Tyler Cowen, in Marginal Revolution, finds gold in Robin Hanson's The Cynic's Conundrum. Here's a choice nugget:
Interpreted as extreme claims, such as that people only care about low motives, or that high functions have no influence on social institutions, cynicism is clearly false. But interpreted in a more graded fashion, such as the fraction of behavior explained by low motives or functions, or the difference between claimed motives and real motives, cynical beliefs clearly tend to contain a lot of truth.
The conclusion:
... while hypocrisy and low motives probably are in fact much more widespread than most people acknowledge, most people are well-advised to pretend that they believe otherwise.
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