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virtue signalling
(noun)
the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.
At this point, a critic might object that status-seeking only motivates the appearance of virtue, and not virtue itself.
Because virtue signalers only care about creating the impression that they are morally good, they will be motivated to take actions designed to maintain that impression, rather than the actions that would actually warrant their neighbors’ high moral esteem.
In short, the motivations underlying virtue signaling seem to incentivize moral hypocrisy. This objection misconstrues the relationship between virtue signaling and changing moral behavior.
The principal utility of virtue signaling, on my account, is not that it motivates the virtue signalers themselves to adopt new norms (though, as we shall see shortly, it does that as well):
it is that widespread virtue signaling creates social expectations among members of the virtue signaler’s audience, which in turn motivates the adoption of and conformity to social norms; when conformity with those norms aligns with one’s moral goals (as in our flight shame example), this creates an incentive for moral behavior.
‘Wait,’ our critic might respond, ‘you said yourself that conformity to social norms depends on both normative and empirical expectations. This means that virtue signalers’ behavior really does matter.
If virtue signalers do not actually conform to the norms they publicly commit to, their signaling alone will not be enough to sustain people’s empirical expectations.
So as long as virtue signaling incentivizes hypocrisy rather than genuine moral commitment, it can’t help much with establishing new norms.’ It is true that if people do not believe that enough members of their reference network are conforming to a norm, they will not conform to it either.
But there are a number of forces operating within the realm of public moral discourse that push virtue signalers towards behaving in line with their claims.
Central among these is the charge of hypocrisy itself: if a person very obviously fails to practice what they preach, their moral reputation will inevitably suffer, as people generally do not think highly of hypocrites.
We see an elegant example of this phenomenon in the ‘This you?’ meme that began to appear on social media feeds during the spring of 2020, when the police killing of George Floyd sparked Black Lives Matter protests across the United States and around the world.
As expressions of support for the Black Lives Matter movement spread across the internet, some individuals and corporate entities that tried to opportunistically virtue signal about their newfound commitment to racial justice were instead met with reminders of their own racist behaviors and policies, along with a simple question: ‘This you?’
Thus, these hypocritical virtue signalers ultimately achieved the opposite of their intended goal: instead of enhancing their moral reputations, they were publicly called out and held to account.
And far from being fooled by their empty gestures, the virtue signalers’ intended audience took delight in exposing them as hypocrites. This is not to say that hypocrisy is always called out in such a public manner, or that individuals do not sometimes get away with empty virtue-signaling.
But it does show that hypocritical virtue signaling is a risky social strategy, since it is liable to a form of social sanction. Indeed, this particular form of social sanction – public shaming – can itself be a form of virtue signaling, a way of demonstrating one’s own keen moral instincts.
Thus, virtue signalers are not just kept in check by their audience, but by each other as well. It is thus implausible to claim that virtue signalers are unlikely to practice what they preach, since this kind of behavior would negate whatever reputational benefits the virtue signaler had hoped to accrue in the first place.
Instead, reputation-seeking motives incentivize morally consistent behavior via an indirect route: a person might initially signal commitment to a norm out of a desire for enhanced moral reputation, but then feel compelled to live up to this norm because their public moral expression has made them publicly accountable.
The quoted passages above are from Evan Westra, Virtue Signaling and Moral Progress. References from the original post:
reference & recommendation to read:
Brendan Dill and Stephen Darwall, “Moral Psychology as Accountability,” in Moral Psychology and Human Agency: Philosophical Essays on the Science of Ethics, ed. Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
Jillian J. Jordan, “Why Do We Hate Hypocrites? Evidence for a Theory of False Signaling,” Psychological Science 28, no. 3 (2017)
Dan Sperber and Nicolas Baumard, “Moral Reputation: An Evolutionary and Cognitive Perspective,” Mind and Language
Virtue Signaling and Moral Progress - Evan Westra
Jason’s commentary and subsequent reflections
The very reason why you can't trust so many progressives or so-called progressives in social media is because of this virtue signalling. you don't know whether they stand for the cause truly or not. they claim to do-so that they can take a moral standing. it's similar to how good boys actually are. good boys think they have the moral standing over the bad boys, thus they think they are automatically entitled to get laid just because they provided emotional support and everything. it's not because they are good, it's because they wanted to virtue signal themselves as good.if you are one-remember, you are forever staying in the'friend-zone', my friend. this is the same reason why we had some so-called progressives in social media outed for being sexual perverts and hiding their perverseness under the guise of progressiveness thus virtue signalling themselves.
it's actually funny how the essay on virtue signalling also explains how it applies to boys in friendzone. that's why I say, be you. be raw. be unhinged. speak what you think is right. let people like/love you for who you are.
do not ever have a false facade. you'll end up attracting only few but really. good true friends who'll stay loyal to you.
you'll earn true friends, true relationships. imagine how much helpful it would be for your personal life if you can identify virtue signalling and can also stop virtue signalling. one small change and your life changes.
you have an entire new personality. go and read that entire post on virtue signalling! you need it if you think your life.
needs to change for good.
social media is a powerful tool. use it effectively instead of virtue signalling about things you can have zero impact on. look at the pune porsche case.
son of a powerful man in pune. his son literally bullied another mla's son and the mla's son was changed schools.that's how powerful that guy was. social media brought them to the dust.how.
many corrupt people got caught to save just one 17 yo brat who doesn't deserve to live? their entire family, the grandparents who threatened the driver to take blame, the doctors who changed evidence, the peon who got bribe. social media literally bullied pune police and its machinery to take action and bring them before justice.
this is impact. your performative wokeism showing virtue signalling isn't. look around you.
start talking about things. that matter the most which can change our society into a high trust crime less society. don't be a sheep.
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