3. Moral praise and moral criticism
The value of moral praise and moral criticism as signals should be clear given the cooperative nature of humans. The value of cooperation helps to explain why we care so much about the moral reputations of our cooperative partners – especially if cooperation is long-term like, say, choosing a spouse or business partner. Moral praise and criticism are reputational inputs; and so, the sincerity of the praise and moral criti- cism matters. If moral criticism is often a higher-fidelity signal than moral praise, we can weigh those moral signals suitably. Just as the peacock can't signal fitness with col- orful plumage without risking predation too, it is hard to morally criticize someone without risking their wrath.
3.1. The source of costliness
If we frame moral praise and moral criticism as cheap or costly signals, we should understand what makes them costly or cheap. We should first appreciate why moral criticism can be costly to clarify why moral praise isn't likely to be as costly as moral criticism. Here are some reasons to think it would risk retaliation from the subject of that criticism:
Self-conception
People tend to self-represent as good. Moral criticism can result in psychological discontent by threatening to undermine the coherence of that self-conception (Hardy and Carlo 2011).
Sanction and Punishment
Moral criticism increases the odds that the subject of criticism will be punished by others, and thus motivates retaliation; sanctions and punishment, and mechan- isms like third-party punishment, meta-punishment, aid in norm enforcement (Boyd et al. 2003; Jordan et al. 2016).
Lack of cooperation
Moral criticism can indicate to third-parties that the subject of moral criticism would be a poor cooperative partner; people typically prefer to cooperate with individuals who are subject to less moral criticism, ceteris paribus (Miller 2007).
We are now in a position to make an important distinction between two different types of moral criticism – following an influential paper by Watson (1996): criticism of actions (accountability criticism), and criticism of attitudes and character (attribut- ability criticism). The former kind of criticism has to do with the actions one performs: we would criticize Omar, say, since he stole someone's wallet, and perhaps demand he be punished; this is a case of accountability criticism. Whereas, the latter kind of criti- cism targets the attitudes and character of someone: we may think Sam deserves criti- cism for his reactionary political attitudes, even if we don't think that he should be punished for them – though perhaps he should be punished if he acted on them. This would be a case of attributability criticism.
With this distinction in hand, we can revisit the source of costliness question with respect to different kinds of criticism. The sources of costliness will vary somewhat depending on whether we are talking about criticism of actions, or criticism of attitudes and character. Start with the first source of costliness: the target of criticism wanting to preserve their self-conception as a good person. If someone criticized Bob for acting badly while in a bad mood – perhaps he was rude to a waiter because of hunger and exhaustion – it isn't clear one would risk retaliation here beyond a nasty retort by Bob since one-off criticism of a rude comment may not threaten Bob's self-conception as a good person. Of course, if Bob was routinely rude to those around him, as a regular feature of his personality, than strangers regularly and independently pointing this out may threaten his self-conception as a good person. In contrast, suppose someone cri- ticized Bob for his cruel political beliefs or lack of honesty; criticism of this sort may challenge Bob's self-conception as a good person, risking retaliation by Bob.
Now consider that sanctions and punishments are often (but not always) reserved for actions. We should expect that accountability criticism – where one is criticized for their deeds – would be more likely to encourage punishment from others, and thus risk retaliation. We should thus expect that the possibility would be a source of cost- liness, by encouraging retaliation, when the criticism is directed at an action, and thus may encourage punishment by others. By example, we wouldn't expect Republicans to punish Bob because he strongly supports a woman's right to choose. So while there is a risk the target of attributability criticism will be sanctioned for their beliefs and char- acter, we should primarily expect that the source of costliness, with respect to punish- ment, lies mostly with accountability criticism (based on what someone does).
Finally, criticizing someone – either for their actions or beliefs and character – can cripple their access to the cooperation market. Of course there is nuance operating here as there often is with complex social rules and interactions, but by and large, we would expect that when criticizing someone for their actions, or their beliefs and character, they thus risk losing out on potential cooperators, sexual partners, friends, and whatnot. This will, of course, depend on the details: perhaps Bob isn't shut out of the cooperation market because of a rude comment he made while hungry and tired; but we can see how regularly treating others rudely may harm Bob's chances of securing cooperation part- ners. And the same holds for beliefs and character: depending on the details, folks may not want to cooperate with Bob if he has cruel political or moral beliefs, say, because of how others may view it. So with respect to the sources of costliness, we should expect accountability-criticism to be costlier than attributability-criticism, ceteris paribus.
