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Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk

  • Book
  • Jul 21, 2020
  • #Philosophy
Justin Tosi
@JustinTosi
(Author)
Brandon Warmke
@BrandonWarmke
(Author)
www.goodreads.com
Hardcover
4.4/5 59 ratings
Hardcover Kindle Audiobook Audio cd
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3.82/5 168 ratings
3 Recommenders
3 Mentions
1 Collection
We are all guilty of it. We call people terrible names in conversation or online. We vilify those with whom we disagree, and make bolder claims than we could defend. We want to be s... Show More

We are all guilty of it. We call people terrible names in conversation or online. We vilify those with whom we disagree, and make bolder claims than we could defend. 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 exaggerate. In other words, we grandstand.

Nowhere is this more evident than in public discourse today, and especially as it plays out across the internet. To philosophers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke, who have written extensively about moral grandstanding, such one-upmanship is not just annoying, but dangerous. 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. The pollution of our most urgent conversations with self-interest damages the very causes they are meant to forward.

Drawing 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. 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. Most importantly, they show how, by avoiding grandstanding, we can re-build a public square worth participating in.

(From Goodreads)

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ISBN: 0190900156

ISBN-13: 9780190900151

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Rob Henderson @robkhenderson · Dec 23, 2020
  • Curated in Best books I read in 2020
"if politics becomes a morality pageant, then the contestants have an incentive to keep problems intact...politics becomes a forum to show off moral qualities...people will be dedicated to activism for its own sake, as a vehicle to preen"
Chris Boutté @TheRewiredSoul · Nov 3, 2022
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Quite a few people have entered the giveaway so far! Subscribe to my substack by 11/8 to get a chance to win one of the FIVE free copies of @JustinTosi and @BrandonWarmke's awesome book!
Steven Sinofsky @StevenSinofsky · Dec 11, 2022
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6/ Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk by @JustinTosi @BrandonWarmke is a must read if you are debating the goings on here on twitter. So much of what we experience can be explained by the patterns herein. No easy answers but a great framework.
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