All posts tagged: Virtue

Since When Is Looting a Form of Virtue Signaling?

Since When Is Looting a Form of Virtue Signaling?

Published by Daniella Wilson

In 1785, Immanuel Kant introduced his famous “categorical imperative.” Put simply: Act the way you want others to behave. This dictate, a version of the Golden Rule, has been a bedrock of moral philosophy for centuries. But for the New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino, Kant’s “categorical-imperative-type thing” no longer applies. Moral rectitude, in some left-wing corners of the commentariat, is out; flagrant disregard of the social contract is in. Yesterday, The New York Times posted a video of a conversation featuring Tolentino, the pro-communist streamer Hasan Piker, and the Times opinion editor Nadja Spiegelman, under the headline: “The Rich Don’t Play by the Rules. So Why Should I?” It began with Tolentino, a highly successful author, admitting to shoplifting lemons from Whole Foods. “I think that stealing from a big box store—I’ll just state my platform—it’s neither very significant as a moral wrong, nor is it significant in any way as protest or direct action.” “But what about the argument that if everyone just starts stealing wantonly,” Spiegelman replies, “Whole Foods will eventually raise …

How to Deal with Online Virtue Signaling

How to Deal with Online Virtue Signaling

Published by Jenni Sidey

You’ve had a long day at work and come home wanting to unwind. You decide to scroll through your social media just to pass some time. It’s not long until you see a post from a friendly acquaintance from your college days: “If you’re not fucking furious about [recent tragedy], then you’re part of the problem.” You can’t help but compare yourself with them and ask if you should be angrier.  You push the thought away, determined to relax this evening. You continue scrolling and see a distant familiar has changed their profile picture to have a filter with the phrase “I stand with X group.” You can’t help but roll your eyes, remembering that your distant familiar has done little to stand with X group and has used dark and “edgy” jokes in the past where X group was the punchline. You try not to get too irritated and continue scrolling. You see a post from a major corporation displaying the flag of a minority group with the phrase, “Human rights are non-negotiable at …

Growing up during Sri Lanka’s civil war taught me that getting along with people across divides is a virtue we can learn

Growing up during Sri Lanka’s civil war taught me that getting along with people across divides is a virtue we can learn

Published by Sam Flores

(The Conversation) — I grew up in Sri Lanka. Much of my adolescence was spent in Kandy, a city built around a lake, set amid the lush tea plantations of the hill country. Its northern shore houses the Temple of the Tooth, one of Buddhism’s most sacred sites. Each year, it came alive with drummers, dancers and elephants parading through the streets in a “perahera,” or procession, honoring the Buddha’s relic. But Buddhism was only one part of Kandy’s mosaic of religious life. I went to a high school where students from different religious and ethnic backgrounds got along easily. Within walking distance stood Buddhist temples, Christian churches, brightly colored Hindu temples, or “kovils,” and Muslim mosques whose call to prayer echoed across the city multiple times a day. Religious observances filled the calendar; Sri Lanka has more holidays than almost any other country. Our own home was a glimpse into the island’s diversity. I attended both churches and temples with ease. My mother regularly visited a Hindu kovil with a close friend – though …

Today’s obsession with authenticity isn’t new – being true to yourself has troubled philosophers for centuries

Today’s obsession with authenticity isn’t new – being true to yourself has troubled philosophers for centuries

Published by Sam Flores

(The Conversation) — Today’s youth cherish “authenticity,” but is it a virtue? According to a report from Ernst & Young, more than 9 in 10 Gen Z respondents indicated that being authentic and true to yourself is extremely or very important. In fact, most of them claimed authenticity is more important than any other personal value. This finding is not all that surprising: All of us live in an age where we’re bombarded by social media and artificial intelligence – when striving to be your authentic self becomes an increasingly difficult task. Yet, even if it has somehow become a common goal, it is unclear how many of us can truly define the “authenticity” that we say we are pursuing. I think it’s also worth asking whether sincerity and authenticity are perennial human virtues or just obsessions of this technological age. As a scholar in the history of political thought and American political development, I think two philosophers can help us understand this problem and how to deal with it: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Martin Heidegger. …

The greenest flags: virtue signals that help you find love – from patchwork clothes to car sharing | Dating

The greenest flags: virtue signals that help you find love – from patchwork clothes to car sharing | Dating

Published by Sam Flores

Name: Green flags. Age: This is a thing for younger people, so listen up, boomers. And I’m guessing we’re not talking about Green Flag, the roadside assistance people, one-time sponsors of the England football team? Correct, we’re not. But green flags as opposed to red ones? Again, correct. With regard to dating. So, I’m thinking: being mean to animals would be a red one, whereas being good-looking is most definitely a green flag? It’s true, the phrase has been used to mean generally encouraging signs in a potential partner (though more behaviourally than anatomically). But here we’re talking about green as in … Gorton and Denton? No! Well, maybe, kind of. Green as in environmentally conscious. Got it. In a survey … Thought there would be one of them. … of 1,000 people, commissioned by Faustino Wines … Weird! So, 80% of gen Zs said that shared environmental values were as important as physical compatibility in a partner. Who cares if you’re good-looking if you don’t recycle? Essentially, yes. Car-sharing, wearing patchwork clothes (signifying mending …

What Can We Learn From Aristotle’s Concept of Virtue?

What Can We Learn From Aristotle’s Concept of Virtue?

