We, The Moral Hypocrites
Cooperation and generosity are morals that I try my best to hold myself to. I believe that taking the time to lend a helping hand is simply the good thing to do. Morals are pretty much the foundation of our society when we think about how we treat and interact with each other, but why do we sometimes fall short on these values? A few months ago, I donated to multiple funds supporting people in need, and last week, I helped my sister with her homework when I could have been working on my own. But then, 2 days ago, I walked right past a homeless man without offering anything. And a few days earlier, I made excuses to not cook dinner when my mom was too busy to do so herself.
Hypocrisy is common, from politics down to our own relationships. We expect everyone to abide by a certain code of conduct, but do we always follow through with these standards for which we hold everyone else accountable? Think about it. What is a moral that you hold, and when was the last time you were faced with a situation in which you avoided upholding that moral value? Many will disagree, believing that they are complete moral beings having never faced hypocrisy, but just because someone believes that they are 100% impartially moral does not mean they are. The way one perceives themselves is not always reflective of what everyone else sees, and in the fashion of hypocrisy, is a perspective selective in your favor.
Moral hypocrisy is defined as, “The motivation to appear moral, while, if possible, avoiding the cost of being moral” (Psychology). I can admit that I have found myself in positions of being a moral hypocrite. I took shame in the fact that I was unable to hold myself to higher standards and reflect my moral beliefs in my actions, but the only way for self improvement is by being able to identify instances in which you failed to reflect the morals you claim to believe in, in your daily life, and take into account how your actions imply hypocrisy and how you might choose to react next time you are in a similar situation that reflects said moral.
There are various instances and degrees of moral hypocrisy- as small as telling someone to clean up after themselves while you leave a mess, or as big as claiming to care about the wellbeing of all people while actively permitting other people to be mistreated or harmed. So why do we give in to that pesky devil on our shoulder? Well, “We convince ourselves that the violation is not all bad, perhaps because others may benefit from it, or we remind ourselves of ethical actions we have recently performed to give ourselves license to indulge in a little bad behaviour” (Piazza). Research has even proven this to be true by how “even men convicted of domestic violence are able to retain a view of themselves as moral, by calling to mind more instances of good than bad” (Piazza). Our moral compasses are our baseline for judging how good or bad something is, unless you are morally corrupt (consistently failing to determine right from wrong, making your moral compass skewed). For the most part, we want to be good people, or at least give off the impression that we are. This becomes dangerous when we focus on how we can benefit ourselves while not considering the negative implications we might have on anyone else.
So are we all moral hypocrites? Yes. But, it’s inevitable. I’m only one person, so I can’t know all 7 billion+ individual human’s actions, but I do know that as human beings, no one is perfect. There will be moments where we fail to recognize how we are losing sight of these principles, but that doesn’t make you a bad person. It becomes an issue when we choose to ignore a decision that we made that did not align with our morals. These practices encourage self-serving actions. If we do not start taking into account the impact of our own moral hypocrisy, we will truly live in a society where it’s “every man for themself.” Instead, we must self reflect on our moments of ethical misjudgment in response to these errors in order to better ourselves and the world we live in. This is how we face our hypocrisies head first.
Work Cited:
Colligan, Kirsten. “Is Logic Absent of Morality?” The Glasgow Guardian, 24 Nov. 2018, glasgowguardian.co.uk/2018/11/24/is-logic-absent-of-morality/.
Effron, Daniel A, and Paul Conway. “When Virtue Leads to Villainy: Advances in Research on Moral Self-Licensing.” Current Opinion in Psychology, vol. 6, 2015, pp. 32–35., doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.03.017.
Piazza, Jared. “Why We Are All Moral Hypocrites — and What We Can Do about It.” The Conversation, 11 June 2020, www.theconversation.com/why-we-are-all-moral-hypocrites-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-66784.
“Moral Hypocrisy (SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY) IResearchNet.” Psychology, 20 Jan. 2016, www.psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/antisocial-behavior/moral-hypocrisy/.
Rorty, Amelie. “The Use and Abuse of Morality.” The Journal of Ethics, vol. 16, no. 1, 2012, pp. 1–13. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41486943. Accessed 1 Nov. 2020.
Shalvi, Shaul, et al. Self-Serving Justifications: Doing Wrong and Feeling Moral. Association of Psychological Science, 2015, www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/self-serving+justifications_132c2494-d4a5-4292-94ee-26249cb46b6e.pdf
“The Good Place — Who Died and Left Aristotle in Charge of Ethics?” TVGAG, tvgag.com/gag/who-died-and-left-aristotle-in-charge-of-ethics/.
Valdesolo, Piercarlo, and David DeSteno. “Moral Hypocrisy: Social Groups and the Flexibility of Virtue.” Psychological Science, vol. 18, no. 8, 2007, pp. 689–690. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40064760. Accessed 1 Nov. 2020.
