Since an utterance is grandstanding only when the speaker or writer is acting on the “recognition desire,” it would seem that identifying moral grandstanding would involve mind reading of sorts, and we have reasons to think we might not be especially good at this. In my main remarks, I raised some skepticism about the prevalence of moral grandstanding. In the session, moderated by Matthew Jordan (Dean of Humanities at Cuyahoga Community College), Warmke laid out some of the basic elements of grandstanding and why we should think of it as problematic. But, they claim, because it is widespread, moral grandstanding contributes to political polarization and outrage exhaustion, among others social problems. It’s a kind of bullshitting, and so is kind of immoral in itself. Warmke and Tosi think that moral grandstanding is a problem.
A central aspect of moral grandstanding is that it’s motivated, consciously or subconsciously, by the satisfaction of the speaker’s desire for recognition as a morally good person. Grandstanding, as Warmke and Tosi describe it, is moral talk for the sake of looking good–a way of improving your social status by saying things that make you appear to be a morally good or even great person. Warmke is the co-author (with Justin Tosi) of the book, Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk. Most importantly, they show how, by avoiding grandstanding, we can re-build a public square worth participating in.The Cleveland Humanities Festival is focused on the topic of public discourse and for one of its sessions brought on Brandon Warmke, a philosopher at Bowling Green State University, and me, to discuss “moral grandstanding.” Moral Grandstanding discussion at the Cleveland Humanities Festival Using the analytic tools of psychology and moral philosophy, they explain what drives us to behave in this way, and what we stand to lose by taking it too far. As politics gets more and more polarized, people on both sides of the spectrum move further and further apart when they let grandstanding get in the way of engaging one another.ĭrawing from work in psychology, economics, and political science, and along with contemporary examples spanning the political spectrum, the authors dive deeply into why and how we grandstand. To philosophers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke, who have written extensively about moral grandstanding, such one-upmanship is not just annoying, but dangerous. Nowhere is this more evident than in public discourse today, and especially as it plays out across the internet. We want to be seen as taking the moral high ground not just to make a point, or move a debate forward, but to look a certain way-incensed, or compassionate, or committed to a cause. We vilify those with whom we disagree, and make bolder claims than we could defend. We call people terrible names in conversation or online.
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