Taylor says of
of the mean."26 Consider two central Aristote? certain types of hypocrites:
lian virtues, generosity (eleutherioi?s) and
own re? They do not just separate their inner from
even-temper (praoios). Each has its their outer lives, or their deeds from their
spective sphere, viz. the giving and taking of words, but what they do or say contradicts
money, and feeling anger.27 There does not, what they really want to identify with. If the
seem to be any neutrally describ
however, identity of the moral agent is given by her
able act or passion that the hypocrite does or identifications then lack of integrity will, by
feels at the wrong time, towards the wrong interfering with such identifications, also de?
reasons. the of that
people, or for the wrong stroy identity agent.

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 HYPOCRISY AND MORAL SERIOUSNESS / 347

Again it is unclear why this should be taken "metavirtue," since it is a concern to be vir?
to be true of Tartuffe. Because he admires tuous. But it is nevertheless an excellence, the
Thrasymachean inner strength, he identifies lack of which in various ways is likely to issue
fully with what he is doing, viz. playing the in hypocrisy when its possessor is engaging in
morality game for his own advantage. WTiat moral practice or the moral language game.
he says of course contradicts what he really Hypocrisy's being a failure to possess a
believes, but surely identification of the kind metavirtue explains why, as Shklar notes, ac?
required to sustain a self is with beliefs. cusations of hypocrisy are so prevalent in our
Moreover, Tartuffe can certainly identify present age of widespread disagreement
with himself as a person who says such things about the content of morality. Such accusa?
and does not believe them. That is all part of tions enable a critic to pursue her agenda
his self-image. As Taylor herself says, "... the without engaging with the question of just
nature of what the person concerned thinks so which virtues comprise morality itself.
important is... not relevant to whether or not Our claim, then, is that the strand that runs
he has acted with Her example through paradigm cases of the various kinds
integrity."
here is Don Giovanni's refusal to disown his of hypocrisy is a failure to take morality seri?
way of life when faced with the sufferings of ously. This also explains much of what is bad
hell. We are not told by Moli?re how Tartuffe about hypocrisy. If anything is morally
comes to terms with his being exposed and im? blameworthy, then lack of concern for moral?
prisoned. But we can surely imagine that he ity itself surely is.The thesis also accounts for
faces his fate with the same integrity as the why there are certain cases in which we feel
Don.37 qualms about ascribing hypocrisy at all, let
Integrity, then, cannot help us in our at? alone blaming the alleged hypocrite. Consider,
tempt to draw together the various strands of for example, the person in Nazi Germany who
hypocrisy. And there seems no other obvious appeared to condone Nazi morality, perhaps in
virtue to which hypocrisy might be seen in order to continue working against Nazism.38
opposition. There is one strategy remaining, The analogies with Tartuffe show why this
however. This involves taking each kind of might be described as a case of hypocrisy of
hypocrisy as a separate vice and considering pretence. But the fact that this person is tak?
which excellence or virtue the person who ing morality very seriously indeed explains
lacks it might be said to have. why her hypocrisy, if that is what it is, is
Tartuffe lacks transparency. He fails to blameless. And those who admit to their hy?
make himself and his view of morality open pocrisy quickly and seek to change them?
to others. McCarthy was unready to assess selves, as might our overprotective father,
himself, to make himself and his real view of will as quickly be forgiven. In these cases, we
morality open to himself. The headmaster see that acts are described as hypocritical be?
failed to live up to the moral prescriptions cause they are typically done by those who fail
that he himself believed. Finally, the Phari? to take morality seriously. One can perform
sees who paid their tithes of herbs were sat? a hypocritical act without being a hypocrite.
isfied too easily with their moral selves and An implication of our view is that the cor?
therefore unwilling to consider whether the rect response to a charge of hypocrisy is not
demands of morality were greater than they merely to make oneself
transparent (as does
took them to be. Thrasymachus himself, of course), nor to cease
All of these failures would be avoided by a blaming others or making moral judgments.
person who took (morally) seriously the rela? What matters about hypocrisy is perhaps most
tion between her self and morality, someone centrally exemplified inmoral complacency. To
who demonstrated an active and genuine con? begin to take morality seriously is to take the
cern to be moral. This concern is in a sense a first step away from hypocrisy.39

St Anne's College, Oxford

Templeton College, Oxford
Received December 6,1993

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 348 /AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY

NOTES
1.H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, revised edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
s.v.
1968),

