The primary point of the hypocrisy is to reduce the amount that you actually spend helping others, for a given level of professed ideals.
Sorry, I wasn't getting what you were saying.
People are hypocritical to send the signal that they are more altruistic than they are? I suppose some do. Do you really think most people are consciously hypocritical on this score?
I've wondered as much about a lot of peculiar social behavior, particularly the profession of certain beliefs - are most people consciously lying, and I just don't get the joke? Are the various crazy ideas people seem to have, where they seem to fail on epistemic grounds, just me mistaking what they consider instrumentally rational lies for epistemic mistakes?
Wedrifid is not ignorant enough to think that most people are consciously hypocritical. Being consciously hypocritical is very difficult. It requires a lot of coordination, a good memory and decent to excellent acting skills. But as you may have heard, "Sincerity is the thing; once you can fake that you've got it made." Evolution baked this lesson into us. The beliefs we profess and the principles we act by overlap but they are not the same.
If you want to read up further on this go to social and cognitive psychology. The primary insights for me ...
Here's the new thread for posting quotes, with the usual rules: