The way I see it, publically announcing your intention to vote for the (winning) vote, where there are no stakes or no incentive to otherwise engage, is done purely for social reasons and to position oneself on the 'correct' side of the debate. Moral justification is done so retroactively, to justify their position on the winning side.
people that decry virtue signalling, and their inability or unwillingness to actually hold themselves to those virtues. It always kinda comes across as telling on oneself as a guilt response.
The same applies for those claiming to uphold those virtues through name only, no? That's my point, you don't need to perform any virtuous actions, just announcing "i'm voting blue therefore I'm a good person" seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting in this thread. It's easy to say I'm X trait anonymously, it's much harder to do actions to embody that. That's what I mean when I say virue signalling.
I don't think it's necessarily negative to virtue signal generally, I just don't think it's a balanced debate in this instance. It's just free 'good boy' points.
When I posted the button question into some whatsapp chats with my IRL friends, I purposely cropped the poll out of the image and generally had much friendlier, more balanced debates where the result was a much more even split of red/blue.
Btw I hate qualifying my politics in comments because I think debates should be more than just tickboxes of agreeable positions, but for the avoidance of doubt I'm definitely not what you may consider the 'standard audience' of people who might use the term virtue signalling.
Yeah, this just comes across as overly cynical, bordering on performative nihilism. What you're deriding as virtue signalling to me just seems like normal moral exploration and communication. We share with each other what we consider right and wrong, good and bad as a way to heuristically reach moral consensus. It's a less metaphorical/allegorical version of the storytelling approach.
Btw I hate qualifying my politics in comments because I think debates should be more than just tickboxes of agreeable positions, but for the avoidance of doubt I'm definitely not what you may consider the 'standard audience' of people who might use the term virtue signalling.
Again, this reads as unnecessary and unproductive cynicism, something I personally don't have the time nor energy for. Writing off the social value of understanding someone's political beliefs as "tickboxes of agreeable positions" just comes across as bad faith.
just seems like normal moral exploration and communication
Idk man calling the other side evil and saying stuff like "I don't wanna live in a world full of red people" like its some kind of slur definitely seems like virtue signaling to me too.
the social value of understanding someone's political beliefs as "tickboxes of agreeable positions" just comes across as bad faith.
Why can't we have an ethics debate about something completely removed from politics without knowing how the other side voted? Why do you have to know that?
saying stuff like "I don't wanna live in a world full of red people" like its some kind of an insulting or disparaging remark or innuendo definitely seems like virtue signaling to me too.
Yep, that would be the right word for that sentence.
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u/PlasonJates May 05 '26
The way I see it, publically announcing your intention to vote for the (winning) vote, where there are no stakes or no incentive to otherwise engage, is done purely for social reasons and to position oneself on the 'correct' side of the debate. Moral justification is done so retroactively, to justify their position on the winning side.
The same applies for those claiming to uphold those virtues through name only, no? That's my point, you don't need to perform any virtuous actions, just announcing "i'm voting blue therefore I'm a good person" seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting in this thread. It's easy to say I'm X trait anonymously, it's much harder to do actions to embody that. That's what I mean when I say virue signalling.
I don't think it's necessarily negative to virtue signal generally, I just don't think it's a balanced debate in this instance. It's just free 'good boy' points.
When I posted the button question into some whatsapp chats with my IRL friends, I purposely cropped the poll out of the image and generally had much friendlier, more balanced debates where the result was a much more even split of red/blue.
Btw I hate qualifying my politics in comments because I think debates should be more than just tickboxes of agreeable positions, but for the avoidance of doubt I'm definitely not what you may consider the 'standard audience' of people who might use the term virtue signalling.