Fair enough. Maybe it is typically reasonable to charge people with hypocrisy when they neglect to follow their professed ethical codes.
I still like the quote, even if it is hyperbolic. It is useful to be reminded that there are important cases where failure to live up to one’s professed code does not warrant this kind of criticism. Being overly concerned with hypocrisy can make you be unconcerned with living up to a meaningful ethical code. This is especially important in the context of consequentialist morality. This is just a hunch, but I think there are a fair number of intelligent people who shy away from a demanding code for fear of being charged with hypocrisy. But there need be no genuine hypocrisy, at least in any deeply regrettable sense, in professing a demanding ethical code and failing to live up to it. Better to try to live up to a demanding code and fail than meet the demands of an uninspiring and mundane one. (In this kind of case, of course, you aren’t just professing the code to curry political favor.)
Fair enough. Maybe it is typically reasonable to charge people with hypocrisy when they neglect to follow their professed ethical codes.
I still like the quote, even if it is hyperbolic. It is useful to be reminded that there are important cases where failure to live up to one’s professed code does not warrant this kind of criticism. Being overly concerned with hypocrisy can make you be unconcerned with living up to a meaningful ethical code. This is especially important in the context of consequentialist morality. This is just a hunch, but I think there are a fair number of intelligent people who shy away from a demanding code for fear of being charged with hypocrisy. But there need be no genuine hypocrisy, at least in any deeply regrettable sense, in professing a demanding ethical code and failing to live up to it. Better to try to live up to a demanding code and fail than meet the demands of an uninspiring and mundane one. (In this kind of case, of course, you aren’t just professing the code to curry political favor.)