Hill, J., Fanciullo, J.
Synthese 201, 117 (2023).
Abstract
A novel account of virtue signaling and what makes it bad has recently been offered by Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke. Despite plausibly vindicating the folk?s conception of virtue signaling as a bad thing, their account has recently been attacked by both Neil Levy and Evan Westra. According to Levy and Westra, virtue signaling actually supports the aims and progress of public moral discourse. In this paper, we rebut these recent defenses of virtue signaling. We suggest that virtue signaling only supports the aims of public moral discourse to the extent it is an instance of a more general phenomenon that we call norm signaling. We then argue that, if anything, virtue signaling will undermine the quality of public moral discourse by undermining the evidence we typically rely on from the testimony and norm signaling of others. Thus, we conclude, not only is virtue signaling not needed, but its epistemological effects warrant its bad reputation.
Conclusion
In this paper, we have challenged two recent defenses of virtue signaling. Whereas Levy ascribes a number of good features to virtue signaling—its providing higher-order evidence for the truth of certain moral judgments, its helping us delineate groups of reliable moral cooperators, and its not involving any hypocrisy on the part of its subject—it seems these good features are ascribable to virtue signaling ultimately and only because they are good features of norm signaling, and virtue signaling entails norm signaling. Similarly, whereas Westra suggests that virtue signaling uniquely benefits public moral discourse by supporting moral progress in a way that mere norm signaling does not, it seems virtue signaling also uniquely harms public moral discourse by supporting moral regression in a way that mere norm signaling does not. It therefore seems that in each case, to the extent it differs from norm signaling, virtue signaling simply isn’t needed.
Moreover, we have suggested that, if anything, virtue signaling will undermine the higher order evidence we typically can and should rely on from the testimony of others. Virtue signaling essentially involves a motivation that aims at affecting public moral discourse but that does not aim at the truth. When virtue signaling is rampant—when we are aware that this ulterior motive is common among our peers—we should give less weight to the higher-order evidence provided by the testimony of others than we otherwise would, on pain of double counting evidence and falling for unwarranted confidence. We conclude, therefore, that not only is virtue signaling not needed, but its epistemological effects warrant its bad reputation.
