Confucius's village worthies: hypocrites as thieves of virtue

Sung, W. (2020). Confucius's village worthies: hypocrites as thieves of virtue. Bloomsbury Academic.

[...] the village worthies for outwardly acting in ways that people commonly regard as moral but inwardly lacking the relevant virtuous character that substantiates their behaviours. 乡愿表面的行动是道德的，实际缺乏德性。

乡愿是一种特别的伪君子hypocrite，专注于please others。

有一些伪君子是内外不一致的【这类伪君子涉及truth问题, p.3】，而乡愿这种类型的伪君子则是变色龙chameleon，徒有其表。

Gabriele Tayor's notions of the person of integrity: 人的integrity在于identity，即what is truely hers.  On such an understanding of integrity, one who lacks integrity is someone whose actions or words do not reflect the kind of person she really is. 

乡愿并没有自己的身份identification。They do not anything that they actually identify with, and hence do not have what is truly theirs. 他们没有真实的自我。【海德格尔的常人？】他们只反映了他人的价值观。

对于人际关系而言，不可能与乡愿建立起真诚的人际关系，因为其毫无真实自我可言。

孔子认为，乡愿有害于moral system。由于乡愿以其观众的喜好为中心，所以他们比真正的有德者更加吸引人。（p. 4）他们的作为混淆和削弱了道德判断。乡愿只和公共意见站在一起，从而在某些道德境况中忽视了对公众意见的批判。（p. 4）

真正的君子委身于道德标准，他们有自己的委身和自我认同（身份）。因此，独立于他人的意见。【人不知而不愠，不亦君子乎】乡愿则是一种类型的小人，拥有加强的心理技能。乡愿虽说在乎他人（观众）的喜好，但是他实际上并不关心他人，而是在乎自己——在乎他人如何评价自己。（p. 6）

对乡愿的讨论，其实也反映出儒家如何看待integrity。为了拥有integrity，人必须拥有自我认同identification。孔子的基本观点： one needs to at least have her own take on things in order to satisfying the minimal condition for having integrity.