S2053447718000209jra 371..389


Moral Diversity and Moral
Responsibility

ABSTRACT: In large, impersonal moral orders many of us wish to maintain good will
toward our fellow citizens only if we are reasonably sure they will maintain good
will toward us. The mutual maintaining of good will, then, requires that we
somehow communicate our intentions to one another. But how do we actually
do this? The current paper argues that when we engage in moral responsibility
practices—that is, when we express our reactive attitudes by blaming, praising,
and resenting—we communicate a desire to maintain good will to those in the
community we are imbedded in. Participating in such practices alone will not get
the job done, though, for expressions of our reactive attitudes are often what
economists call cheap talk. But when we praise and blame in cases of moral
diversity, expressions of our reactive attitudes act as costly signals capable of
solving our social dilemma.

KEYWORDS: moral responsibility, Strawson, cheap talk, costly signal, moral
disagreement

Introduction

Althea and Bertha inhabit the same society. They are not particularly close—they are
neither friends nor family nor are they lovers—but occupy the same community
nonetheless. Since both Althea and Bertha are beings with a sense of morality, they
wish to maintain relations of good will toward one another. Yet they are neither
saints nor martyrs. As a result, they do not wish to display good will toward one
another at all costs. More specifically, Althea and Bertha both wish to display good
will toward one another conditionally—that is, Althea wishes to display good will
toward Bertha only if she is reasonably sure that Bertha will display good will
toward her and vice versa. The worst-case scenario is to display good will toward
one’s fellow citizens while one’s fellow citizens harbor ill will toward one. This
makes one a sucker, and no one wants to be a sucker.

Althea and Bertha thus find themselves being pulled in opposing directions. On
the one hand, they both most desire to live in a community where all display good
will toward all. This suggests that they should display good will, in hopes of
achieving the best possible outcome. But on the other hand, both desire to avoid a
society in which they display good will toward others, yet others display ill will
toward them. This suggests that they should prudentially display ill will, so that
they may avoid the worst possible outcome. How is this dilemma resolved? In
order to secure the most desired outcome, Althea and Bertha need some way of

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communicating to one another that they both desire to maintain good will, thereby
assuring one another. This is more difficult to do than one might initially think,
however. A fundamental lesson of game theory is that (under certain kinds of
incentive structures) when communication is not costly to engage in—that is,
when talk is cheap—we cannot rationally infer facts about the intentions of others
from their communicative acts. But on the flip side, when communication is costly
—that is, when communication acts as a costly signal—we can rationally infer
facts about the intentions of others from their communicative acts.

This paper proposes a mechanism—but certainly by no means the only
mechanism—by which Althea and Bertha can solve their dilemma by appealing to
this notion of costly signaling. The basic idea is that when we disagree with others
about important moral questions, we incur costs from such disagreement. The fact
that we willingly incur such costs—that is, the fact that we willingly engage in
moral disagreement when we could otherwise simply remain silent—allows others
to infer rationally that we wish to maintain relations of good will with them. The
same applies to our ability to infer rationally the intentions of others when they
similarly engage in moral disagreement. Hence, our central thesis: engaging in
moral disagreement is sufficient but not necessary to maintain relations of good
will within a community.

The next section offers a more careful analysis of Althea and Bertha’s dilemma
and sketches in the abstract what a solution might look like (section ). Again, the
general idea is that the two can assure one another of their desire mutually to
maintain good will if they communicate their intentions to one another, which is
possible so long as such communication is sufficiently costly. After this, we
explore how Althea and Bertha might communicate their intentions to one
another by turning to the moral responsibility tradition that follows the work of
P. F. Strawson (section ). In short, when we express our reactive attitudes and so
blame and praise when such reactions are called for, we communicate our desire
to maintain good will toward others. Problematically, though, expressions of our
reactive attitudes can be quite cheap. Yet, expressions of our reactive attitudes are
not cheap—that is, expressions of our reactive attitudes are costly—when we
blame and praise in an environment of moral heterogeneity (section ). Hence our
central thesis: engaging in moral disagreement is sufficient to secure a community
in which all display good will toward all. We end by further refining this thesis,
highlighting conditions that must hold for the mechanism we identify to function
successfully. Not only must we have the right kind of moral diversity for this
solution to work, but we must also have the right attitude toward moral diversity
(section ). This latter point, we believe, fails to characterize much contemporary
public discourse.

