Hufflepuff Cynicism on Hypocrisy

As you say, there are certainly negative things that hypocrisy can be a signal of, but you recommend that we should just consider those things independently. I think trying to do this sounds really really hard. If we were perfect reasoners this wouldn't be a problem; the anti-hypocrisy norm should indeed just be the sum of those hidden signals. However, we're not; if you practice shutting down your automatic anti-hypocrisy norm, and replace it with a self-constructed non-automatic consideration of alternatives, then I think you'll do worse sometimes.

This has sort of a "valley of bad rationality" feel to me; I imagine trying to have legible, coherent thoughts about alternative considerations while ignoring my gut anti-hypocrisy instinct, and that reliably failing me in social situations where I should've just gone with my instinct.

I notice the argument I'm making applies generally to all "override social instinct" suggestions, and I think that you should sometimes try to override your social instincts -- but I do think that there's huge valleys of bad rationality near to this, so I'd take extreme care about it. My guess is I think you should override them much less than you do -- or I have a different sense of what "overriding" is.

I have several problems with your view.

First, the auxiliary (but still important) one:

We know people have akrasia.

We do? What does this mean, other than “we know people sometimes don’t do the things they claim to want to do”? It’s not like “akrasia” is something we can find in the territory, right? It’s just a (fairly sloppy and probably pretty harmful) part of our map.

Second, the main one:

People can, and do, lie. People can, and do, deliberately deceive us, in small ways and in large ones. People manipulate us. People say or do things that are designed to seem friendly and beneficial to us, but are in fact hostile and harmful to us. People also lie, deceive, and manipulate in order to increase their own status undeservedly—which is a hostile and antisocial act.

Often people do this without quite being conscious of it. Sometimes it’s simply reflexive, born of a lifetime of self-serving habit. Sometimes it’s a matter of self-deception, or doublethink—deceiving others, after all, is easier if you’ve already deceived yourself. Sometimes it’s a matter of justifying one’s actions to oneself; and there are even cases where it’s a matter of lacking honesty and integrity entirely—having no sense that what you’re doing is wrong.

Hypocrisy is one way in which people do these things—and a very common one. A strong, even violent (figuratively speaking—usually!), immune response to hypocrisy thus protects us from a whole host of harms by hostile agents (whether hostile only in consequence, or in actual intent).

The problem with your view, in essence, is that you seem to be assuming an ecosystem of cooperative-but-imperfect agents. This is unrealistic. I am not claiming that people are mostly evil, or any such thing; I am saying that viewing people as overwhelmingly intending to cooperate with you, but merely having some unfortunate flaws/biases (which, no doubt, they would like to fix)—is a drastically mistaken view. You have to narrow your circle of reference to a very small radius indeed, to safely take this view. (In any social context that includes more than, say, 20 people, you can bet that your view, as I’ve described it, is false; and by the time you get to the triple digits, it is catastrophically false.)

Some examples:

Suppose I give you some advice. You ask me if I take this advice myself; I admit that I do not. Why did I give it, then? Does it apply to you only, and not to me? I should have said that up-front, then, no? What was my motivation in giving you this advice? Was it to help you? Or was it to make myself look knowledgeable, experienced, high-status? On what basis, indeed, do I think that my advice is good? I don’t follow it myself, do I? How good can it be, then—and how can I know? And how, exactly, can you trust any advice I give, if it’s given with such a self-serving motivation?

Suppose I say that everyone should engage in some (allegedly-virtuous) activity. Asked if I do this myself, I admit that I do not—but aver that it is only akrasia that stops me from following my own injunction. Akrasia! How convenient, indeed, to have this all-purpose excuse! And do I plan to ever start doing as I say that everyone should do? Oh, certainly—once I conquer my akrasia, I plan to do all sorts of things. (Growth mindset!) Truly, is “akrasia” the reason? Or is it perhaps that there are costs to doing what I exhort you to do—costs that I, quite rationally, am choosing not to pay—costs that would weaken you, if you paid them, that would sap your time, your energy, your willpower. Or perhaps it’s something else: perhaps I have not really accepted the alleged duty to do the thing I call for, the alleged virtuousness of this act or activity… but if you accept it, then you’re in a double bind: do it, and be harmed thereby, waste your resources; or fail to do it, and be gripped by anxiety that you’re failing to live up to your standards, by disappointment in your “akrasia”, and so on.

