Virtue Signalling about Virtue Signalling

Is virtue signalling a perversion of morality?:

"In the only full treatment of the topic in the academic literature (that I [author, Neil Levy] know of), the philosophers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke accuse the ‘moral grandstander’ (their term for the virtue signaller) of perverting the function of public moral discourse. According to them, ‘the core, primary function that justifies the practice’ of such public moral discourse is ‘to improve people’s moral beliefs, or to spur moral improvement in the world’. Public moral talk aims to get others to see a moral problem they hadn’t noticed before, and/or to do something about it. But, instead, virtue signallers display themselves, taking the focus away from the moral problem. Since we often spot virtue signalling for what it is, the effect is to cause cynicism in the audience, rather than to induce them to think the signaller is so great. As a result, virtue signalling ‘cheapens’ moral discourse.

But Tosi and Warmke offer no evidence for their claim that the primary, or the justifying, function of moral discourse is improvement in other people’s beliefs or in the world. That’s certainly a function of moral discourse, but it’s not the only one (as they recognise).

Perhaps, in fact, virtue signalling, or something like it, is a core function of moral discourse."

... 

"Lots of religious behaviour can be understood as costly and credibility-enhancing signalling. Religions mandate many behaviours that are costly: fasting, tithing, abstinence from sex except in certain contexts, and so on. All of these behaviours are costly not only in everyday terms, but also in evolutionary terms: they reduce opportunities for reproduction, resources for offspring, and so on. Religious activities are also credibility-enhancing displays of religious belief: no one would pay these costs unless they really believed that there was a payoff.

Why, from an evolutionary point of view, would someone signal religious commitment? A likely explanation is that the function is to secure the benefits of cooperation." [I submit that much religious fare is, in practice, religionist attempts to impose inculcated moralistic controls (historically harmful to minority groups) on others for the sake of regressive control.]

"The accusation that virtue signalling is hypocritical might be cashed out in two different ways. We might mean that virtue signallers are really concerned with displaying themselves in the best light – and not with climate change, animal welfare or what have you."

[I submit that, for the sake of propounding his argument, the author is conflating external-interest (environment, climate, treatment of other species) advocacy with the moralistic virtue signalling that pervades social discourse. This is both a category error and a fallacy of equivocation, specifically of lumping a spectrum under a narrow, poorly-defined label.]

https://aeon.co/ideas/is-virtue-signalling-a-perversion-of-morality

Conclusion? Levy has failed to differentiate the hypocritical moral grandstanders who congregate in social-media lynch mobs from those arguing for compassion, consideration, and tolerance. Is virtue signalling a perversion of morality? In some instances, yes.