 We thus join a growing body of literature in political philosophy that points out the positive benefits diversity
and disagreement can bring about. As a few examples see Gaus (), Muldoon (), Kogelmann (). That
said, we do not wish to suggest that there is something problematic about homogenous societies. It may be that
deeply homogenous societies do not face the same incentives that Althea and Bertha face and thus do not play
assurance games with one another. Or if they do, there might be some other mechanism that solves their
dilemma besides the one we highlight in this paper. Again, the claim is that moral disagreement is sufficient but
not necessary to maintain mutual relations of good will.

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. The Possibility and Fragility of Mutual Good Will

Let us make more precise the problem highlighted in the introduction. Althea and
Bertha both wish to maintain good will toward one another but do not wish to do
so at all costs. Neither wants to display good will if the other harbors ill will. We
can model this situation game theoretically, as shown in figure . Here, Althea
and Bertha both most prefer to maintain good will toward one another. Althea’s
second most preferred outcome is where she harbors ill will toward Bertha but
Bertha maintains good will toward her—here, Althea can gain advantages in her
social interactions with Bertha for Bertha is being a sucker. The same applies for
Bertha’s second most preferred outcome. The third most preferred outcome for
Althea and Bertha is where both harbor ill will toward one another. Finally, the
least preferred outcome for both parties is where that party maintains good will
toward the other but the other harbors ill will—here the party harboring good
will is a sucker. In figure  the desire to display good will toward others is
conditional—the players wish to maintain good will toward others only if they are
reasonably sure they will receive good will in return. Compare John Rawls’s
definition of reasonable persons, defined such that they ‘are ready to propose
principles and standards as fair terms of cooperation and to abide by them
willingly, given the assurance that others will likewise do so’ (Rawls [] :
, emphasis ours).

The technical term for the game illustrated in figure  is an assurance game.
Assurance games present an interesting problem. Both the outcome (Maintain
good will, Maintain good will) and the outcome (Harbor ill will, Harbor ill will)
are pure Nash equilibrium solutions. Roughly, they are both outcomes to the
game that we could expect rational parties to settle on. Clearly, the mutual
maintaining of good will is preferred to the mutual harboring of ill will by both
parties. What, then, is the problem? Why would Althea and Bertha not simply
both harbor good will toward one another? Even though the mutual harboring of
good will is an equilibrium outcome in this game, and even though the mutual
harboring of good will yields the Pareto dominant equilibrium when compared to
the risk-dominant equilibrium (where both parties harbor ill will), it is not
obvious that rational players will actually achieve such an outcome. The slightest
doubt that Bertha will harbor good will can force Althea to harbor ill will so as to
avoid the sucker payoff, where she harbors good will and Bertha harbors ill will

Figure . Assurance game.

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(Aumann ). Brian Skyrms nicely summarizes the problem: ‘rational players are
pulled in one direction by considerations of mutual benefit and in the other by
considerations of personal risk’ (Skyrms : ).

So the dilemma highlighted in figure  presents a tricky social problem. But to
what extent does this dilemma actually obtain? That is, when do persons actually
face the incentives highlighted in figure ? We typically want to maintain good
will toward our friends, family, and lovers unconditionally. Even if our children
harbor ill will toward us, we still want to harbor good will toward them—figure 
is thus not applicable in such a case. But figure  plausibly models our
interpersonal relationships with some. When it comes to strangers on the street,
other drivers on the highway, and fellow imbibers at the bar, we want to maintain
good will toward them only if we are reasonably sure they will maintain good will
toward us. If others maintain ill will toward us it is foolish—and, in some cases,
dangerous—to continue harboring good will toward them.