Suppose I declare that everyone should do some difficult thing, or abstain from doing some attractive thing; and suppose that I manage (by exploiting various common beliefs and memes about morality and so on) to have it be considered that the course I am advocating is morally praiseworthy. Well, status will attach to me, then, for being a proponent of a difficult, but virtuous, course of action! But if I, myself, do not follow my own advice, then I have gained status for free; I have stolen it. I have elevated myself; and, at least in this case, status is a zero-sum game—and thus I have raised myself up at others’ expense.

This comment is already long; but more examples can be found, and easily. To sum up: you asked:

Have I failed to Chesterton-fence this one?

Yes, yes you have.

I think you're mixing a few questions that seem distinct to me:

1. Are there good reasons to be suspicious of advice that advice giver doesn't follow themselves?

2. Is there a good reason to support social norms against hypocrisy?

3. Are there good reasons to avoid giving advice that I don't follow myself?

@1. I think hypocrisy is always a evidence for the advice being poor. It's not a very strong evidence. If I can easily check sources, reasoning and evaluate results of taking the advice it's probably not worth worrying much about it.

But sometimes it's only evidence you get that social norms allow you to use.

@2. I think so. You might need those norms yourself to get out of situation when social norms don't let you use some other evidence you have.

You might want to keep them in place so that other people who are in situations where they can't use some evidence they have because of social norms to get out.

@3. I think it's ok to offer advice that you don't follow yourself but I try to include a warning for recipient to be more cautious if they try to follow it[0].

[0] Assume I want the recipient to do well.

I think the generalised flinching away from hypocrisy in itself, is mainly a status thing. Of the explanations for hypocrisy given.

• Deception
• Lack of will power
• Inconsistent thinking

None of them are desirable traits to have in allies (at least visible to other people).

I think there is a near/far thing going on here. If someone tells you to do something, then this gives you more evidence about their far mode beliefs. If someone does something, then it gives you more evidence about their near mode beliefs. If near and far beliefs disagree, which should we trust?

I think you're missing a key element. It's not hypocrisy if it's acknowledged and explained. The norm is against hidden or unexplained variance between word and deed, not against the variance itself.

Nobody's going to think twice if you say "I don't have a licence because Y, which doesn't apply to you and you should probably get one". Only if you say "getting a license is great and worth sacrificing for, but I haven't bothered" will people notice the apparent contradiction and downweight your opinion (and possibly judge you poorly).

One reason for the anti-hypocrisy norm which I do find more concerning is that an inconsistency between words and actions is a good indicator of dishonesty, so a norm against it may be a significant safeguard against liars.

It may not be intentional dishonesty. It may be simply an indication of incompetence, or even just an indication that your advice on the topic isn't informed by experience. But without an believable explanation of the discrepancy, it's absolutely correct to follow the norm of being suspicious of advice if the giver doesn't follow it themselves.

Separately from all my other comments on this topic, I’d like to mention a form of “hypocrisy” which is not best understood by treating the “hypocrite” as a hostile agent. (My reason for using the scare quotes will become clear shortly.)

Suppose I say: “Everyone should do X.” But I, myself, do not do X. This, clearly, is hypocrisy.

On the other hand, suppose I say: “People of group A should do X.” I, myself, am not in group A; and I do not do X. Is this hypocrisy? No, because my words do not imply that I should do X, and so my failure to do X does not constitute a divergence between my words and my actions.

But now suppose that it is impolitic to say “People of group A should do X.” Perhaps this is because the concept that there is this group A, which is different from people not in group A, is a politically incorrect concept. Or perhaps it’s because labeling people as belonging to group A is seen as insulting—or, relatedly, because claiming to not be a part of group A is seen as arrogant, or offensive, etc.

(Software engineering example: “Scrum is a good methodology for bad programmers.” Here the claim is that people in the group “bad programmers” should use Scrum. “And do you use Scrum?” “Of course not; I am not a bad programmer.” This is likely to raise some hackles.)

Now, one has two choices, in such a case. One may simply not make the claim at all. This avoids the problem—but wait; the original motivation for saying “People of group A should do X.” was, presumably, a sense that it’s important to cause people of group A to do X. Staying silent fails to accomplish this goal!

