I see hypocrisy along the lines of "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."
I would call that "weakness."
I agree that pretending to be virtuous when you have zero admiration for virtue and zero desire to be virtuous, just so you can sucker people into trusting you, is outrageous. It is the modus operandi of the Flim-Flam man, the charlatan.
That is part of what I had in mind. And also LB's usage. I see it as espousing and feigning adherence to some virtue/value/principle while not practicing it.
My current "favorite" is the way the right espoused the principle of federalism when that suited its segregation interests but tossed federalism aside when its interests were better served by usurping the states' rights to manage marriage. Conversely the left's sudden affection for federalism when it comes to marriage. Hypocrisy.
FWIW, I happened upon this in my travels:
<<With the purpose of measuring the degree of sinfulness attributable to this vice [hypocrisy], St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that we must carefully differentiate its two elements: the want of goodness, and the pretence of having it. If a person be so minded as definitely to intend both things, it is of course obvious that he is guilty of grievous sin, for that is only another way of saying that a man lacks the indispensable righteousness which makes him pleasing in the sight of God. If, however, the hypocrite be occupied rather with successfully enacting the role he has assumed, then, even though he be in mortal sin at the time, it will not always follow that the act of counterfeiting is itself a mortal sin.
>>
newadvent.org |