Indeed, figure  plausibly models the relations between those persons constituting
what F. A. Hayek called ‘the Great Society’: ‘a large-scale moral order in which we
often confront others as strangers’. In such an environment we ‘know little about the
other, except that she is a moral person’ (Gaus : ). Despite a lack of
interpersonal closeness our relationships to strangers are still moral relations: we
still wish to offer them some modicum of good will, even if this good will is
conditional. (Indeed, much work in evolutionary psychology and evolutionary
accounts of moral norms suggest that we are such conditional cooperators; for
instance, see Bowles and Gintis .) It is these kinds of impersonal relationships
and the problems they raise that we shall be interested in for the remainder of the
paper and not those deeply personal relationships that constitute close friendships,
families, and small groups. To put it another way: we are interested in those
relationships among persons who desire to maintain good will conditionally, and,
we believe, such a set of persons is coextensive with those persons in large,
impersonal orders. If one believes that persons in large, impersonal orders wish to
maintain good will unconditionally (as we grant is likely the case among friends
and family) then the forthcoming analysis will not be compelling. However, we
believe this to be implausible.

Assuming figure  models a nontrivial subset of our interpersonal relationships,
we thus face an assurance problem: how can we be sure that other persons in our
community will maintain good will toward us, and how can they be sure that we
will maintain good will toward them? One prima facie plausible solution is that
assurance can be achieved through acts of communication. Althea says: ‘I promise
that I will maintain good will toward you if you promise to maintain good will
toward me’. This seems as though it should assure Bertha that Althea is going to
harbor good will rather than ill will. And if Bertha says something similar then
this should assure Althea to display good will as well. As a result, both parties
display good will and the most desirable equilibrium is attained.

Though intuitively plausible, this will not do. Suppose Althea, through an act of
communication as suggested above, tries to signal to Bertha that she will harbor good
will in order to induce Bertha to harbor good will as well. This is indeed Bertha’s best
response to Althea’s harboring good will. But what should Bertha infer from Althea’s

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communicative act? Given knowledge of Althea’s preferences, Bertha knows that it is
in Althea’s interest no matter what to induce Bertha to harbor good will. Returning
to figure , if Bertha harbors good will, the worst outcome Althea can achieve is a
payoff of —if Althea harbors ill will and Bertha harbors good will. If, on the
other hand, Bertha harbors ill will, the best outcome Althea can achieve is a
payoff of —if both players harbor ill will. Given this, Bertha cannot infer from
Althea’s communicative act that Althea will actually harbor good will. Whether or
not Althea actually plans to harbor good will, it is in Althea’s interest for Bertha
to believe that Althea will harbor good will (so Bertha then harbors good will as
well), and thus it is in Althea’s interest to say that she will in fact harbor good will.

The problem here is that Althea’s communicative act is cheap talk. Cheap talk is
defined as communication that does not affect the payoffs of a game (Crawford and
Sobel ). When Althea tells Bertha that she will harbor good will it does not cost
her anything; likewise, when Bertha tells Althea that she will harbor good will as
well. Now suppose that while telling Bertha that she will harbor good will, Althea
pulls out a knife and cuts her hand open. Why? Because cutting her hand open is
not cheap (here we follow Kogelmann and Stich : –). Althea is
attempting to show Bertha that she really is committed to harboring good will.
Bertha cannot infer a commitment on Althea’s part from cheap talk. But why, if
she plans to harbor ill will anyway, would Althea cause herself pain? If she plans
to harbor ill will, cutting her hand open would likely be irrational. She would be
imposing a loss on herself with seemingly no compensating benefit. But if Althea
plans to harbor good will, then the behavior is rational. Althea is willing to lower
her utility to show Bertha that she is committed to harboring good will. The pain
from the knife wound is a loss, but a loss that Althea believes will be more than
compensated if both parties inhabit a society where mutual good will is
maintained. In other words, Bertha can infer that the knife cutting is an honest
costly signal on the part of Althea.

To be clear, by ‘cost’ we follow the standard meaning in game and decision
theory, where to impose a cost on some individual i is to reduce i’s utility, which
just means that i’s preferences are not as well satisfied as they otherwise would be.
There are thus no actions that are costly as such, as costs depend on preferences.
When we thus make judgments in the forthcoming analysis about what kinds of
actions are costly, we are implicitly making judgments about how preferences
typically look. It is of course logically possible that there exist preferences such
that the kinds of actions we say are costly are not costly given these preferences.
We are not interested in logical possibility, but only in empirical likelihood.

