The merits of hypocrisy

An interesting interview with Jeremy Lott, the author of a new book, "Defending Hypocrisy".


After interviewing a number of people about it and thinking the issue through, I decided that we should defend hypocrisy for a couple of reasons.

One, it usually forces us to hide and restrain some of our darker impulses in order to keep up appearances.

Two, it creates moral wiggle room for people to acknowledge the right thing—or speculate about what the right thing might be—even if they don't always do that thing.