伪君子的脑子里在想什么?

Tim Murphy, recently resigned from PA District 18, got elected to Congress in 2003—to a great extent by claiming to be pro-life. Yet it emerged last month that he encouraged his mistress to have an abortion during a pregnancy scare. Shetexted himon October 3: “And you have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place when you had no issue asking me to abort our unborn child just last week when we thought that was one of the options.”

Scott DesJarlais is another “pro-life” Congressman. Yet he supported his ex-wife’s two abortions and, when he was a doctor, pressed apatienthe slept with to have an abortion (during an unfounded scare). His hypocrisyemergedin 2012.

Given what theysay在美国，这些人似乎一直认为他们鼓励了自己的婚外伴侣实施谋杀。但他们似乎也不太可能真的这样看待自己。那么，这些伪君子到底在想些什么呢?

We won’t ever know for sure in these particular cases, but I think it’s worth distinguishing two strikingly different possibilities concerning the psychology that might underlie hypocritical behavior. I’ll continue with the Murphy / DesJarlais examples, but I also think the models are much more general.

Model 1: The Craven Liar.根据这个模型，当伪君子说“堕胎是谋杀”或“我相信每个胚胎都是完整的人类生命”之类的话时，他并没有表达他(或她，在其他情况下)的真实想法。相反，为了政治利益，他在自己的想法上撒了谎。他的真实想法和他说的话完全不相符。Rather, his knowledge aboutotherpeople’s beliefs guides his deception of them.

在Craven Liar(懦夫骗子)模型中，对于像Murphy或DesJarlais这样的“反堕胎”倡导者为什么会鼓励伴侣堕胎，这一点并不令人困惑，因为这种伪君子无论如何都不认为胚胎是一个人。他的反堕胎言论和鼓励堕胎都是蓄意的剥削。对于胆小的骗子来说，只有别人注意到才会有问题。

Murphy和DesJarlais可能只是懦弱的骗子。但在我们得出这个结论之前，让我们考虑一下另一个模型。

模式2:相信是假装的。I recently saw a play calledThe Christians, a play that, among other things, conveys the theatrical nature of much preaching. A preacher is, in part, adopting a persona, performing a role, with the congregation as audience (which also plays a role). There’s no doubt that in playing the roles they play, many actual preachers are overcome with sincere emotion. But much of the time, they are not so much saying what they straightforwardly think as they are expressingreligious credences, which areimaginativestates that constitute a major part of one’s identity. After the play, I heard an actor who happened to be in the audience say that it made him realize the theatrical nature of preaching in general. “I never realized it,” he said, “but they’re doing the same thing we do.” That is: acting.

On the Credence as Make-Believe model, men like Murphy and DesJarlais would have thereligious credencethat embryos are full-fledged humans, and they may express this credence with great absorption, especially in the presence of those inclined to do the same.

But their verbal utterances to the effect that abortion is murder are imaginative utterances in a game of make-believe that they don’t consciously realize is make-believe. This lack of realization differentiates them from the Craven Liars. They don’tknowthey’re playing make-believe, because what they pretend is part of how they internally define themselves. The mechanisms of make-believe operate in absence of conscious awareness, guiding their sanctimonious behavior in drone-like ways until their hypocrisy causes them to fall in a ditch (think of Sartre’s waiter, if you know that passage).

反堕胎的信念，就像其他的想象状态一样，是由特定的社会环境决定的:它们在身份表现的情况下引导行为——但在其他情况下就不那么重要了(当小三有怀孕惊吓时就不那么重要了)。就像演员走上舞台时，他(她)的想象会浮现在脑海中一样，虚伪的“反堕胎”政客走上政治讲台后，他(她)的信任也会浮现在脑海中。Pro-life political credences are a special case of the general phenomenon of religious credence, which, I haveoftenargued，与事实信仰是不一样的。

Are religious credences genuine “beliefs”? I’m often asked this question, and my response is always the same: the question just replicates the ambiguity I’m seeking to dispel. The word “belief,” as it’s used in everyday speech,canandoften doesrefer to religious credences, which is why it would be misleading to say religious credences aren’t “genuine beliefs.” But that linguistic fact is entirely consistent with my view that the psychological properties of religious credences are starkly different from those of factual belief. (You can also check out an earlierblogof mine for some discussion of this matter.) In any case, we can be sure that someone with the religious credences that embryos are full humans won’t always (or even often) act in ways someone would who factually believed that same content.

Though we won’t ever know for sure whether DesJarlais and Murphy are Craven Liars or Credence as Make-Believers, it remains true that, whatever they are, the two psychological models are different. And the Credence as Make-Believe model does a better job, I think, of explaining why hypocrisy often continues long after it’s discovered. The Craven Liar knows he doesn’t think what he says is true, so he is apt to switch to a different scam when his hypocrisy is revealed. But the Credence as Make-Believer believes in belief, as Dan Dennett wouldput it, and hence his game of make-believe, which is ever at risk of sliding into hypocrisy, is more likely to continue.

在这一点上，不仅他们投了票，蒂姆·墨菲和斯科特·德贾莱也投了票co-sponsorson Congress’s recently passed H.R. 36, which outlawed abortion after 20 weeks (Senate will consider the bill next). Murphy has resigned due to his scandal and stepped down from Congress on October 21. DesJarlais still represents Tennessee’s 4th Congressional district and appears to have no plans to retire soon.