2. J. Shklar, Ordinary (Harvard: Belknap, 1984), p. 45.

Vices
3. Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901),s.v.
4.Moli?re, Tartuffe, trans. Richard Wilbur, inMoli?re,Five Plays (London: Methuen, 1982). Another good
illustration of the religious hypocrite isMr Chadband in Charles Dickens's Bleak House (New York: W.
W. Norton, 1977). A realistic portrayal of the more prosaic bourgeois moral hypocrite isMr Bulstrode in
George Eliot's Middlemarch (Edinburgh: Blackwell, 1875).
5. Pace B?la Szabados, "Hypocrisy," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 9 (1979), p. 203, and Christine
McKinnon, "Hypocrisy, with a note on integrity," American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 28 (1991), p.
324.
6.Matthew 22.15-22.
7. Szabados's claim {op. cit.,pp.204-5) that such cases demonstrate self-interested motivation because the
agent has a "personal stake... in his project of pretense" confuses motivation and justification. Given the
mother's atheism, perhaps the last thing she herself wants is that she lose her daughter to the convent. She
ismotivated by a concern for her daughter, even if it is true that she benefits from being the sort of person
who is so motivated. It may be that Szabados is influenced by a particular view of revealed preferences
according to which any action ismotivated at some level by self-interest.
8.McKinnon, op. cit., p. 322. Useful here is Szabados's discussion of hypocrisy and self-deception, in op.
cit., pp. 206-10.

9. See Szabados, op. cit., p. 197.

10. Plato, Republic, 336bl-354c3.

11.McKinnon, op. cit. It should be noted that of course not all pretence is hypocritical. Pretending to be
another person in order to avoid capture by the police, for example, is not hypocritical.
12. C. Dickens, Hard Times (New York: W. W. Norton, 1966).
13. See Eva Kittay, "Hypocrisy," Metaphilosophy, vol. 13 (1982), p. 289.
14. The New English Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), Luke 13.15-16 (all references are to
this edition). For a different example, see Matthew 15.1-20.
15. It should be noted that a charge of hypocrisy is easier to sustain, especially in an age of pluralism, if the
hypocrite has the same fault as she is criticizing.
16. Matthew 7.3-5.

17. See, e.g., Gabriele Taylor, who suggests that "[t]he hypocrite pretends to live by certain standards when
in fact he does not," in "Integrity," Proceedings of theAristotelian Society, Supplementary vol. 55 (1981),
pp. 144-45; Kittay, who defines a hypocrite as "one who pretends to be better than she is, given a norm or
set of expectations within a domain inwhich sincerity really matters," {op. cit., p. 281); and McKinnon, who
claims that "[w]e think of the hypocrite as one who dissembles or shams regarding her motives or
intentions in regions where we take such things seriously" {op. cit.,p. 322).
18. This is noticed by Dan Turner, "Hypocrisy," Metaphilosophy, vol. 21 (1990), p. 263, though he fails to
distinguish blame from inconsistency, or to cover the hypocrisy of complacency. This latter omission
perhaps explains why he is led to see the essence of hypocrisy in inconsistency.
19. See Turner, op. cit., p. 263.

20. See Thomas Hurka, "Fifth Column," Toronto Globe and Mail, November 191991.
21. Matthew 23.23-4.
22. See Shklar, op. cit., p. 54.
23. Plato, op. cit., 331bl-5.

24. See A Dictionary of the Bible, ed. J.Hastings, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1899), s. v.

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 HYPOCRISY AND MORAL SERIOUSNESS / 349

25. L.Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), ?67.

26. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 2, ch. 6.
27. For a discussion of this, see Martha Nussbaum, "Non-relative virtues: an Aristotelian approach," in P.
French, T. Uehling and H. Wettstein (eds.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 13, Ethical Theory:
Character and Virtue (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press).
28. This approach could also of course be described as Aristotelian. At ibid., 1106b28-31, for example,
Aristotle says, "There are many ways to miss the mark...,but only one way to be correct."

29. See Taylor, op. cit., and Pride, Shame, and Guilt (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), ch. 5;McKinnon, op.
cit., pp. 327-28.

30. Taylor, Pride, Shame, and Guilt, p. 109.

31. Ibid.,p.lll.

32. Ibid., p. 119.

33. Ibid., p. 123.
34. Ibid. Nor, incidentally, do we understand why the evaluations of a Tartuffe must be "distorted" {ibid.;
see also p. 128). The argument seems to be that the evaluations of an entirely self-interested person could
not withstand the test of that person's putting herself in the position of others to check her own
evaluations. But why should Tartuffe's view of morality as a sham and unworthy of respect not even be
strengthened by his testing it in this way? To claim that if it survives then he must have failed in some way
is tomoralise the imagination.
35. Ibid.,p. 129.
36. Ibid., p. 127.
37. Another paradigm hypocrite, Uriah Heep, remains "perfectly consistent and unchanged" when behind
bars (C.Dickens, David Copperfield, ed. N. Burgis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), p. 733).
38. See McKinnon, op. cit., p. 325.
39. For helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper we are grateful to Julia Driver, Patricia Ingham,
Mark Nelson and Gabriele Taylor.

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