Let us try to make this notion of costly signaling more precise. In the above figure 
we used ordinal utilities—all we know is that higher numbers are more preferred to
lower numbers. Figure  now represents the same assurance game with cardinal
utilities—now utilities represent intrapersonal intensity of preferences, such that
the gap between the numbers now represents how much more preferred an
outcome is. Importantly, cardinal utilities typically do not contain information
about interpersonal intensity of preferences (though they can be defined in a
manner such that they do contain such information; for more on the distinction
between ordinal and cardinal utilities see Kogelmann and Gaus ).

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Suppose cutting her hand open costs Althea a utility of .. This behavior could
be rational no matter how Althea plans to act. If she plans to harbor good will and
successfully convinces Bertha to harbor good will, then she gains a utility of .
compared to the outcome that otherwise would have obtained where she harbors
good will, but Bertha does not (because her payoff in this case is ). But if Althea
plans to harbor ill will and successfully convinces Bertha to harbor good will,
then she has gained . utility compared to the outcome that otherwise would
have obtained where both Althea and Bertha harbor ill will (because her payoff in
this case is ). No matter what, Althea gains utility, and therefore sending such a
signal could be rational regardless of her intentions. Now suppose that cutting her
hand open costs Althea utility s, where  < s < . In this case, cutting her hand
open is rational only if Althea plans to harbor good will. For suppose Althea
plans to harbor ill will. Then Althea has caused herself more pain than she gains
from Bertha’s switch from harboring ill will to harboring good will. Given that
this would be irrational, Bertha should conclude that Althea’s cutting her hand
open is a sincere signal when doing so costs Althea utility s. It can easily be
checked that any time Althea and Bertha play an assurance game with the ordinal
structure of figure  or figure , then there will always be some costly signal
Althea can send that would only be rational to send so long as she plans on
harboring good will. Likewise for Bertha. It is the mutual sending of such costly
signals that can assure both parties to harbor good will rather than harbor ill will.
This achieves the desired outcome and solves our dilemma.

. Communicating Good Will

The preceding section presented a tricky social problem and sketched in broad,
abstract terms what a potential solution might look like. When citizens engage
one another in large, impersonal orders, they often face the incentives of an
assurance game. Because they are moral beings, they wish to maintain good will
toward one another—this is the most desired outcome and an equilibrium
solution to the game. Since both want to avoid being suckers, they could quite
easily end up in a situation where all harbor ill will toward all—this is the
undesirable equilibrium at which they could very well settle. To make sure mutual
good will is maintained, persons must assure one another. But how? One way is
through communication but only if communication is sufficiently costly.

Figure . Assurance game with cardinal utilities.

 B R I A N KO G E L M A N N A N D RO B E R T H. WA L L AC E

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This claim might sound false if taken too literally. We do not mean to say that
persons are actively calculating when they pass each other on the street. Instead,
we offer a model detailing how a tricky social problem might be overcome that
may explain features of our shared world even if it fails to be descriptive of
individual cognitive processes. Compare: teenagers who eat Tide Pods are
probably not consciously rationally calculating the benefits of such behavior. They
may even be aware of (the very good) reasons against such behavior. Nevertheless,
a costly signaling model may help explain why such an action might be
individually rational for a teenager to perform. As a dangerous and risky action, it
acts as a costly signal of one’s status and fitness (Murphy ).

Back to the problem at hand: persons must assure one another of mutual good
will. But signals of assurance (given the incentive structures we are interested in)
only work if they are sufficiently costly. So how can we communicate our desire to
maintain good will toward our fellow citizens? And when we do this, will such
communication be costly enough? This section answers both questions in turn.

In terms of our first question—how can we communicate our desire to maintain
good will toward our fellow citizens? —there already exists an answer in the moral
responsibility literature. Moral responsibility takes as its subject those who are apt
candidates for moral demands and thus those who are liable to be the target of
moral sanctioning practices from the community they are embedded in. Though
an important question, we are not interested in what it means to be an apt
candidate for moral demands—whether one must act freely and with sufficient
knowledge or the like. Rather, we are interested in the moral sanctioning practices
themselves. That is, we are interested in how it is we hold persons morally
accountable and what it is we are doing when we do hold persons morally
accountable. Given Althea’s and Bertha’s assurance problem, we assume that the
moral standard to which we hold others accountable in large-scale impersonal
orders is a standard of reasonable good will. Failure to meet this standard makes
blame fitting. Typically, exceeding this standard makes praise fitting.

