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Moral grandstanding is the use of moral talk for self-promotion. Moral grandstanders have egotistical motives: they may want to signal that they have superhuman insight into a topic, paint themselves as a victim, or show that they care more than others.Moral philosophers view moral grandstanding as a net negative. They argue that it contributes to political polarization, increases levels of cynicism about moral talk and its value in public life, and it causes outrage exhaustion.Grandstanders are also a kind of social free rider, says Brandon Warmke. They get the benefits of being heard without contributing to any valuable discourse. It's selfish behavior at best, and divisive behavior at worst.

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BRANDON WARMKE:

Brandon Warmke, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. He is currently writing two books, Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk and Why It’s OK to Mind Your Own Business, both with philosopher Justin Tosi.

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TRANSCRIPT:

BRANDON WARMKE: If you had a bumper sticker and you wanted a quick, dirty definition of moral grandstanding, it's the use of moral talk for self-promotion. Grandstanders are moral showboaters. They use public discourse as a vanity project. They're less concerned about saying what's true. They might be less concerned about helping other people. They're less concerned about contributing to a conversation that might be productive.

More specifically, someone might want to be seen as having spectacular, superhuman insight into what is just. Some people might want to be seen as caring the most about the poor or about the troops. Some people might want to be seen as the most affected by some injustice. So grandstanding doesn't always look like the same sort of animal. Grandstanding sometimes looks like piling on. You often see cases of piling on when a lot of people join in on a shame fest for someone who's misspoken or engaged in a small minor infraction. In order to signal to their in-group or to their enemies that they have a heightened sense of justice, they pile on in cases of public blaming and shaming.

Another form that grandstanding takes is what we can call ramping up. Ramping up involves trying to out-do each other in moral discourse. You can think of it as a kind of moral arms race. So I might say something like, 'The senator's behavior was highly unacceptable. She should clearly be censured for it.' Now you, not wanting to be outdone, might say something like, 'Yes, I agree that her behavior was wrong, but it's clearly way out of bounds. She should no longer hold her office. She should be impeached.' And then someone else, again, not wanting to be outdone, might say, 'As someone who has long stood on the side of injustice, we should look into the criminal law. This cannot go unpunished. We must remember the world is watching.' And you can think of ramping up in terms of what psychologists call social comparison. Social comparison theory says, roughly, we think of ourselves in comparison to others. So if I think of myself as caring deeply about the poor or about the troops, that's going to be important to me, I'm going to think of myself as a more just person or a more caring person than my peers. What happens in conversation is that once people reveal their positions about how much they care about or how affected they are by some problem, you can now look like you don't care as much as others about some problem. And so in order to beat someone else in the moral race, you have to outdo them. And so this often results in people taking more extreme stands than they might otherwise do on reflection, because when the world is watching, you must show that you care more.

Moral philosophers tend to think there's three main ways for something to be morally good or bad: One, it could have morally good or bad consequences. Two, it could be morally good or bad insofar as it mistreats other people, or shows them respect or disrespect. And that's irrespective of the bad or good consequences it might have. And third, philosophers will often say something like: Something is good or bad if a virtuous person would do it or not do it. So we think about the virtues, like honesty, courage. We think that grandstanding is bad according to all three ways of thinking that something could be morally good or bad. Grandstanding has bad consequences. We argue that it contribut...

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