Reading the charges and counter-charges of hypocrisy in the Schiavo case from both sides, I was struck by the relevance of a 1984 book I recently read for a political theory class here: Ordinary Vices by the late political theorist Judith Shklar. She has a chapter on hypocrisy that I think is exceptionally useful for understanding the explosion of hypocrisy charges, particularly in the debate over the Iraq war. Here are two of the most relevant passages:

[F]or while charges of hypocrisy may occur in a context of such moral consensus [ie during war], there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that liberal socities in wartime and postwartime differ from those in peacetime in this respect. The conditions of moral confusion and ideological conflict remain the same. Those who must unmask their opponents are reduced to exposing hypocrisy and attacking their moral and political prestige because, having no shared moral commitments, they cannot reach them directly. (p. 79 of the paperback edition)

…These charges of hypocrisy about war [between just-war theorists and Kantians] become systematic precisely because each side must justify itself to the other in terms of its sincerity, since neither can shake the other’s convictions about the substance of their disagreement — the status of war as such.

There is nothing new about such quarrels. Becket and the barons were already engaged in that sort of conflict. Becket no longer had any use for the notion of war as the noblest sport of gentlemen, while the barons were repelled by the idea of war as the pursuit of royal profit and power. What they lacked in that moment of confrontation was shared moral knowledge of any kind whatever. Each side looked for the psychological soft spot of the other and aimed at that. Then each was accused of hypocrisy, which was merely a failure to live up to its own standards, not a failure to meet mutually recognized obligations.

This is the normal character of political discourse between irreconcilable ideological opponents within societies that are so free that wars can be discussed openly even while they are being waged. In times of such stress, the intensity of recriminations is naturally great. One need only consider what “hawks” and “doves” say to each other. The “dove” routinely accuses the hawk of appealing to military necessity when in fact his party’s economic and political fortunes are his only concern. The “hawk” in turn will work over the dove’s psyche and will expose a moral show-off who covers up a private weakness with fanatic public displays. Since “hawk” and “dove” do not see the same moral scene, they can charitably blame each other for blindness and imbecility, which seems hardly adequate in times of extraordinary tension such as war. Therefore, each tries to dismiss and devalue the other by calling him a hypocrite, whicch is more offensive. Obviously this imputation does not imply shared knowledge, but mutual inaccessibility. In fact, the contempt for hypocrisy is the only common ground that remains, and that is what renders these accusations so effective. (pp. 80-81)

Remarkable stuff — almost eerily prescient about the state of our current debate. It’s important to also note that politicians and pundits routinely manufacture misleading accusations of hypocrisies and double standards, as we frequently documented on Spinsanity.