For many in the moral responsibility literature, our moral sanctioning practices
are fundamentally (or paradigmatically) public and communicative (e.g., Watson
[] : –; Darwall : –; McKenna : –).
Strawson’s seminal ‘Freedom and Resentment’ () first articulated a theory of
moral responsibility that highlights this feature of praise and blame. On this view,
praise and blame are expressed reactive attitudes, emotions that are particularly
reactive to the intentions of other persons. According to Strawson’s view, for
Althea to blame Bertha is for her to express to Bertha that she believes Bertha has
acted with ill will (and so acted wrongly) by showing resentment to Bertha. For
Althea to praise Bertha is for her to express that she believes Bertha has acted with
good will by showing Bertha gratitude. Fundamental for our purposes, though,
is the fact that the moral responsibility practices between Althea and Bertha are
communicative—when the two hold one another responsible, they are
communicating things to one another via their expressed reactive attitudes.

The Strawsonian model is a well-developed view of moral responsibility and is
particularly useful for articulating a potential solution to Althea and Bertha’s
problem. To make things more precise, we will say that when we blame someone,

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we communicate to them through expressed reactive attitudes that we think they
have done a wrong and so acted from ill will. Likewise, when we praise, we
commend an action as performed with good will. Call instances of this kind of
communication through expression of our reactive attitudes accountability
signaling, for such acts of communication signal to others that we hold them
accountable for their good or ill will. Accountability signaling is primarily about
communicating to other members of our community what we believe the quality
of their will to be.

It would be wrong to think, though, that when we engage in moral responsibility
practices, we only signal to those we praise and blame. For when engaging in such
practices, we also communicate something about ourselves. When we blame those
who ought to be blamed, we communicate that we have good will to others who
bear witness to the expression of our reactive attitudes; the same applies when we
praise those who are deserving of such approval. As Angela Smith points out,
blame has the important secondary function of asking for ‘moral recognition’ of
the wrong done ‘by the wider moral community’ (Smith : ). By responding
to this call for recognition, we signal our own quality of will not only to the
person wronged but also to the community at large. And if we fail to express
indignation on some stranger’s behalf when that person is wronged, then we have
indicated that we lack a reasonable degree of good will toward strangers generally.
Call this kind of communication—not done to the perpetrator of a wrong or right
action alone but to the community we are imbedded in—quality signaling, for we
are signaling the quality of our will, be it good or ill. There are thus two kinds of
signaling and two different ways we communicate to others when we engage in
moral responsibility practices. We signal to others that we believe they have acted
with either good or ill will (this is accountability signaling), and in doing so we
also signal to others around us the quality of our own will in the process (this is
quality signaling).

Although we proceed with the Strawsonian account of moral responsibility in
mind, we note that the framework we develop extends to other accounts of our
moral responsibility practices. Often, even those who reject the Strawsonian view
take interest in the public and communicative aspects of moral responsibility, thus
implying that our notions of accountability and quality signaling plausibly extend
beyond the Strawsonian view to other models of moral responsibility. T. M.
Scanlon, for instance, significantly modifies the basic ideas articulated above,
arguing that blameworthy actions ‘show something about the agent’s attitudes
towards others that impairs the relations that others can have with him or her’,
including the basic moral relationship all persons have toward one another
(Scanlon : ). To express blame, then, precisely points out this fact—in
other words, it communicates something to those one is blaming. Others, like

 More generally, quality signaling occurs whenever one acts intentionally and not only when one engages in
moral responsibility practices. Consider, for instance, recycling and polluting. The fact that one goes out of one’s
way to recycle signals (not always honestly) that one cares about the environment and one’s fellow inhabitants of
the world, thus implying that one has good will. And the fact that one throws one’s water bottle on the side of the
road signals (again, not always honestly) that one lacks care and respect for the environment and one’s community,
thus implying that one has ill will.

