You’ve had a long day at work and come home wanting to unwind. You decide to scroll through your social media just to pass some time. It’s not long until you see a post from a friendly acquaintance from your college days: “If you’re not fucking furious about [recent tragedy], then you’re part of the problem.” You can’t help but compare yourself with them and ask if you should be angrier.
You push the thought away, determined to relax this evening. You continue scrolling and see a distant familiar has changed their profile picture to have a filter with the phrase “I stand with X group.” You can’t help but roll your eyes, remembering that your distant familiar has done little to stand with X group and has used dark and “edgy” jokes in the past where X group was the punchline. You try not to get too irritated and continue scrolling.
You see a post from a major corporation displaying the flag of a minority group with the phrase, “Human rights are non-negotiable at [major corporation].” And that does it; you know that said corporation has done little for this group and has actively worked against them in the past. You’re now upset and scowling at your phone, getting ready to type an angry comment to call them out on their hypocrisy. The hope for a relaxing evening before bed is now forgotten.
This scenario is something many of us who use social media have experienced to some degree. The above are all instances of what we philosophers refer to as virtue signaling. While there is some disagreement on how exactly to define the specifics of virtue signaling, let’s say any action with the aim of increasing one’s perceived moral status counts as virtue signaling. Here, I want to offer some practical guidance by suggesting an attitude one can adopt when dealing with signaling, namely, the attitude of charitable critique. Specifically, I argue that this attitude is useful online in cases discussing structural injustice.
Philosophers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke kicked off much of the discussion on signaling, which they call moral grandstanding, arguing that it distorts the proper function of moral discourse. For them, signaling is outright dangerous for a worthwhile public square. Barbara Applebaum similarly argues that many expressions of anti-racism by white people ultimately fail to challenge racist structures and simply serve to reinforce “white innocence.” In contrast, Neil Levy argues that virtue signaling is virtuous and can help solve big social problems, things that require coordination like climate change or police reform. Similarly, Evan Westra adds that signalers often keep themselves in check because they want to be seen as credible, which limits the worst cases of attention-seeking. Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò proposes a more nuanced view and focuses on a specific subtype of signaling, namely vice signaling, which is flaunting the moral standards of an out-group in order to impress an in-group. This can build solidarity and cement opposition groups but also deepen polarization and disconnect people from their in-group’s actual values.
All of this work is sharp and insightful. And yet, I cannot help thinking something crucial is lacking in the debate: how do we practically navigate our encounters with virtue signaling?
At first, one might just embrace the persistent presence of online virtue signaling. If anything, signaling virtue would at least mean that people recognize virtuous attitudes and could partake of them. However, I am quite skeptical of this attitude, not only for how annoyed I personally get at virtue signaling but because it is just not clear whether signaling actually contributes to addressing injustice at all. For instance, Elaine Wallace studied the relationship between conspicuous virtue signaling (CVS), one’s need for uniqueness (NFU), and effective activism. She found that NFU predicts CVS, is fueled by wanting to impress but stand apart from others, and that “competition between individuals may induce participation in prosocial activities that may have little public benefit but high public visibility.”
Then, if embracing virtue signaling is wrong, we might just disparage it. When we discover that someone is signaling, we ought to expose them and condemn their character. While this might look like an enticing option, I think there are two reasons to resist it. Firstly, whether we would like to admit it or not, signaling can often make moral discourse extremely popular. Christopher Boulton discusses the case of Kony 2012, the viral 2012 documentary with the alleged goal of drawing attention to the many human rights violations of Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony and ultimately bring him to justice. While the documentary and its associated campaign were rightfully criticized for being mired in misinformation, Boulton mentions that the campaign managed to make moral discourse “cool”—without this cool factor, many young folks would not have participated in any moral discourse at all. For many young folks, this was their first introduction to the idea that moral discourse can reach a massive scale—something quite valuable in itself.
Secondly, disparagement is exhausting and psychologically unsustainable, at least online (take this from someone who has had episodes of being chronically online). When we disparage signaling in others, we make moral discourse a type of policing in which we become online detectives. Instead of moving on with our day or assuming the best of the alleged signaler, we spend our precious time and energy auditing them, trying to discern their motivations for posting their latest tweet. Disparagement asks us to not only reflect but also investigate our own psyche: “Am I signaling right now? Do I genuinely care about this topic? Is a part of me trying to get clout? Should I not be doing this? Should I be doing more?” I am dubious whether this type of tiring self-questioning can yield results that aren’t biased or a result of some type of rationalization.
Finally, recall that I am concerned with online signaling when it concerns structural injustice. Learning about structural injustice, by its very nature, puts one in contact with depressing content. And rather than any kind of action or further inquiry, such contact may just lead to doomscrolling, where one is just bombarded with an endless stream of disheartening posts, to the detriment of one’s own mental health and with no benefits.
This brings me to the option I would like to propose: the attitude of charitable critique. Charitability is usually understood to mean adopting the arguer’s most plausible interpretation. The reasons for doing so range from politeness to not accidentally engaging in a strawman argument yourself. In the case of charitable critique, “charitability” means something slightly different. It asks one to assume the most plausible intentions of the signaler, both when encountering someone else signaling or when signaling oneself (or when one suspects they might be). That is, when someone signals on social media, charitability asks us to be willing and ready to believe that they legitimately care about the issue. If the signal is particularly self-aggrandizing or insufferable, then it asks us to believe that the signaler is at least not completely motivated by clout but is also motivated by helping others. Regarding ourselves, it encourages us to believe that we have good and noble intentions (as much as is plausible).
This charitability is merciful to oneself and others, unlike the attitude of disparagement. But it also has practical advantages: for oneself, it avoids needless self-questioning that is likely more crippling than motivating; and for others, it potentially disarms them by assuming the best of their intentions before moving on to the critique of charitable critique. While charitability is aimed at the alleged signaler, the critique is aimed at the signal itself. Charitable critique requires a readiness to criticize the effectiveness and efficiency of the signal in resisting structural injustice. By “effectiveness,” I mean whether the signal changes any pernicious social norms. By “efficiency,” I mean whether the signal does so with little-to-no wasted effort. Ideally, the signal would be both, but a signal can be one without the other (e.g., pouring hours of work signaling in one’s MySpace profile might be effective but not as efficient as doing it in a more popular social media platform such as TikTok). If the signal lacks efficiency or effectiveness, then we may be warranted in challenging it (in ourselves or others). In this way, this attitude avoids many of the pitfalls of embracement. This is all done without opening an investigation into the alleged virtue of the signalers themselves (whether that is ourselves or someone else). This all leads me to mention one final strength of this attitude, namely, that it shifts the conversation away from the moral purity of the signaler and back onto whether signaling itself helps those most impacted by structural injustice.
With all of that being said, some might feel that charitable critique is still too lenient on the signaler, letting too many folks “get off the hook.” I admit that there might very well be cases in which this attitude lets self-serving individuals go unchallenged if their signal seems to be effective and efficient in creating social change. Nonetheless, I suspect that (most of the time) energy spent investigating and exposing the false virtue of an online signaler can be better spent in other ways. It can be spent protecting one’s mental health and focusing on whether the practice itself does help the oppressed. I suspect many of us will not make it to the end of life wishing we had spent more time calling people out on social media and less time helping the victims of structural injustice.
Victor F. Abundez-Guerra
Victor F. Abundez-Guerra is a philosopher and educator located in Inglewood, California. His research interests lie in philosophy of race as well as social and political philosophy. He enjoys reading fantasy, hiking, and coaching the Ethics Bowl team at Grossmont College.
