This is a special post for quick takes by Jacob Goldsmith. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
"Hypocrisy" is a get-out-of-jail-free card to criticize someone for something that you're explicitly on the record as not caring about, by arguing that even if you don't care about it, they should. One argument for caring more about another's violations of your moral philosophy than their own: you probably understand your own morals better than you understand theirs.
Here's a relatively common pattern:
Adam publicly advocates for strong legally-enforced animal rights; but privately beats his dog.
Bruce doesn't believe in animal rights, but disapproves of cruelty to pets; he labels Adam a hypocrite.
Adam's claimed morals are more strict than Bruce's on the subject, but Adam's behavior fails both Adam's and Bruce's claimed morals.
In this case, Adam should not get to argue, "Bruce, you don't even believe in animal rights, so you don't get to accuse me of hypocrisy."
Accusations of hypocrisy are pointing out an inconsistency.
They can be correct.
They can be incorrect, by failing to take into account the entire value structure correctly, either by mistake, or on purpose to score a cheap gotcha in a debate; for example: "If you really care about A, how can you do X?" "I do care about A, but I also care (more) about B, therefore X."
I guess they can also be irrelevant if consistency is not among the target's values.