 B R I A N KO G E L M A N N A N D RO B E R T H. WA L L AC E

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Pamela Hieronymi (), Matthew Talbert (), and Angela Smith (), see
blame as a form of moral protest. As before, such blaming communicates to other
persons beliefs about their actions, attitudes, or character. Shared among a diverse
array of views about our moral responsibility practices is thus the idea that when
we engage in the relevant practices, we also engage in a communicative enterprise.
Some philosophers have argued that blame can be private, in which case blame is
not communicative (e.g., Scanlon : –). But this is orthogonal to our
project, which only focuses on blame as a communicative act. We remain agnostic
on whether blame can indeed be private.

Thus, we have an answer to our first question: we can communicate our desire to
maintain good will to our fellow citizens by participating in moral responsibility
practices. Following our analysis of Strawsonian accounts of moral responsibility,
we can say that expressions of our reactive attitudes communicate a desire to
maintain good will toward others. When we are indignant at acts that display ill
will, we signal that we have good will to others around us through acts of what
we have called quality signaling. And when we praise acts that display good will,
we again signal that we have good will toward those around us through acts of
quality signaling. This quality signaling can assure others that we wish to
maintain good will toward them. And if others quality signal through expression
of their reactive attitudes, then they communicate to us that they wish to maintain
good will toward us.

But this solution works only if such instances of quality signaling are not cheap
talk. This leads into our second guiding question for this section: will such
instances of signaling be sufficiently costly? Problematically, expressions of our
reactive attitudes are often quite cheap. If Althea says: ‘Hey! What’s the matter
with you?’ then plausibly such a display of indignation does not cost Althea much
in terms of making her preferences less well satisfied than they otherwise would be
if she were not to express indignation. And if Althea says, ‘Well done!’ then such
an act of praise does not cost her much either. But if these expressions of Althea’s
reactive attitudes cost her nothing, then others around Althea cannot rationally
infer that she wishes to maintain good will. The same applies to Althea’s ability to
infer that those around her wish to maintain good will. We have not solved our
assurance dilemma quite yet.

Surely, it might be objected some expressions of our reactive attitudes are costly.
Indeed, think of how uncomfortable it can be to tell one’s friend or partner that he or
she has screwed up—such discomfort is certainly a cost and makes the expression of
resentment difficult. But recall the central target of our inquiry: we are focusing on
those interpersonal relationships that arise in communities among relative
strangers, for it is these sorts of relations that we believe give rise to the assurance
problem we are concerned with. Thus, though resentment among those we are
close with might be quite costly, intuitively it seems that expressions of our
reactive attitudes among persons we lack deep interpersonal relationships with
will be cheap. This suggests that expressions of our reactive attitudes, such as
praise and blame, are not performing the communicative function we wish for
them to perform—such expressions are not allowing others to infer rationally the
quality of our will when we engage in quality signaling. We thus still do not have

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a way of assuring those who inhabit large-scale impersonal orders that we wish to
maintain good will toward them. And they have no way of assuring us.

. When Blaming is Costly

The preceding section argued that (i) engaging in moral responsibility practices
through expressions of our reactive attitudes communicates our desire to maintain
good will toward others through acts of what we have called quality signaling, but
(ii) many times expressions of our reactive attitudes are quite cheap. This implies
that such instances of quality signaling cannot solve our assurance problem, for
others cannot infer anything rationally about our intentions from such acts. But
on the flip side, if expressions of our reactive attitudes were sufficiently costly,
then we would have a plausible mechanism by which our assurance problem can
be solved. In these sets of cases, persons can draw rational inferences about our
intentions. To this end, the current section proposes a mechanism by which our
quality signaling acts as a costly signal.

To get a feel for the mechanism that induces costs on our quality signaling,
consider a case.

Honor Killing. Dupree resides in a community where honor killings are
performed against women who violate tradition sexual norms. Cassidy,
a young woman in the relevant community, engages in premarital sex.
As a result, the community kills Cassidy according to the relevant
honor killing standards. In response, Dupree is indignant at the
members of his community: ‘What is wrong with you? Are you all
depraved? This is one of the most morally disgusting things I have ever
witnessed!’ Dupree says this despite not knowing Cassidy personally.

