Robert Shrimsley has an amusing piece in the Financial Times, which discusses virtue signalling:
Virtue-signalling, for those who have never felt drawn to the term, is the apparently modern crime of trying to be seen doing the right thing.
The implication is that the virtue-signaller does not really believe what they are saying but simply wishes to be admired as a good person. It is most often used against celebs who identify with more fashionable or liberal political causes such as feminism, gay rights, racial diversity or concern about climate change.
He then makes this astute observation:
Tellingly, it is never deployed by people who support those causes and who, like Extinction Rebellion in this case, might object to faux sympathisers. It is instead the insult of choice for people who don’t want to have to engage with the issue itself. In truth, what the critic dislikes is rarely the signalling; it is the virtue.
I sympathize with Shrimsley, as people often accuse me of virtue signalling because I worry about issues ranging from global warming to the rise of right-wing authoritarian nationalism. Of course I also take lots of politically incorrect positions, such as favoring fiscal austerity, the elimination of minimum wages, etc. But that doesn’t stop people from being convinced that my views are fake.
Here’s the amusing part:
Perhaps what is needed is a counterweight to the term: vice-signalling. . . . While lots of people walk past beggars, vice-signallers loudly declare that they never give money to the homeless because “it only encourages them”. Fair point; obviously with incentives like that all of us would quit our jobs and sit outside railway stations for some loose change and a Tesco sandwich.
While that’s not something I would “loudly declare”, at the risk of not getting the joke I’ll take the bait here. First of all, it’s not at all clear what this insensitive person believes is “encouraged” by throwing coins into the cup:
Encourage begging? Yes, it probably does encourage that activity. Would you sit on the sidewalk and beg if no one gave you money? Or would you go to a public library and sit in a comfortable chair? (You might say I know nothing about this sort of life, which is true, but Shrimsley is inviting us to be introspective with his Tesco sandwich remark.)
Encourage drug or alcohol use? Perhaps in some cases.
Encourage people to not work? Perhaps in a few cases.
Encourage people to be poor? Probably not, for the reasons provided by Shrimsley.
So perhaps he is correct, but only if you assume that “encourages them” means encourages them to be poor. And I am not at all convinced that that is what those supposedly heartless reactionaries mean by their remark.
I’m no expert on begging; so let me ask a few politically incorrect questions:
1. Shrimsley is writing from a UK perspective. So why doesn’t the UK government provide financial aid to the beggars, so that they don’t have to beg? After all, the UK is a modern European welfare state, with government spending of 38% of GDP.
2. France’s government spends well over 50% of GDP. American progressives often cite France as a model welfare state—one of the most generous. So why is it that when I visit Paris I see beggars all over the place? Why doesn’t the French government give them financial aid so that they don’t need to beg?
You might argue that it’s too expensive, but that doesn’t seem right. Here’s The Economist, describing Brazil’s famous Bolsa Familia program, widely viewed as a big success:
Bolsa Família (Family Grant), which covers 14m poor households in Brazil, or roughly a third of the country’s population. Its budget amounts to 30bn reais ($7.5bn)—0.4% of gdp. In order for a family to receive the benefit, the children must attend school for at least 85% of days in a month. Parents whose children play truant first receive a warning; further absences eventually lead to payments being suspended.
Notice how small the cost, even though it covers 1/3rd of Brazil’s population. The number of homeless in France is far smaller than 1/3rd the French population. How much would it cost to provide aid equal to what they get from begging?
Is it possible that the European welfare states have looked into the begging issue and discovered that simply throwing money at the problem doesn’t work? Apparently the Brazilian government thinks that a no strings attached program “encourages” people to not attend school. So they attach strings.
As I said, I’m no expert on begging, and thus don’t have strong opinions on the issue. Perhaps simply throwing a few coins into the cup is in fact the optimal solution. Being a libertarian, I have no principled objection to non-government solutions to problems. But unless progressives are able to give me a convincing explanation for why socialist leaning governments like France apparently don’t believe that throwing money at the problem works, then I’ll continue to have a nagging feeling that incentive effects might have something to do with the problem. Would a generous French aid program “encourage” beggars to move from London, Berlin, Prague and Rome to Paris? Would it “encourage” drug and alcohol use? Would financial aid to beggars with mental health issues be stolen from them by criminals? Would generous aid to beggars discourage people from accepting unpleasant jobs? I don’t know, but these are valid questions.
