The Specter of Hypocrisy

“Raphael Sassower’s timely reflection on the manifold complexity of hypocrisy could not be more necessary. His consideration of the implication of falsehoods across multiple registers of life is required reading.”

—Michael E. Sawyer, Colorado College, USA, and author of Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X (2020)


“In our age of 'phony news' and of the 'post-factual’, Raphael Sassower's new intervention takes on the notion of hypocrisy to not only challenge the current political scene, but more importantly and with more long-lasting reverberations, to challenges the very borders of moral philosophy.”


—Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg, Director of the Pembroke Center and Professor of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown University, USA


“An intellectual celebration. Sassower’s mastery and depth of research into psychological, psychoanalytic, social, moral, philosophical, and religious theories of hypocrisy is breath-taking. The book is a must-read.”


—Nathaniel Laor, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Philosophy, Tel Aviv University, Israel, and Clinical Professor in the Child Study Center, Yale University, USA

Raphael Sassower examines the concept of hypocrisy for its strategic potential as a means of personal protection and social cohesion. Given the contemporary context of post-truth, the examination of degrees or kinds of hypocrisy moves from the Greek etymology of masks worn on the theater stage to the Hebrew etymology of the color adjustment of chameleons to their environment. Canonical presuppositions about the uniformity of the mind and the relation between intention and behavior that warrant the charge of hypocrisy are critically reconsidered in order to appreciate both inherent inconsistencies in personal conduct and the different contexts where the hypocrisy appears. Sassower considers the limits of analytic moral and political discourses that at timesoverlook the conditions under which putative hypocritical behavior is existentially required and where compromises yield positive results. When used among friends, the charge of hypocrisy is a useful tool with which to build trust and communities.