What is the likely effect of Dupree’s expression of indignation? Since the community,
by and large, thinks that honor killings should be done, those in the community that
are subject to Dupree’s indignation will likely push back: they might judge Dupree,
shun Dupree, or engage in some kind of formal or informal sanction against him.
Perhaps Dupree is now no longer able to shop at their stores. As such, Dupree’s
expression of his reactive attitudes in this case is costly. It costs him something to
engage in quality signaling.

Intuitively, it seems clear that Dupree’s actions are costly. But what, exactly,
induces the costs? The key here is that through quality signaling in cases of moral
diversity, Dupree opens himself up to sanction and criticism from the community
at large. It is not easy to be told that one is a moral monster or even simply just
misguided about some crucial moral issue; suffering backlash from those who

 We by no means suggest this is the only mechanism. Hence our thesis: that moral diversity is sufficient, but not
necessary, to secure a community in which all display good will toward all. One mechanism that we do not explore
is opportunity costs: that when one’s quality signaling is particularly extensive and requires great time and effort to
carry out, one has incurred a cost to oneself. We believe that acts of ‘moral grandstanding’ as discussed by Justin
Tosi and Brandon Warmke () are ways of inducing such costs, thereby serving a critical assurance function
even if, as the authors argue, such acts are generally morally suspect.

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hold moral standards different from one’s own can be a difficult thing indeed. As
such, the psychological costs of being criticized, reprimanded, and sanctioned are
the relevant costs that one undergoes when one quality signals in cases of moral
diversity, though there might be other possible costs as well: at the limit, bodily
harm from those one has disagreed with. We are primarily interested in the
relevant psychological costs. One may suffer backlash when one praises and
blames in cases where others disagree that praise and blame are called for. This is
the cost one incurs when one quality signals in environments of moral heterogeneity.

Because Dupree’s quality signaling is costly in Honor Killing, though the
members of the community might be upset with Dupree for issuing judgments
that call into question their moral norms, there is something they can be sure of:
that Dupree wishes to maintain good will toward them. For if Dupree did not
wish to do this, then imposing this cost on himself through quality signaling
would likely be irrational. It is only because Dupree wishes genuinely to maintain
good will toward others that he is willing to engage in costly signaling. If he
wished to maintain ill will toward the community, then the rational thing to do
would be to stay silent. Or perhaps he joins in with the community even though
he disagrees, with the hope that doing so tricks others into thinking he wishes to
maintain a good will. From there he may harbor ill will and achieve the payoff
where he exploits and others are suckers.

Here, it might objected: why should those Dupree blames and expresses
indignation toward interpret him as harboring good will? For from their
perspective, Dupree has a flawed moral view, and if he had things his way, he
would replace the current (correct) moral norms with incorrect ones. Though it is
true that those Dupree blames disagree sharply with the norms Dupree
propagates, this does not mean that they will be able to infer rationally from this
point of disagreement that Dupree harbors ill will toward them. Indeed, the fact
that Christians and Muslims disagree over important moral questions does not
allow all those in one group to infer rationally that all those in the other group
harbor ill will. But even though this inference is not rational, some do in fact draw
such an inference. We think drawing such inferences is indicative of a problematic
attitude toward moral disagreement—more on this in section . below—such
that when it obtains, the costly signaling mechanism we identify no longer
functions successfully. Instead of making this irrational inference, those persons
Dupree blames must ask themselves: given the costs Dupree faces for his
disagreement, what reason does Dupree have, other than that he cares about what
is right, for speaking up? If no alternative answer can be given here, those around
Dupree should interpret his costly signaling as evidence of him seeking to harbor
good will because being motivated by the right kinds of reasons (even if one
argues for the incorrect moral view) is indicative of having good will (Arpaly
: , –).