I am opposed to people trying to shut down debate with ad hominem attacks on either “virtue signalling” or “vice signalling”. Both the left and the right do this sort of thing, and it’s not the best way to get to the truth.
PS. I understand that the Shrimsley column was satire, and I’m not accusing him of doing this.
PPS. The Independent reports that begging is a crime in Denmark:
A Slovakian woman is to be deported from Denmark for begging for the first time under a controversial law that criminalises the practice.
Judges at the City Court of Copenhagen sentenced the woman to 40 days in prison on Tuesday, after which she will be expelled from the country.
Isn’t Denmark one of those generous welfares states cited by progressives such as Bernie Sanders? So what caused the Danes to criminalize begging?
READER COMMENTS
AC
May 20 2019 at 9:10am
Off-topic, but Scott I wonder if you could address this Bloomberg article. Is this the right way to think about domestic demand and budget surpluses, given the monetary regime?
Scott Sumner
May 20 2019 at 3:28pm
AC, I disagree with that article—the problem is tight money.
Phil H
May 20 2019 at 9:25am
I volunteered at a homeless shelter when I was at university in the UK, and what I observed there, and what they told me, was that the vast majority of UK homelessness had a mental health component. That is, housing was available, but this group of people couldn’t use it successfully. So there was a very real sense in which they were not responding to economic incentives, and on that level, the “it only encourages them” guy was simply incorrect.
Which I guess raises an interesting problem: are anti-homelessness drives really there to help the homeless, or to improve the aesthetics for the comfortable.
Scott Sumner
May 20 2019 at 3:27pm
Phil, Interesting. It seems plausible that if housing would not help the homeless, then money would also not help the homeless.
Mark Z
May 20 2019 at 3:54pm
I think this is true that most homeless people (in the US as well) probably have egregious mental health issues. But by the same token, that also undermines the myth that homelessness is and economic problem, a symptom of ‘heartless capitalism’ or could be remedied by free jobs, education, or even more public housing. Free community college wouldn’t have made a schizophrenic pan-handler a functional member of society. I think we can either 1) be paternalists, and try to coerce homeless people to live in homes (which is what would probably have to be done; efforts in the US to get homeless people to voluntarily change their lifestyle are often utter failures) or 2) treat it like a choice, and just let them live as they please. There may be middle grounds, but they come down to some mixture of those two options.
I would also note that homeless people clearly do respond to incentives. Where I live, at least, they migrate to places where people are most likely to give money (such as college campuses). Of course that doesn’t mean, absent any alms, they would all just start driving for Uber, but they’re clearly at least somewhat of economic realities.
Phil H
May 20 2019 at 9:36pm
Yep, that’s a good point. I should have said, they’re not responding to the same incentives (or responding the same way) as you or I might.
Hazel Meade
May 21 2019 at 12:06pm
There might be some homeless people who would function well in a group home, but I suspect many of them are too unstable to live with others. Concentrated poverty didn’t work well in housing projects, and concentrated mental illness would have similar problems. Put a lot of mentally ill people in the same house, there would probably be violence between them. It would require homes to be run by trained mental health professionals and have full time security on staff to keep the residents from harming each other. Maybe you could have some screening process to make sure that the people in them only have minor issues, but that would leave the worst cases still on the streets. It might be that many mentally ill people are better off living outdoors and away from people. At least the daily sunlight and exercise might partially control their mental illness.
Philo
May 20 2019 at 10:04am
I don’t consider this an “astute observation”: “In truth, what the critic dislikes is rarely the signaling; it is the virtue.” It seems to me that the typical critic of virtue-signaling is reacting to the signaler’s seeking credit for himself as if he had done something good when, in fact, all he has done is to strike a pose or make a gesture; in other words, it is primarily the mere signaling (as opposed to substantive action) that is in focus. The critic may also think that the cause with which the signaler is aligning himself is not really worthwhile (though it is widely considered to be so), but that seems inessential.
