Alleged Hypocrisy and Virtue Signalling

Heads I win tails you lose.

There are criticisms of alleged hypocrisy and alleged virtue signalling. I am convinced that most who criticise “virtue signalling” are, in fact, criticizing virtue. My guess is that there the selfishness and altruism of different people is different and the relatively selfish suspect (correctly) that the relatively altruistic disapprove of them (us ?). The natural reaction is to criticize the critic. The logic of the countercriticism need not be high (or detectable).

I have read (somewhere no links) the argument that rich people who support equality or assistance for the poor are hypocrites as they could manage some of that by giving all their money away, or, at least by giving enough that the reduction in their wealth would affect their lifestyle. This is not evidence of hypocrisy. I invite my (very very) good friend strawman to make an argument which I will refute.

The argument is that if a rich person cared only about equality or about helping the poor, then he or she would give until he or she was the poorest person in the world. In contrast if the rich person cared only about himself, then he would give so little that it didn’t affect him. There are no possibilities other than the two I just mentioned. No one gives until they are the poorest person in the world, so rich people who claim to be egalitarian are hypocrites. The key point in the argument is the assertion that there are only two possibilities. It is an example of the fallacy which is more common than any other fallacy or any valid method of reasoning – the false dichotomy.

A rich person who cared about his own pleasure from consumption and one percent as much about that of other people (all of them) would act very selfishly in personal interactions. He would also care about 80 million times as much about average pleasure from consumption as about his own (there being about 8 billion people). such a person would advocate redistribution, because he would care equally about other rich people and about poor people and poor people get much more pleasure from an extra unit of consumption. He would give but keep a lot and still have high consumption when he finished giving.

There is no hypocrisy and no irrationality. The noted behavior which is alleged to be proof of hypocrisy can be explained by rational maximization of a utility function. The utility function is very simple, but more plausible than the standard assumption of total selfishness.

I define virtue signalling as activities which work as signals, because they require some sacrifice, effort, or at least concentration of the signaller, but which do little or nothing to address the problem the virtue signaller claims to care about. This is just my definition for this post (I don’t know if it is what anyone else means by the phrase).

Notice the exact reversal from my discussion of alleged evidence of hypocrisy. The hypocrite does something which might help address the problem (poverty) but has negligible cost for the hypocrite and, therefore, does not prove sincerity. The virtue signaller does something which has neglible effect ont he problem but has non-negligible cost for the virtue signaller. By responding with one or the other ciritism, one plays heads I win tails you lose.

That was the point (if any) of this post

I fear that to be honest (to virtue signal honesty ?) I must admit that the phrase “virtue signalling” means something to me and I criticize it. I think there is quite a lot of effort expended and sacrifices made which contributes very little to a solution of the problem which is supposed to be addressed. I think examples include recycling glass and paper and composting.

recycling glass conserves sand and redices solid waste (I note that discarded glass in the sea is not at all like discared plastic – the glass becomes nice colored translucent pebbles). Composting reduces glabal warming, but composting a ton takes a lot of effort and reduces CO2 emissions by about a ton. Paying for offsets has a much larger effect for the same sacrifice. Donating to Democrats has a much much larger effect for the same sacrifice.

Please temporarily accept the claims above for the sake of argument.

If this is true, then why do people compost ? One explanation is that the effort demonstrates virtue. I can think of others. A lot of these things are, in my experience, advotated by children and teenages. THey have little money, so they focus on actions which don’t require money. Finally I think many people belieeve in Kantian magic – that one should consider not the effects of one’s own actions but consider what would happen if everyone acted that way. I think a variant is the hope that, if one sets an example, people will follow it, then people will follow them, and, in the end, a whole lot will follow from one good example.

Many disagree, but I think that a good way to help the world is to get one’s hands on a lot of money, then give it to good causes (I am too lazy to get my hands on a lot of money so I haven’t implemented this strategy).