ABSTRACT
The charge of hypocrisy is levelled at people who send their children to the kind of school they disapprove of. Such behaviour is commonly thought to show some kind of contradiction or inconsistency, a failure to carry through in practice what they (claim to) believe in principle. This first part of the book has considered why one might disapprove of private or selective schools – indeed why one might vote to make such schools illegal. So I’m imagining people who send their kids to schools they believe should not be allowed to exist. As we’ll see in Part II, their doing so may be not merely consistent with their principles but justified too. And that’s so even though they would also be justified in voting to abolish them. A parent will, in some circumstances, be doing right to opt out of the local comp if she can. But she’ll also be doing right to vote to deny herself – and others – that option.