You add: “I am opposed to people trying to shut down debate with ad hominem attacks on either “virtue signaling” or ‘vice signaling’.” Fair enough, but I don’t see that many charges of virtue-signaling are attempts to shut down debate. They are similar to accusations of hypocrisy, which certainly are ad hominem, but are not usually fallacious.
(Aside: my spell-check, as well as other standard authorities, doesn’t like ‘signalling’; I have changed it to ‘signaling’ throughout.)
Scott Sumner
May 20 2019 at 3:13pm
Philo, On the first point, you didn’t address his argument. On the second, an accusation of hypocrisy is very different from an accusation of virtue signaling. One is (often) based on evidence, the other is purely ad hominem.
Robert Schadler
May 20 2019 at 10:57am
“So why doesn’t the UK government provide financial aid to the beggars, so that they don’t have to beg?”
What is the basis for assuming that those who beg are not also provided for by the welfare state?
One could assume that everyone who begs is also on welfare as easily as no one who begs is on welfare. It may be that those who beg want more money than welfare provides. It may also be that those who beg do so for non-monetary reasons — to pass the time, to have a social interaction, etc.
There is also a rationale why proponents of the welfare state would want to make begging illegal: it reflects badly on the welfare state, in the eyes of many, if there are still people who beg.
Scott Sumner
May 20 2019 at 3:16pm
Robert, Either the UK provides enough so that they don’t need to beg, or it doesn’t. Either assumption raises questions that are difficult for progressives to respond to. Either beggars are not deserving of aid, or the welfare state is a massive failure.
Matthias Görgens
May 20 2019 at 8:57pm
To get the welfare state handouts, you need to navigate the bureaucracy. That takes some small, but non-negative amounts of conformism, intelligence and diligence.
If you lack those skills, it’s not only hard to hold down a job, but also to get welfare.
(And better off people aren’t necessarily better at all those things, it’s just that when I eg work for Google I mostly need smarts with computers, but I don’t need to even have my life well organised enough to by groceries.
Being poor is hard work and expensive.)
Scott Sumner
May 21 2019 at 3:54pm
Matthias, Good point.
Big Dubya
May 20 2019 at 11:48am
I am an occasional user of the term ‘virtue signaling’, and yes it is meant as a pejorative term. But when the author says ‘…what the critic dislikes is rarely the signaling; it is the virtue’, he’s not quite getting at the nature of the criticism. The point being made is that a lot of (usually leftist) political expression is at root really just a form of fashion.
Yes, there are such phenomena on the right (e.g. over-the-top pro-military displays at NFL and MLB games), but it’s nevertheless a much greater temptation on the left to preen oneself with fashionable causes – hence the term ‘virtue signaling’.
As an aside, on the incentives debate regarding begging, this is by no means a new question – Conan Doyle covered this directly over a century ago in one of his Sherlock Holmes short stories, ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, in which a professional gentleman accidentally stumbles into the world of street begging and finds it a lucrative way to earn a living. Doyle surely exaggerates when that job allows him to become a rich country-estate squire.
Scott Sumner
May 20 2019 at 3:20pm
When people accuse me of virtue signaling they are wrong about my motives. Thus I have little reason to assume they are right about others. You say that others take progressive stances to be fashionable. How do you know this?
When I hear people make that accusation, I usually assume their counterarguments are quite weak and thus they must rely on ad hominem attacks.
Wayne Koch
May 20 2019 at 4:07pm
Well, I don’t know at the level of each individual person, especially with a person I’m not familiar with. But patterns are discernible. To take just one issue: after the gay marriage issue was fought in California, there were activists who searched public records of political donations to target people who had given to groups opposed to gay marriage; some people were actually hounded out of their jobs. Such action did not serve to advance the supposed political cause – they had already won. It amounted to really nothing more than making themselves feel superior, in effect saying ‘eeeewwww, he has cooties, we good people can’t go near him, or we’ll get cooties too’.
When you say people who accuse you of virtue signaling are wrong about your motives, I am of course in no position to say you’re wrong. But I’ve read enough by Robin Hanson (‘Elephant in the Brain’) to know we can be mysteries unto ourselves – our conscious minds can be confident we are acting out of holy and pious motives, while our subconscious is busy running a covert operation.