Additionally, we have indirect evidence that supports Costlier relating to the convey- ing of bad news. There is good empirical evidence of what psychologists call the 'MUM effect': people are often reluctant to transmit bad news – a message communicating information anticipated by the transmitter to be negatively valenced and unknown by the recipient – to others for fear that it will have bad consequences for them (Rosen and Tesser 1970; Dibble and Levine 2013). The psychological factors here resemble those of moral criticism. As researchers who investigated the 'MUM effect' and its relationship to rumor transmission write:
Overall, it can be concluded that the definitiveness of the consequences of the [bad] news and the relationship between communicator and recipient increase the likelihood of bad news transmission, possibly because they increase the perceived moral responsibility to transmit the news. Both factors do not affect the likelihood of good news transmission. (Weenig et al. 2001: 460; my emphasis)
Although people tend to pass along rumors, which are mostly negative, the empirical evidence shows that this is because rumors are often transmitted amongst people in a social circle. However, people are increasingly reluctant to transmit bad news as the recipient of the bad news is less and less known to them; they would thus be the least likely to transmit bad news to strangers, ceteris paribus. The dynamics are similar to moral criticism: especially when one is sincere, moral criticism can function as bad news – it can reveal one sincerely thinks that you've done something bad or have bad moral character, and damage your moral reputation. Of course, it should need not be said that bad news doesn't have an evaluative character to it like moral criticism does, but it still illustrates something important on the sender side of bad news, whether con- veying generic bad news or moral criticism: if people don't like the message you're send- ing, they may have incentive to retaliate.
Further, moral criticism, to a larger degree than praise, makes the subject account- able to others. Thus it seems moral criticism can be costly, by inviting retaliation against the target of that criticism – whereas, the reasons above don't apply to the subject of the moral praise to retaliate against the source of that praise. We would often like to be mor- ally praised; it may improve our moral reputations. Even if moral praise fails to improve one's moral reputation – e.g., everyone else knows Molly is a terrible person, moral praise from a passer-by aside – it is unclear how moral praise could harm one's moral reputation; it is either positive or neutral for the subject.
Moral praise can be costly sometimes too. Just by example, Nelly lost her job at the New York Times by praising the Armenian genocide in her editorial. There are cases where moral praise can be costly, but that costliness is often (but not always) from third- parties: moral praise and moral criticism can be interpersonally costly, while moral criti- cism tends to be personally costlier than moral praise. We turn to that issue next.
3.2. Varieties of costliness
We should distinguish different sources of costliness. When Sally morally criticizes Bob's meat eating, for instance, she faces potential backlash from a couple of sources. The first is from Bob: he may have reason to retaliate against Sally – e.g., it threatens Bob's self-conception as a good person. Second, there is potential third-party retali- ation: friends, peers, and others friendly to Bob (or meat eating) may retaliate against Sally; her criticism of meat eating may threaten the livelihood of Bob and his coworkers. We should, when assessing Costlier, distinguish between the personal and interpersonal costliness of moral praise and moral criticism:
Personal Costliness: The risk the subject of moral praise and criticism will retali- ate against the person who praises and criticizes them.
Interpersonal Costliness: The risk that third-parties, distinct from the subject of moral praise and criticism, will retaliate against the person who praises and criticizes.
Begin with interpersonal costliness: arguably, Costlier doesn't originate from interper- sonal costs – under the right conditions, third-parties may retaliate in response to either moral praise or moral criticism. Consider examples of third-party retaliation against moral praise:
Trump voter
Jerry, who lives in a heavily blue district, thinks Trump supporters are brave, and says so in front of friends and neighbors. Within a few weeks, word spreads and Jerry loses most of his customers.
Pro-choice
Bertha praises Sally's pro-choice views in a heavily pro-life area. As a result, Bertha's neighbors shun her for praising a practice they consider morally abhorrent.
We can easily generate further examples like Trump voter and Pro-choice where moral praise is interpersonally costly. So, it can be hard to tell whether moral criticism would be interpersonally costlier than moral praise – the interpersonal costliness of moral praise and moral criticism varies too much here. For this reason, we should treat the interpersonal costliness of moral praise and moral criticism as on par; this source of costliness doesn't add anything, one way or the other, to evaluating Costlier. The subject of moral criticism has better reason to retaliate than the subject of moral praise, ceteris paribus. And if interpersonal costliness of moral criticism and moral praise is roughly on par, combined with the asymmetric personal costliness, moral criticism tends to be a costlier signal than moral praise.
In contrast, it is easy to see why moral criticism would often be personally costlier than moral praise: the subject of moral praise lacks reason to retaliate for being morally praised – it's nice to be told you're a good person. For example, we shouldn't expect Bob to retaliate against Mary for praising his integrity, even if Bob knows Mary is merely paying him lip service – there is a good chance Mary's moral praise for Bob, even if insincere, may improve his moral reputation. Even if third-parties see such praise as insincere, they will likely disregard it at worst (unless it says something about Bob worthy of moral criticism: e.g., Mary praising Bob for mistreating his pets – moral praise isn't the problem here, but rather what it says about Bob's bad behavior). For this reason, moral criticism tends to be a higher-fidelity signal than praise.
Of course, we should recall the distinction between accountability-criticism and attributability-criticism when thinking about criticism costliness. In the case of Trump voter, one criticizing Jerry for his Trump support may not encourage others to punish him, but it may cause Jerry to want to retaliate for damaging his self- conception as a good person, or may dampen his access to the cooperation market.