Grandstanding by Justin Tosi5/20/2023 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. 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
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