Scott Sumner
May 21 2019 at 3:57pm
Wayne, But if the motives are buried that deeply, then how can the person making the accusation be confident that they know my motives better than I do? How do they know that I don’t actually view global warming as a problem?
Unless someone can answer that question, I’ll continue to assume these accusations are baseless and insulting.
Phil H
May 20 2019 at 9:44pm
For the moment, I’ll concede the leftie “virtue signalling” idea. There is a directly equivalent conservative trope, and it’s not military parades. It’s when conservatives talk about how hard they work, or the importance of “personal responsibility” generally, implying that they themselves have been particularly diligent and responsible. It’s often accompanied by statements disavowing any particular natural skill or intelligence – which sounds humble, but is actually a way of underlining just how diligent and responsible they must have been. That’s the direct equivalent of the progressive’s admitting their own privilege – sounds humble, but is actually just a way of showing how thoroughly they’ve moved past self-interest.
Listen to your conservative mates next time you see them, and look out for how often this “hard working” trope comes up.
Big Dubya
May 21 2019 at 12:04am
Yes, Phil, the hard workin’/personal responsibility schtick is a cliche I hear a lot, and as you point out, it’s usually coming from a rightist perspective. Sometimes it’s dead-on accurate, and sometimes it’s laughable considering what I know about the person making the assertion.
Humans have a tremendous capacity for not only deceiving others, but also for self-deception, and it would be foolish of me to assert that the left has a complete monopoly on virtue signaling.
I wonder if there has been any serious research examining whether either leftists or rightists tend to be fashion conformists in other areas of life (e.g. clothing, foods, etc.). I strongly suspect leftists would be fingered as more anxious to be perceived by others as fashionable, but I readily admit to having no hard evidence to point to, and your mileage may vary.
Daniel Kahn
May 20 2019 at 12:20pm
Can you do a post on how you arrived on your views of global warming? I recall you once saying that you’d read a lot on the issue and hadn’t found good reasons to really question the mainstream view. The author of the long post on Medium you linked to a little while ago, David Siegel, did the same and became a skeptic. It’d be nice to hear the perspective of a statistically literate person who has taken the time to read up on the science. I assume very few people do.
Scott Sumner
May 20 2019 at 3:24pm
I read a lot of pro and anti-global warming articles, and found the pro side to be much more persuasive. It’s based on pretty well established models, and reasonably persuasive empirical evidence. That does mean the models are perfect, there is a range of uncertainty. But the weight of evidence supports a human caused greenhouse effect. The weakest part of the entire argument is that they overestimate the harm likely to occur as a result of greenhouse gases–due to overlooking the possibility of geoengineering, etc.
RPLong
May 20 2019 at 12:50pm
One problem with the concept of virtue signaling is that it is a new-ish term that we now have to painstakingly define and apply in order to figure out to what extent it is a useful descriptor of human behavior.
Why waste time on that when we already have two very useful and time-tested phrases to describe what appears to be the same act: moral grandstanding, and righteous indignation.
Miguel Madeira
May 20 2019 at 1:25pm
The “people who support those causes” have their own lexic for these – “pinkwashing” (for people or organizations who pretend to care with LGBT), “greenwashing” (same for environment), etc. There is also the “false moralist”, used by progressives to attack conservatives who are against drugs, abortion, non-marital sex, etc. (“false moralist” is probably the expression in leftwingish more similar to “virtue-signaling” in rightwingish; there is in rightwingish any expression similar to “-washing”? There is, an expression applied by conservatives to people that they think that are only posing as conservatives?).
gwern
May 20 2019 at 1:25pm
Is Shrimsley serious? Movements like veganism spend *tremendous* efforts policing their members for the slightest sign of virtue signaling rather than genuine commitment and engaging in purges and circular firing squads.
John Alcorn
May 20 2019 at 2:36pm
The fashionable phrase, virtue signaling, is a misnomer in these contexts.
According to Michael Spence, credible ‘signals’ are hard to send (and even harder to fake.) For example, a Cal Tech degree is a credible signal of keen intelligence, diligence, and some sort of smart pliability. Only the best students can cut it, with real time and effort. The target of the signal—the potential employer or investor—seeks these uncommon traits.
