Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy is the act of pretending to have beliefs, virtues and feelings that one does not truly possess. The word derives from the late Latin hypocrisis and Greek hupokrisis both meaning play-acting or pretence.

A classic example of a hypocritical act is to denounce another for carrying out some action whilst carrying out the same action oneself.

Cognitive scientist Keith Stanovich has made a career out of studying hypocrisy. He sees it as arising out of an incompatibility with desires such self interest and desires and higher order beliefs in morality and virtue. The only people who are not hypocrites are the tiny and perhaps non-existent minority who are so saintly they never give into baser instincts and the larger group who never try to live by principles of morality or virtue. He thus argues that hypocrites are in fact the nobler class of people. François duc de la Rochefoucauld had centuries earlier phrased a similar opinion when he stated that "hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue."