Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk

Todd Nicholas Fuist’s chapter examines the complicated ways in which participants in progressive religious communities use religious language to talk about politics. The chapter shows that the communities Fuist studies use three models for understanding the connection between faith and politics: the Teacher Model, where religious exemplars are understood as promoting progressive action; the Community Model, where groups promote specific, progressive understandings of what it means to be a community; and the Theological Model, where existing beliefs are creatively applied to contemporary politics. Through the combination of these three models, these communities create pathways to understanding and action by sacralizing progressive ideologies and practices about social justice.

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Would a Virtuous Person Grandstand?

Grandstanding ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190900151.003.0006 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 119-138

Author(s):

Justin Tosi ◽

Brandon Warmke

Keyword(s):

Virtue Ethics ◽

Character Trait ◽

General Character ◽

Virtuous Person ◽

Will To Power ◽

Slave Revolt ◽

Right Reason ◽

Moral Talk ◽

The One ◽

The Right

This chapter discusses moral grandstanding from the standpoint of virtue ethics. Three common approaches to virtue ethics are considered. A virtuous person would not grandstand according to the classical conception of virtue, on which virtue is doing the right thing for the right reason. People would be disappointed if they found out that a widely admired, historic speech turned out to be grandstanding. Vanity, the general character trait most closely associated with grandstanding, is not plausibly a virtue according to virtue consequentialism. Finally, grandstanding is an abuse of morality, like the one Nietzsche labels the slave revolt in morals, as grandstanders use moral talk as an underhanded shortcut to satisfy their will to power.

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The Social Costs of Grandstanding

Grandstanding ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190900151.003.0004 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 67-96

Author(s):

Justin Tosi ◽

Brandon Warmke

Keyword(s):

Public Discourse ◽

Moral Discourse ◽

Social Costs ◽

False Beliefs ◽

Group Polarization ◽

The Social ◽

Moral Talk

This chapter presents some consequentialist considerations against moral grandstanding. Grandstanding contributes to group polarization. Relatedly, grandstanding leads people to hold false beliefs, and to be overconfident about their beliefs. Grandstanding also threatens to undercut the effectiveness of moral talk. It makes people increasingly cynical about moral discourse, and it may cause outrage exhaustion—an insensitivity to expressions of outrage by others, and an inability to muster outrage oneself. When grandstanding becomes too common in public discourse, moderates avoid discussions of morality and politics. In spite of these costs, the possibility that grandstanding may be socially beneficial is also considered.

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On Logic and Moral Voice

Informal Logic ◽

10.22329/il.v17i3.2423 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 17 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Deborah Orr

Keyword(s):

Ethic Of Care ◽

Language Game ◽

Moral Deliberation ◽

Universal Logic ◽

Natural Logic ◽

Patriarchal Culture ◽

Moral Voice ◽

Concept Logic ◽

Moral Talk ◽

The Relationship

This paper explores some aspects of the concept 'logic' and its relation to moral voice, and argues that Menssen uses it too narrowly in her respone to Orr's "Just the Facts. Ma'am" and the work of Carol Gilligan. Grounded in the work of the later Wittgenstein, it is argued that formalized logic misses much of natural logic: the concept of 'moral talk' is developed to theorize Gilligan's ethic of care; it is argued that this form of moral deliberation is not argumentation in the formal sense; and the relationship between logic and epistemology is explored through the consideration of moral talk as a language-game which is woven into gendered forms of life. Finally, it is argued that the notion of a universal logic is the product of an oppressivc patriarchal culture and should not be defended by feminists.

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Moral sentimentalism

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-l3578-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Joshua Gert

Keyword(s):