So, instead, one says: “Everyone should do X.” This avoids the problem of speaking in an impolitic way—but at a cost: one runs the risk of being labeled a hypocrite. (And, unfortunately, in practice—especially in cases where the “everyone should do X” rule is being proposed as a formal rule, as official policy—the result of the hypocrisy norm is that now everyone really is obliged to do X… even though X may be unhelpful, or even detrimental, to those not in group A.)

In this case, “hypocrisy” is not quite the right concept, because the alleged “hypocrite” is merely trying to avoid a flawed pattern of social status assignment (i.e. the fact that saying “People of group A should do X.” is impolitic). The “hypocrite” is genuinely trying to do good, to benefit everyone; that he has no desire to incur a social cost for doing so, is quite understandable, and not at all blameworthy. (Attempting to fight the pattern, to try to change it, would, of course, be supererogatory—but it can hardly be said to be obligatory.)

Related to all of this, of course, is the concept of “one must first know the rules, and then may break them”.

Thinking more about this, I'm still pretty sure I'm staying in the "boo hypocrisy" camp. But I'd like to understand the alternative you're proposing, and what effects you're looking to promote by removing the bias against it.

Do you want to see more hypocrisy than you're currently seeing? Are you not getting enough advice from people who aren't speaking from experience?

Alternatively, do you feel that you're being thwarted in giving advice, because it prevents you from advising on topics you haven't experienced yourself?

Or some other change in behavior (yours or others) you'd like to see?

For any of these, there may be more direct changes that you or your group of friends could make than trying to change a societal norm which at least some (including me) believe is a good default position.

I think I'm talking about a different concept than you are talking about. Here's what I take to be hypocrisy that is probably/definitely bad:

When someone's brain is really good at selective remembering and selective forgetting, remembering things so they are convenient, and forgetting things that are inconvenient. And when the person is either unconsciously or only semi-consciously acting as an amplifier of opinions, sensing where a group is likely to go and then pushing (and often overshooting) the direction in order to be first to score points. This is where flip-flopping gets its bad reputation. At the extreme the person may fail to distinguish, in terms of mental motions, between what is their actual opinion vs. what opinion they expect to earn praise.

Some of these may not always come together but I think they often do, and the common theme is self-deception and little introspection. For instance, something many people do without noticing: Everyone's opinions fluctuate over time; sometimes you feel lukewarm about an idea, at other times you're an ardent supporter. If it later turns out that the idea was great, you remember mostly the times you supported it. If it turns out the idea was absolutely horrible, you're tempted to specifically remember this one 2-week window half a year before the idea fell out of fashion where you felt lukewarm about it and voiced doubts to someone (or were "almost" going to do that), and you then tell yourself and others that "you called it" even though, in reality, you totally failed to pay attention to your doubts.

Another example: You fail to understand or spot a good idea when you first hear it, then later once the context makes it more obvious that the idea was great, it occurs to you and you think it's entirely your own idea, so much so that you'd enthusiastically tell it to the person you first heard it from. (Often this is innocent, but if it happens an uncanny number of times maybe it's a reason to start paying attention.)

I think this type of hypocrisy hinders self growth, can prevent the right people from getting credit and amplifies group biases. So I'd say it's very bad. But norms against hypocrisy have to be careful because it's something that everyone might have to some degree, and the costs of enforcing norms need to be kept smaller than the actual problem. Keeping score or arguing over whose memory about something is right can create an atmosphere with effects just as bad as extreme hypocrisy itself. Sometimes hypocrisy is fueled by a desire to be held in high regard, and then being accused of hypocrisy may also worsen the mechanisms at work.

It seems to me that this habit is universal in American culture, and I'd be surprised (and intrigued!) to hear about any culture where it isn't.

I live in Austria. I would say we do have norms against hypocrisy, but your example with the drivers license seems absurd to me. I would be surprised (and intrigued!) if agreement with this one in particular is actually universal in American culture. In my experience, hypocrisy norms are for moral and crypto-moral topics.

For normies, morality is an imposition. Telling them of new moral requirements increases how much they have to do things that suck to stay a good person. From this perspective, the anti-hypocrisy norm is great. If people don't follow the new requirement they suggest (or can be construed as not doing so), you get to ignore it without further litigation.