What vocabulary might be more accurate? Sometimes, we’re rather innocently articulating our values. Often, we’re paying homage to what is socially desirable in our circles. Occasionally, we’re peacocks engaged in virtue preening!
Mark Z
May 20 2019 at 4:08pm
Though the term ‘virtue signaling’ is surely often frivolously used, I don’t think it’s correct that it usually indicates disapproval of the virtue. I think it’s a valid criticism, particularly in two contexts. 1) When it imposes politics in apolitical settings (e.g., it’s hard to make a great movie and good reviews for aesthetic quality, so many throw gratuitous political sermonizing into films to get cheap praise); and 2) when it presumes to be a virtue what much of the audience will inevitably dispute is in fact a virtue. (e.g., when a lecturer who dislikes Paul Ryan, instead of engaging with Ryan’s policy views, simply makes jokes at his expense, as though the lecturer’s position were a foregone conclusion and a matter of consensus; the former is constructive but wins little popularity; the latter isn’t constructive, but will win applause from much of the audience).
Usually, I don’t doubt the sincerity of the virtue being signaled. What I tend to doubt is the relevance and constructiveness of the signaling.
Jason
May 20 2019 at 5:25pm
Since you asked: The begging law (and related anti-loitering law) are essentially anti-immigrant measures, especially Roma. And as with most anti-immigrant laws that are made to not look like anti-immigrant laws, a lot of Danes are affected as well.
Scott Sumner
May 21 2019 at 4:01pm
Thanks. So the Danish government believes that giving money to beggars encourages certain people to move to Denmark and beg. It seems an awful lot of governments believe that giving money to beggars encourages certain activities.
Alex
May 20 2019 at 5:53pm
Virtue signaling is like loud hypocrisy. The term seems very accurate at times. For example, when a politician talks constantly about the need to reduce carbon emissions but at the same time uses a private jet. How can anyone complain about carbon emissions and use a private jet instead of flying commercial?
mbka
May 20 2019 at 9:33pm
Scott,
to the point of Denmark, in the 90’s when lived in France, a Danish friend (student, hence “poor”) was livid to see beggars on the streets. He said he’d never give money to a beggar because “that’s the government’s job”. In truth the beggars we saw looked quite able-bodied, and as others pointed out, just because they beg doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not also on welfare.
More generally, I found that people from the “Nordic” countries were much less compassionate towards the needy than people from more “competitive” places. They simply assume that if you’re needy, just go to the government. Don’t bother other people.
Scott Sumner
May 21 2019 at 4:02pm
Interesting.
Bedarz Iliachi
May 21 2019 at 12:58am
RPLong,
I would say that virtue signaling is captured by self-righteous indignation, not merely righteous indignation.
RPLong
May 21 2019 at 8:31am
Regardless, we both know what I’m talking about. My point is that everyone already knows the value of getting indignant and grandstanding; i.e., there is no value in it. Changing the name to “virtue signaling” merely delays the inevitable conclusion that indignation and moral grandstanding are repugnant.
Weir
May 21 2019 at 3:38am
If you were kind, decent and virtuous, would you really make a show of it? Seems like humility belongs among the virtues.
So why would a mensch want everyone to know what a mensch he is? Surely it’s the opposite? If you flaunt your superiority loudly and often, then that’s a failing. All your bragging is a character flaw. Presumably not your only flaw.
The louder you insist on your being admirable, the less, I suspect, there really is to admire. That’s the signal I’m picking up.
If you’re kind, you get on with it. You’ll do good things, and that’s the end of it.
And you don’t have to take my word for it.
James Bartholomew: “Go to a branch of Whole Foods, the American-owned grocery shop, and you will see huge posters advertising Whole Foods, of course, but — more precisely — advertising how virtuous Whole Foods is: ‘We are part of a growing consciousness that is bigger than food — one that champions what’s good.’ This is a particularly blatant example of the increasingly common phenomenon of what might be called ‘virtue signalling’ — indicating that you are kind, decent and virtuous.”
