Does hypocrisy matter? The case of US foreign policy

Abstract

US foreign policy is hypocritical in various ways, as this article demonstrates in the course of an extensive empirical review. The question is whether such hypocrisy provides grounds for opposing US interventions abroad, in particular those which might yield locally desirable outcomes at an acceptable human cost. This article examines the question from the standpoint of a non-pacifist liberal universalism and concludes (on consequentialist grounds) that the hypocritical character of US foreign policy cannot constitute sufficient grounds for rejecting all US interventions. Nevertheless, the hypocrisy of the US remains noteworthy and deserving of criticism even in such cases because of the wider damage hypocritical behaviour can do. Moreover, US foreign policy hypocrisy sometimes sets in motion reactions that confound the benign purposes of particular interventions and so undermine the case for them. Such an effect is at work in the case of recent US intervention in the Middle East.

Inspiring Youth Sustainability Leadership: Six Elements of a Transformative Youth Eco-Retreat

“…On the other hand, they expose a contradiction within the environmental movement that may be viewed as hypocritical. Hypocrisy generally has negative implications; it undermines trust, tarnishes the values and goals portrayed by a leader, and encourages cynicism in others (Finnemore, 2009;Glaser, 2006). But worse than that, hypocrisy diminishes opportunities for learning and emulation (Bandura, 1986).…”

Legal Hypocrisy

“…It is the use of hypocrisy which muffled the demands of the Southern Black threatened with lawless violence; the woman who complains about the marital rape exception to be met with a lack of interest in “technicalities”; the litigant complaining that a decision alters, without acknowledgement, the legal standard; or the Nicaraguan who complains about U.S. foreign policy met with a public slogan that America supports democracies (Glaser , 256–8). These examples reveal that the suffocation of the victim’s voice is not merely the effect of hypocrisy but often its very point.…”

The ethics of diplomatic criticism: The Responsibility to Protect, Just War Theory and Presumptive Last Resort

“…Indeed, much of the intuitive force of what seems to be the independent moral wrongness of hypocrisy concerns not the hypocrisy in itself , but rather the substantive failure to meet the requirements of morality, such as by wrongfully supporting dictators or by invading other states. For instance, critics of US hypocrisy often attempt to expose substantially bad acts or omissions ( Glaser, 2006 : 263), such as its violation of rights in Guantanamo Bay or failure to intervene in Rwanda. It is not the inconsistency per se that is wrong here, but rather the substantive failure to do what should be done.…”

“…Third, if hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue, then hypocrisy can, on occasion, help to reinforce norms. This is particularly so when the hypocrisy is unexposed ( Glaser, 2006 : 262). Fourth, in asserting and potentially strengthening the norm, hypocritical criticism provides a means by which others can criticise the hypocrite when the hypocrisy is exposed.…”