Now the classical LW position is that thats wrong, and that you ought to be glad someone informed you how much good you can do by giving away large fractions of your income, because this gave you the opportunity to do so. Because you ought to believe morality in your heart. From this perspective, the anti-hypocrisy norm is useless. It might also be why the drivers license example is a natural fit for you: its all "advice" to you. If you've failed to Chestertons fence, I think its this previous step where it happened.

I feel I flinch away from hypocrisy because allowing it seems to nudge us towards world states that I find undesirable. Consider a malicious version of hypocrisy through the lens of the diner's dilemma: Transitioning meat-eaters reluctantly order tofu salads, while the vocal vegan gets themselves a steak. I imagine that in a subsequent outing, at least some of the carnivores break their resolve, seeing their duplicitous comrade tuck into a bucket of chicken wings. Eventually, no one cares to take the signalling action; preferably, though, perhaps they eject the offending member from the party.

I think, though, that the free rider problem probably better reflects my beef: Hypocrisy is one of those things where one can get something for nothing, but the getting sort of depends on most other parties believing that everyone involved is getting something for something. Then someone notices that one can in fact get something for nothing, and proceeds to jump on that gravy train; soon, we reach a critical mass of someones getting somethings for nothing, while the other ones really have to work overtime to keep the lights on. This is unsustainable*, and leads to a complete breakdown of the community that was built.

To give this concreteness, I sometimes think about some of the arguments against a rapid expansion of the EA movement, especially with regards to signalling.

*(except maybe in a world with Superman, where he could just power everything, if it eventually came down to it)

It feels like a red herring to focus on anti-hypocrisy norms. As you mentioned, the current norms are something like, "Hypocrisy is bad, don't trust hypocrites, and you can publicly call someone out on being a hypocrite".

Someone being hypocritical should not be a make or break data-point that effects whether or not I believe them. It should effect how much epistemic effort I put into the interaction. Detecting hypocrisy should be a signal of, "It's possible something fishy could be going on, so I'm going to bring more mental resources to the table."

So I definitely don't think that someone should ignore hypocrisy.

I'm unsure about the consequences of doing away with the social norm of being able to use hypocrisy as a defensible reason to not listen to someone. I don't encounter a lot of adversarial situations, and thus am not very emotionally compelled by needing socially defensible out.

This post made me update moderately towards comfort with hypocrisy.

That said, I think it's important that advice cannot be merely completed, but the advice-receiver will also have akratic issues etc. If you haven't got a license, the amount of value you've gotten from having a license is zero. If you have made any attempts to get one (maintaining it as a todo, some first driving lessons), you're in the red as far as the getting a license project goes.

Without highlighting distinguishing features between the advice-giver and advice-receiver, I think it's a reasonable application of outside view to expect similar outcomes.

This doesn't really feel like it would cause the emotional valence of hypocrisy, which makes it seem more likely that it's an anti-cheating tool.

By the way, I don't really discuss hufflepuff cynicism in the post itself, and I was a little conflicted about whether to put it in the title. However, I do think the view here is quite central to hufflepuff cynicism. Hufflepuff cynicism is about not holding people to their stated ideals. It's almost the same thing as not being down on hypocrisy!

I'm far closer to thinking hufflepuff cynicism is bad, though, than I am to thinking this view on hypocrisy is wrong. Hufflepuff cynicism can block corrective measures in a community stuck in a bad equilibrium, because it encourages living with the state of things if you don't see a definite route to change. It can also make you fail to help others become stronger when they would have been receptive, or make you withhold advice on the mistaken assumption that it would come across as criticism. My view on hypocrisy has none of those problems.

On the other hand, I could see being convinced that the reason I tend toward hufflepuff cynicism is because I have too much patience for hypocrisy. If I also decided hufflepuff cynicism is really bad, then my position would be something like: flinching away from hypocrisy may not exactly be epistemically hygienic, but the norm is so important overall that it's worth the cost.

I like when the advisor has lived or done the thing advised. That means the advisor has paid for it - be it with time, money, effort, feeling or most expensively, people. This doesn't tell me that I personally will benefit from doing the same thing, it just tells me the thing was once judged to be worth it. Dishonesty adds that this was a mistake.