I would be worried that the hypocrite is intellectually dishonest or ~incapable of tracking reality, though. If they’re just being dishonest, why should you expect to have ‘consequential arguments’ with them later?
The broader public also does a poor job of enforcing their sense of who is and isn’t legitimate.
In contrast, someone with different values (but who is actually adhering to those values) at least has the basic machinery to follow through on their word, which means that, conditional on them professing to have their mind changed, it will have been changed (unlike the hypocrite).
In a real life scenario (I imagine we’re thinking of politics?), I support the hypocrite, but mostly because I don’t expect anyone to change their mind anyway (at least not for reasons that look like ‘having been convinced’), and my baseline expectation is for reptilian levels of dishonesty.
But maybe I’m misunderstanding the case you have in mind—can you say more?
I would be worried that the hypocrite is intellectually dishonest or ~incapable of tracking reality, though. If they’re just being dishonest, why should you expect to have ‘consequential arguments’ with them later?
The broader public also does a poor job of enforcing their sense of who is and isn’t legitimate.
In contrast, someone with different values (but who is actually adhering to those values) at least has the basic machinery to follow through on their word, which means that, conditional on them professing to have their mind changed, it will have been changed (unlike the hypocrite).
In a real life scenario (I imagine we’re thinking of politics?), I support the hypocrite, but mostly because I don’t expect anyone to change their mind anyway (at least not for reasons that look like ‘having been convinced’), and my baseline expectation is for reptilian levels of dishonesty.
But maybe I’m misunderstanding the case you have in mind—can you say more?