Political Hypocrisy
By David Runciman
Princeton, $29.95 (£17.95)

François de La Rochefoucauld, the French essayist, reached near the heart of the matter when he said: “Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.” There are artificial virtues, such as refraining from telling lies, that are not obvious moral imperatives but that are important in facilitating the working of society. Similarly, political hypocrisy is not a first-order vice like cruelty or hard-heartedness. Carried to excess it can poison political discourse. But, like telling lies, it can be a lesser evil.