Published by Sam Flores

Published: Feb 25, 2026written by Igor Zanetti, BA Philosophy, BA Pedagogy   The pursuit of virtue is a difficult one, and doing so in a misguided manner has led to many issues both for individuals and for mankind collectively, and it continues to do so in modern times. When we discuss problems arising from the pursuit of virtue, our minds immediately think of extremism, radicalism, and fanaticism. However, Aristotle’s concept of virtue goes completely against all of these standpoints, arguing that true virtue can only derive from balance.   History and Pillars of Aristotle’s Philosophy Aristotle tutoring Alexander, by J L G Ferris, 1895. Source: Alexander’s Tomb   As one of the most important names in Greek Philosophy and Western civilization as a whole, Aristotle was Plato’s most brilliant pupil, later becoming the tutor of none other than Macedonian emperor Alexander the Great. His extensive work covered areas such as natural philosophy, metaphysics, and ethics, and laid the foundation for many concepts that would eventually be studied by psychology. While the influence of Platonism is …

The Download: Autonomous narco submarines, and virtue signaling chatbots

The Download: Autonomous narco submarines, and virtue signaling chatbots

Published by skeptic

“Too often, those victims have been left to fight alone…That is not justice. It is failure.” —Keir Starmer, the UK’s prime minister, outlines plans to force technology firms to remove deepfake nudes and revenge porn within 48 hours or risk being blocked in the UK, the Guardian reports. One more thing End of life decisions are difficult and distressing. Could AI help? End-of-life decisions can be extremely upsetting for surrogates—the people who have to make those calls on behalf of another person. Friends or family members may disagree over what’s best for their loved one, which can lead to distressing situations. David Wendler, a bioethicist at the US National Institutes of Health, and his colleagues have been working on an idea for something that could make things easier: an artificial intelligence-based tool that can help surrogates predict what the patients themselves would want in any given situation. Wendler hopes to start building their tool as soon as they secure funding for it, potentially in the coming months. But rolling it out won’t be simple. Critics …

Google DeepMind wants to know if chatbots are just virtue signaling

Google DeepMind wants to know if chatbots are just virtue signaling

Published by skeptic

With coding and math, you have clear-cut, correct answers that you can check, William Isaac, a research scientist at Google DeepMind, told me when I met him and Julia Haas, a fellow research scientist at the firm, for an exclusive preview of their work, which is published in Nature today. That’s not the case for moral questions, which typically have a range of acceptable answers: “Morality is an important capability but hard to evaluate,” says Isaac. “In the moral domain, there’s no right and wrong,” adds Haas. “But it’s not by any means a free-for-all. There are better answers and there are worse answers.” The researchers have identified several key challenges and suggested ways to address them. But it is more a wish list than a set of ready-made solutions. “They do a nice job of bringing together different perspectives,” says Vera Demberg, who studies LLMs at Saarland University in Germany. Better than “The Ethicist” A number of studies have shown that LLMs can show remarkable moral competence. One study published last year found that …

What Is Virtue and Can It Be Taught? Plato’s Answer in “Meno”

What Is Virtue and Can It Be Taught? Plato’s Answer in “Meno”

Published by Sam Flores

Published: Feb 10, 2026written by Luke Dunne, BA Philosophy & Theology summary What is Virtue: Socrates and Meno discuss the nature of virtue, trying to move from subjective virtue to a general, overarching definition of virtue. Meno’s Paradox: This leads to a discussion of how knowledge is acquired and how one knows they have learned something they do not know. Anamnesis: Socrates introduces the Platonic idea of an immortal soul with perfect knowledge, and how questioning allows us to recall that knowledge. Antylus’ Warning: Socrates shows that to find “true knowledge,” one must abandon “belief” and embrace the unknown, an approach that disrupts the status quo.   In Plato’s Meno, Plato has his teacher Socrates engage in a dialogue with Meno on the nature of virtue. While the dialogue starts by asking “what is virtue,” it goes on to explore how knowledge is acquired and how we learn unknown things. This brings the dialogue to Platonic metaphysics with his idea of an immortal soul with perfect knowledge that allows us to recall true knowledge, which …

The Evangelicals Who See Trump’s Viciousness As a Virtue

The Evangelicals Who See Trump’s Viciousness As a Virtue

Published by José Betancourt

The National Prayer Breakfast was founded in 1953, when President Dwight Eisenhower accepted an invitation to join members of Congress to break bread together. Every president since has participated, regardless of party or religious persuasion. It offers an opportunity, according to its organizers, for political leaders to gather and pray collectively for our nation “in the spirit of love and reconciliation as Jesus of Nazareth taught 2,000 years ago.” Donald Trump never got that memo—or, if he did, he’s found ways to ignore it. In a rambling, 75-minute speech at the Prayer Breakfast yesterday, we saw the quintessential Trump. His comments were grievance-filled, narcissistic, conspiratorial, factually false, divisive, and insulting. He referred to his critics as “lunatics.” He engaged in projection, comparing them to “dictators” and “the gestapo.” He labeled Republican Representative Thomas Massie a “moron” because he won’t cast legislative votes the way Trump wants. Joe Biden is “Crooked Joe,” while Jacob Frey is “the horrible fake mayor” of Minneapolis. Trump praised El Salvador’s authoritarian President Nayib Bukele—Bukele has referred to himself as “the …