Abstract
According to some, contemporary social psychology is aptly described as a study in moral hypocrisy. In this paper we argue that this is unfortunate when understood as establishing that we only care about appearing to act morally, not about true moral action. A philosophically more interesting interpretation of the “moral hypocrisy”-findings understands it to establish that we care so much about morality that it might lead to (1) self-deception about the moral nature of our motives and/or (2) misperceptions regarding what we should or should not do in everyday or experimental situations. In this paper we argue for this claim by elaborating on a fascinating series of experiments by Daniel Batson and his colleagues who have consistently contributed to the moral hypocrisy findings since the late nineties, and showing in what way they contribute to a better understanding of moral agency, rather than undermine the idea that we are moral agents.
Highlights
Moral principles such as Byou should alleviate suffering when possible^ are regularly exchanged in explaining and justifying our actions and practices
Rather the aim of this paper is to argue that contrary to how social psychologist tend to frame their findings, our desire to appear to act morally should not be perceived of as undermining or contrary to Btrue moral agency.^ That framing sticks to a portrayal of moral agency that fails to appreciate its complex and interesting nature so well captured by the Bmoral hypocrisy^-experiments themselves
The first assumption is that we only act Btruly moral^ when we act in accordance with moral principles made explicit or affirmed beforehand
Summary
Moral principles such as Byou should alleviate suffering when possible^ are regularly exchanged in explaining and justifying our actions and practices. I conclude that what the experiments show is that articulating a principle as Bmoral^ suffices to influence people substantially even if we do not and should not accept that principle in our everyday practice This is in line with the observation of Batson and his colleagues that we care enormously about appearing to act morally, but abandons, as I will explain, their narrow interpretation of what it means to truly act morally. Since we know coins do not cheat, we can infer that part of the participants made use of the available elbowroom, that is, they take POS regardless of the outcome of the coin This was affirmed in a follow-up of the experiment in which Batson and his colleagues found that those cheating—those who did not observe the outcome of the toss—rated their action as more moral than those who assigned themselves the positive task without cheating. I criticize the two assumptions in Section 3, let first me discuss ECP
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