When is one a hypocrite? Let's consider some cases.
C1. A man sincerely advocates a high standard of moral behavior, and in the main he practices what he preaches. But on occasion he succumbs to temptation, repents, and resolves to do better next time. Is such a person a hypocrite? Clearly not. If he were, then we would all be hypocrites, and the term 'hypocrite,' failing of contrast, would become useless. A hypocrite cannot be defined as one who fails to practice what he preaches since we all, at some time or other, fail to practice what we preach. An adequate definition must allow for moral failure.
C2. A man sincerely advocates a high standard of behavior, but, for whatever reason, he makes no attempt to live in accordance with his advocacy. Here we have a clear case of a hypocrite.
C3. Let the high standard be sexual purity in thought, word, and deed. Consider now the case of a person, call him Lenny, who does not accept this standard. He has no objection to impure thoughts or pornography or to the sort of locker-room braggadocio in which men like Donald Trump boast of their sexual escapades. But Lenny knows that his neighbor, a Trump supporter, does advocate the high standard that he, Lenny, does not acknowledge.
In an attempt to persuade his neighbor to withdraw his support from Trump, Lenny says to the neighbor, "Look, man, you are appalled by Trump's sexual morality, or lack thereof; how then can you support him?" This is an example of a non-fallacious ad hominem argument. The argument is 'to the man,' in this case the neighbor. It starts with a premise that the neighbor accepts but Lenny does not; the argumentative aim is to expose an inconsistency among the neighbor's beliefs.
Is Lenny a hypocrite? No. He does not accept the neighbor's stringent sexual morality. He thinks it is 'puritanical.' He may even think that it sets the bar so high that no one can attain it, the end result being that people who try to live by the standard are driven to hypocrisy. But Lenny himself is not a hypocrite. For it is not the case that he makes no attempt to live by a moral standard that he sincerely advocates. He does not accept the standard.
C4. Now we come to the most interesting case, that of 'Saul.' Lenny made it clear that he does not accept as objectively morally binding the demand to be pure in thought, word, and deed. Like Lenny, Saul does not accept the moral standard in question. Unlike Lenny, Saul feigns a commitment to it in his interactions with conservatives. Suppose Saul tries to convince Lenny's neighbor to withdraw his support from Trump. Saul uses the same argument that Lenny used. "Look, man, you are appalled by Trump's sexual morality, or lack thereof; how then can you support him?"
Is Saul a hypocrite or not? Not by one definition that suggests itself and that I endorse. On this definition there are two conditions one must satisfy to be a hypocrite: (i) one sincerely advocates a moral standard he believes to be morally obligatory; (ii) one makes little or no attempt to live by the standard. In other words, a hypocrite is a person who makes no attempt to practice what he sincerely preaches and believes to be morally obligatory. Saul does not satisfy condition (i); so, on this definition, Saul is not a hypocrite.
What then is the difference between Saul and Lenny? I have just argued that neither are hypocrites. The difference is that Saul mendaciously feigns a commitment to the moral standard in question. Saul is your typical hard leftist. Such leftists use our morality against us when they themselves have nothing but contempt for it.
It is a mistake to call them hypocrites. They are worse than hypocrites.
I'll leave it to the reader to apply this to the case of Sarah Jeong. See Get Whitey for details.
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