Wide Class ◽

Value Theory ◽

The Other ◽

Human Beings ◽

Moral Sentimentalism ◽

Moral Judgements ◽

Human Capacity ◽

Moral Talk ◽

Sophisticated Version ◽

As If

‘Sentimentalism’ is a name for a wide class of views in value theory. Sentimentalist views are unified by their commitment to the idea that normative or evaluative properties or concepts are best explained in a way that relies, in some fundamental way, on an appeal to the emotional and affective nature of human beings. ‘Moral sentimentalism’ is simply sentimentalism that restricts its focus to moral properties or concepts. Moral sentimentalism contrasts importantly with moral rationalism, according to which the foundation of morality is to be found in the human capacity for reason. Often this capacity is taken to be of the same sort that yields knowledge of the truths of logic, mathematics or physics. Hume can be taken as an arch sentimentalist, and Kant as an arch rationalist. Sentimentalism takes six primary forms: expressivism, quasi-realism, dispositionalism, fitting-attitude views, reference-fixing views and rational sentimentalism. Expressivism holds that normative judgements are expressions of attitudes such as approval and disapproval. Quasi-realism can be seen as a sophisticated version of expressivism that attempts to vindicate our thinking and talking as if moral judgements were truth-apt. Dispositionalism, on the other hand, straightforwardly makes moral talk truth-apt by understanding it as factual talk about our emotional dispositions. Fitting-attitude views are similar to dispositional views, but they replace talk of causing certain attitudes with talk of meriting them or making them fitting. Reference-fixing views use our sentiments just as an account of heat might use our capacity to feel heat: as detectors of objective and external properties, the essences of which we can then discover. Finally, rational sentimentalism holds that concepts such as the pitiful or the admirable are ones we use to help regulate, by reflection and argument, motivational attitudes such as pity and admiration.

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Moral Grandstanding in Public Discourse: Status-seeking Motives as a Potential Explanatory Mechanism in Predicting Conflict

10.31234/osf.io/gnaj5 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Joshua B. Grubbs ◽

Brandon Warmke ◽

Justin Tosi ◽

Alicia Shanti James ◽

William Keith Campbell

Keyword(s):

Public Discourse ◽

Mechanical Turk ◽

Moral Issues ◽

Philosophical Literature ◽

Status Seeking ◽

Initial Support ◽

Moral Talk ◽

Explanatory Mechanism ◽

The U.S

Public discourse is often caustic and conflict-filled. This trend seems to be particularly evident when the content of such discourse is around moral issues (broadly defined) and when the discourse occurs on social media. Several explanatory mechanisms for such conflict have been explored in recent psychological and social-science literatures. The present work sought to examine a potentially novel explanatory mechanism defined in philosophical literature: Moral Grandstanding. According to philosophical accounts, Moral Grandstanding is the use of moral talk to seek social status. For the present work, we conducted six studies, using two undergraduate samples (Study 1, N = 361; Study 2, N = 356); a sample matched to U.S. norms for age, gender, race, income, Census region (Study 3, N = 1,063); a YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Study 4, N = 2,000); and a brief, one-month longitudinal study of Mechanical Turk workers in the U.S. (Study 5 , Baseline N = 499, follow-up n = 296), and a large, one-week YouGov sample matched to U.S. demographic norms (Baseline N = 2,519, follow-up n = 1,776). Across studies, we found initial support for the validity of Moral Grandstanding as a construct. Specifically, moral grandstanding motivation was associated with status-seeking personality traits, as well as greater political and moral conflict in daily life.

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The uses of moral talk: Why do managers talk ethics?

Journal of Business Ethics ◽

10.1007/bf00382019 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 75-89 ◽

Cited By ~ 16

Author(s):

Frederick Bird ◽

Frances Westley ◽

James A. Waters

Keyword(s):

Moral Talk

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Function: what does moral talk do?

Moral Talk ◽

10.4324/9781315098807-4 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 81-116

Author(s):

Joe Spencer-Bennett

Keyword(s):

Moral Talk

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Grandstanding

10.1093/oso/9780190900151.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Justin Tosi ◽

Brandon Warmke

Keyword(s):

Political Science ◽

Moral Philosophy ◽

Public Discourse ◽

The Internet ◽

Acting Out ◽

Public Square ◽

Great Hope ◽

Moral Talk

People used to hold out great hope for a public square in which individuals put petty disputes aside and engage in rational discussion about important issues. Unfortunately, public discourse today—especially on the internet—is full of adults behaving like poorly socialized children, acting out to show off for people they want to impress. In short, they engage in moral grandstanding, or the use of moral talk for self-promotion. Drawing from work in psychology, economics, and political science, this book develops an explanation of why people grandstand when they talk about morality and politics. Using the tools of moral philosophy, it argues that grandstanding is not just annoying, but morally bad. And finally, it explains what we can do to encourage people to support a public square worth participating in, by avoiding grandstanding.

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