Virtue Signaling

Virtual signaling might be a phrase of contemporary popularity, though it is sometimes only used to dismiss legitimate moral concerns as attempts to appear good in the perception of others.  Some people might also confuse a casual admission of one's good deeds with exaggerating or talking about them openly just to impress people.  The most common thing this phrase is used for would be social media posts that superficially address weighty issues just for appearance's sake, but virtue signaling is not something that can only be done through social media or the general internet.  It is really just the social expression of something that does not require the presence of other people at all: the goal of only seeking truth and morality, or what a fool has assumed about truth and morality, in order to feel good about oneself rather than be on the right side of reality.

All sorts of avenues for virtue signaling exist, including casual conversations, public speeches, newspapers, books, and entertainment--though virtue signaling is not the same as merely proclaiming truths, even truths about how one is rational or just.  Unfortunately, there are many who simply accuse others of virtue signaling even when that is not the case, just as there are those who love to point out virtue signaling only when it is committed by their political opponents.  Evangelicals, with their abundant legalism, condemn what the Biblical deity does not and tolerate what he despises and only try to appease other irrationalists like them.  They are often virtue signalers just as much as your typical idiotic conservative or liberal politicians, although they might accuse only the latter kind of politician of this stupidity.  One of their defining traits is this legalism that mirrors that of the first century Pharisees that opposed Jesus.

Some of the Pharisees who interacted with Jesus (most people do not realize that being a Pharisee did not necessarily mean someone was a legalistic hypocrite, but many of them were) would be Biblical examples of ancient virtue signalers.  Jesus describes them as doing everything from prayer to tithing only for the attention it gives them from the public, having no genuine concern for the truth about God, morality, or themselves.  Of course, prayer and the giving of resources are far from the most important parts of Biblical ethics and there are far worse moral errors to make, but even the best of deeds are in a sense hollow if the only motivation behind them is personal gain.  While supporting people who do that which is good is deserved and feeling good about oneself for the same is also not problematic itself, self-esteem and social approval are irrelevant to truth and morality.

It is not that public recognition or affirmation of someone's rational worldview or morally upright deeds are irrational or evil, for of course it is rational to acknowledge rational people (as extraordinarily rare as they are) and of course it could not be evil to celebrate good deeds!  Whether a valid worldview or a just action springs from oneself or from someone else, recognizing, celebrating, and encouraging it is not the issue.  If someone begins to only pursue reason or morality for the sake of social approval, however, he or she is not rational or righteous, but selfish, philosophically incompetent or insincere, and shallow.  It is just not the circumstance of public visibility or social acknowledgement that negates the positive qualities of these things.  It is the intentions of a person, which are already hidden from those around them either way.