The Rational Hypocrite: Informal Argumentation and Moral Hypocrisy

The Rational Hypocrite: Informal Argumentation and Moral Hypocrisy Tage S. Rai (tage.rai@gmail.com) Department of Psychology University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA Keith J. Holyoak (holyoak@lifesci.ucla.edu) Department of Psychology University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA Abstract We suggest that in some instances the apparent logical inconsistency of moral hypocrisy stems from different evaluations of a weak argument, rather than dishonesty per se. Extending Corner, Hahn, and Oaksford’s (2006) analysis of slippery slope arguments, we propose that inferences of hypocrisy depend on perceived similarity of actions to previous standards. In Experiment 1, dissimilar actions were rated as less hypocritical than their similar counterparts. If observers are choosing between competing theories (i.e., hypocrisy or legitimate dissimilarity), evidence of self-serving motives will positively support inferences of hypocrisy independent of changes in similarity. In Experiment 2, we manipulated potential self-serving interests that an action would produce while keeping similarity between cases identical. Actions that would result in a beneficial outcome for the actor were seen as more hypocritical than their non- self-serving counterparts. These results support the possibility that Bayesian analyses of weak arguments have implications for assessing moral reasoning. Keywords: moral reasoning; hypocrisy; Bayesian inference; argumentation Introduction “I respect the jury’s verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.” With these words former President George W. Bush commuted the sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Jr., for obstruction of justice and leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. Critics of the decision noted that Libby actually had received the minimum sentence allowable for his offense under the law, and that many of Libby’s supporters, including the Bush administration, were actively pressing for mandatory minimum sentencing laws at a national level (Goodman, 2007). Accordingly, critics of the decision saw it as a textbook case of moral hypocrisy: different rules were being applied to Bush’s underling, Libby, than to everyone else in the United States. As the example illustrates, moral hypocrisy is typically viewed as an ethical accusation: someone is applying different moral standards to essentially identical cases, dishonestly claiming that one action is acceptable whereas otherwise equivalent actions are not (Valdesolo & DeSteno, 2007). In this framework, accusations of hypocrisy entail an inherent logical inconsistency with moral implications, in that the morally hypocritical action is of the same category as previous standards, and therefore should not be treated any differently according to some norm of justice. The assumption (at least implicitly) is that the hypocrite is being dishonest, or at least self-deceptive. The hypocrite must be aware (or should be aware) of the logical inconsistency, and is therefore committing a falsehood (Batson et al., 1997; for a review of hypothesized bases for moral disagreements, see Rai & Fiske, 2011). Although people no doubt sometimes engage in such genuine hypocrisy, there may be an alternative explanation of apparent hypocrisy, one that leaves open the possibility that the (perceived) hypocrite is both honest and rational. This possibility arises as an extension of recent Bayesian analyses of informal argumentation. Hahn and Oaksford (2007) have argued that many seeming fallacies of informal reasoning (e.g., arguments from ignorance, circular arguments, and slippery slope arguments), are not in fact illogical in all cases, but rather are more or less rationally persuasive depending on the content of the argument. For example, Corner, Hahn and Oaksford (2006) analyzed the slippery slope argument, in which a proposed action A is criticized because it may lead to an undesirable outcome B. Corner et al. (2006) argued that such arguments hinge in part on the conditional probability that undesirable outcome B will in fact occur if action A is taken. The conditional probability value, 1 depends in part on the prior probability that action A will expand a category boundary far enough to include B in the future. In general, the greater the perceived similarity of A and B, the greater the probability that including A will expand the category boundaries to incorporate B. For example, the claim that legalizing marijuana use might lead to the eventual legalization of heroin may seem less persuasive than the claim that legalizing cocaine might lead to the legalization of heroin, because heroin seems more similar to cocaine than to marijuana. In general, to the extent the slope in fact seems “slippery” (high similarity of More precisely, the relevant quantity would presumably be a function of the difference between the probability of B conditional on A versus not-A (intuitively, a judgment of the probability that A will causally lead to B).