[freddybobs]

Right. The claim of "virtue signalling" makes a pejorative from an activity that is virtuous of all things.

If the point is to question the reasoning behind the act, the act is still virtuous regardless. If the problem is it won't work well or well enough, how strange that typically no plausible better path is never suggested. Well other the implied - do nothing.

[ralusek]

Virtuous regardless? What does that even mean?

To go with the quintessential virtue signaling example: If someone says "black lives matter," what are people meant to make of that? I know the snarky response is to say that it means that "black lives matter," but what does that really mean?

Decoupled from any course of actions being prescribed, for the majority of people that statement is synonymous with saying "I'm a good person." This is why many people, irrespective of political affiliation, are somewhat disgusted by others publicly signalling their support for Latest Thing™. If the context in which you say something is virtually consequence-free, you're saying something so in line with the moral zeitgeist of the time, and virtually nothing will change as a consequence of you saying it, people will be often be disgusted.

To get to the equally important part of what you said, though, is that

> the act is still virtuous regardless. If the problem is it won't work well or well enough, how strange that typically no plausible better path is never suggested

There are a few things wrong with this statement. If a guy goes to a "pussy hat" march with the intention of getting girls, are you confident in calling that "virtuous regardless?" The virtue of a thing is often inextricably linked to the motive, and you're dismissing motive out of hand.

Secondly, you're saying that no better paths are suggested. Let's go back to BLM and try to map that onto a suggested course of action. When the subset of people who say those words mean something beyond "I'm a good person," they will often say them to mean "defund the police, adjust all systems so that they produce outcomes proportional to racial populations (irrespective of inputs), bring race to the forefront of all interactions and identities." You seem perfectly content to write that off as just a universally virtuous course of actions. You also seem perfectly content suggesting that no alternative has been suggested. Well here is my alternative: "Equip all police with mandatory use body cameras, remove loopholes through which they're not held accountable for breaking the law, remove race as a parameter for any decision making process, de-emphasize race as much as possible for all interactions and identities." It's the near polar opposite.

TL;DR

1. Virtue is linked to motive in many (most) peoples' analyses.

2. Actions are rarely, if ever, universally regarded as virtuous, or the proper course of action

[freddybobs]

> If someone says "black lives matter," what are people meant to make of that? I know the snarky response is to say that it means that "black lives matter," but what does that really mean?

That shouldn't really need explaining, but since you ask, in many scenarios black people are treated as if they matter less than other people. In the justice system. By the police. Education. Employment opportunities. It's a declaration that black people matter as much as anybody else.

There is more to it than that. I can't claim to be an expert. In principal the idea seems pretty simple though.

> Decoupled from any course of actions being prescribed, for the majority of ....

I'm not sure what any of that means. The zeitgeist you say? The latest thing (TM)? You seem to think "Black Live Matters" is some kind of unknowable thing, but now your using terms that super nebulous and hardly likely to be broadly agreed upon.

> There are a few things wrong with this statement. If a guy goes to a "pussy hat" march with the intention of getting girls, are you confident in calling that "virtuous regardless?" The virtue of a thing is often inextricably linked to the motive, and you're dismissing motive out of hand.

It is arguably less virtuous. But the guy still did a virtuous thing in helping the people on the march at least in the eyes of the people on the march presumably.

> Secondly, you're saying that no better paths are suggested.

Yes. Generally speaking.

> Let's go back to BLM and try to map that onto a suggested course of action.

No lets not.

The article is about electric vehicles. So now is an opportunity for you to suggest a better path. You have not.

Moreover the example you use BLM? I mean you claim to not to really know what it means. If you don't know what it means it's hard to take the rest of it very seriously.

> 1. Virtue is linked to motive in many (most) peoples' analyses.

Therein lies part of the rub with "virtual signaling" concept. To invoke it assumes you know what the motivation is.

> 2. Actions are rarely, if ever, universally regarded as virtuous, or the proper course of action

That is not a requirement of the critique.