Indicating. Advertising. Announcing. Broadcasting.
If Shrimsley thinks that Bartholomew is against virtue, then Shrimsley needs to read the words. Bartholomew came up with the words, introduced them, and explained what they mean. Bartholomew drew an explicit distinction between signalling and doing.
Bartholomew again: “There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things: by helping the blind man across the road; looking after your elderly parents instead of dumping them in a home; staying in a not-wholly-perfect marriage for the sake of the children. These things involve effort and self-sacrifice. That sounds hard! Much more convenient to achieve virtue by expressing hatred of those who think the health service could be improved by introducing competition.”
There is no implication, contra Shrimsley, that the virtue-signaller does not really believe that “those who think the health service could be improved by introducing competition” are worthy of hatred and shunning. The hatred that the virtue-signaller feels is genuine. Of course the virtue-signaller is genuinely contemptuous and disdainful. Bartholomew’s point was that the virtue-signaller is not thereby doing anything to improve the health service.
Let’s stick with Bartholomew’s example a little longer. The virtue-signaller wants his audience to think that, simply because he hates these free-marketeers, he is virtuous. The health service hasn’t improved. The arguments of the evil free-marketeers aren’t being countered or argued against. The virtue-signaller’s contempt is the entire argument. It’s a cheap show of virtue to say that the free-marketeers are heartless and inhuman monsters, pariahs, but that’s not genuine virtue. It costs nothing to trumpet your hatred of the out-group and be praised for it. That’s what Shrimsley is demonstrating.
Shrimsley didn’t engage with the concept. He didn’t go to the source. He should have had a quick read of Bartholomew’s article. Shrimsley wants to congratulate himself for not finding out what the words mean. But the guy who came up with the words is still around to explain it to him over the phone if necessary. Shrimsley could call up Bartholomew and get it straight from the horse’s mouth.
The guy who came up with the term “the lion’s share” isn’t around to explain the joke, and that’s too bad. The actual meaning of “the lion’s share” is pretty clever. But having a virtue-signaller like Shrimsley define “virtue signalling” so as to flatter himself? That’s not clever. That’s not astute. That’s a failure of research.
John Alcorn
May 21 2019 at 8:45am
Re: “mental health issues.”
This phrase equivocates between illness and personality. We find it hard to fathom, much less to accept, that someone might prefer, all things considered, a lifestyle of homelessness and panhandling, in a modern society with a safety net. Perhaps the sentiment is mutual?
Compare Bryan Caplan, “The Economics of Szasz,” Rationality and Society 18:3 (2006) 333–366.
Floccina
May 21 2019 at 10:35am
50% of GDP and there are still beggars in the streets of Paris!
JayT
May 21 2019 at 6:39pm
I feel like the most common way that the term “virtue signalling” is used is in the case when you are talking about someone doing something that looks good, but is ultimately of little or no use. Something like a straw ban would fit this description. Straws are a miniscule part of the trash we generate, but someone will sit there and drink a bottled water while talking about how wonderful the straw ban is. It doesn’t seem to be ad hominem to say that is virtue signalling, it’s just pointing out an hypocrisy.
Lorenzo from Oz
May 22 2019 at 8:45pm
As someone who has published an essay critiquing the term virtue signalling on the grounds that it is neither virtue nor signalling in any serious sense (since there is little or no effort or cost involved), I still do not agree with the dismissal of the underlying concept, which I label piety display.
The “virtue signalling” description is appropriately directed to people who are typically reluctantly to seriously engage with the relevant issue. If you have done significant reading and are prepare to argue the case in reasonably good faith (rather than just stigmatise dissent), then it is not piety display.
If, however, you are adopting a position based on little direct information and treat dissent as grounds for anathematisation, particularly if there are relevant facts that one is not willing to engage with, then you are engaged in a form of display aimed at appearing to be part of the moralised in-group. There is rather a lot of that going on, which is why the (rather unfortunate) term virtue signalling has gained so much mileage.
Yes, banding around the term virtue signalling can show an unwillingness to engage with facts and argument, yes it can be an unfair ascription of motive, but it can also be tagging a genuine phenomenon.
(This is a restatement of a previous comment which seems to have disappeared.)
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