Now, it is possible to give other answers when we ask about people in
circumstances like the one Dupree finds himself in. For instance, a white man
publicly complaining about the unfairness of affirmative action hiring practices
will likely face backlash for his indignation. This is costly. Does he express
indignation because he genuinely cares about what is right (thus implying he has

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good will)? Perhaps. But he could also be doing so because a change in norms would
benefit him. Thus, in cases where self-interest aligns with the position one costly
signals in favor of, drawing rational inferences about good will from costly
signaling becomes difficult. Caution in these cases is warranted. Notice, though,
that we have stipulated that Dupree and Cassidy do not have a close interpersonal
relationship. Thus, it is rational for members of Dupree’s community to infer his
concern for others generally from his costly disagreement.

Honor Killing is an extreme case, but we believe the lesson of this case generalizesto
all cases where there is significant moral diversity: cases where persons disagree about
the relevant moral norms governing the circumstances in question. Consider, for
instance, students who shut down a debate at a liberal arts college because the
speaker is controversial. A rogue student who signals her indignation at her fellow
classmates typically does so in a costly way; there may be significant repercussions
from those who disagree with her. As such, her quality signaling is costly. Other
examples abound: being indignant on Twitter toward Black Lives Matter protesters
after they have destroyed property if one has many left-leaning Twitter followers;
displaying resentment toward privileged white people who voted for Trump when
one lives in a community full of Trump supporters; and standing up and arguing
that young girls ought to be given the same education as their male peers when one
lives in Pakistan. Here, there is no doubt that Malala Yousafzai wishes to maintain
good will and for good reason: Malala’s quality signaling was costly indeed.

Importantly, we are not arguing that Dupree and others in similar circumstances
are morally required to express their reactive attitudes in cases of moral
disagreement. We are merely highlighting the consequences of Dupree doing this:
when Dupree decides to express indignation at those who radically disagree with
him, such quality signaling acts as a costly signal capable of solving our assurance
problem. Of course, given the potential benefits of Dupree’s actions, one could
perhaps argue that Dupree is indeed morally required to do so. We shy away from
such arguments for space constraints, though we do note that such arguments
might exist. We are merely highlighting what happens when Dupree does engage
in moral responsibility practices in an environment of moral heterogeneity.

So here is where we stand: Normal displays of quality signaling when engaging in
moral responsibility practices likely cannot assure our fellow citizens that we wish to
maintain good will toward them and vice versa. Such quality signaling is often too
cheap. As a result, we can end up in a situation where everyone displays ill will
toward everyone else even though everyone wishes to maintain good will toward
everyone else. There is, however, at least one way in which quality signaling can
achieve its intended communicative function: when one quality signals in cases of
moral diversity. For when one does quality signal in cases of moral diversity, one
imposes costs on one’s self. This allows others to make rational inferences about
one’s intentions.

. Refining the Moral Diversity Solution

The preceding section argued that in environments of moral heterogeneity
expressions of our reactive attitudes can act as costly signals capable of solving the

 B R I A N KO G E L M A N N A N D RO B E R T H. WA L L AC E

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assurance problem characterizing large, impersonal orders. The final section of this
paper refines this thesis. First, we note that only certain kinds of moral diversity will
allow expressions of our reactive attitudes to act as effective costly signals. Moreover,
even when this right kind of diversity obtains, it is still not sufficient for expression of
our reactive attitudes to be costly. We also must take seriously the possibility of
genuine moral disagreement as well as take seriously the reprimand from those
who disagree with the moral standards we propagate. In other words, we must
foster the right kinds of attitudes toward moral diversity.

. The Right Kind of Moral Diversity

In cases of moral diversity instances of quality signaling act as costly signals assuring
others that we wish to maintain good will toward them. Disagreeing with others over
deep moral questions is costly to the point that it often does not make sense to do so
unless one wishes to achieve the (Maintain good will, Maintain good will) outcome
from figure . From this it might be thought that a simple corollary follows: the more
diversity, the better. For the more disagreement there is among the relevant
community, the greater the likelihood that our quality signaling is costly. And
when expressing our reactive attitudes is costly, we are capable of assuring our
fellow citizens that we wish to maintain good will toward them.

This inference is incorrect. To see why, consider a case.

Soles. Esau and Franklin live in the same community even though they
have radically different backgrounds. Esau is from an Arab country,
Franklin from a Western liberal democracy. A third party wrongs
Franklin in some way. Esau, who sees this happen, takes off his shoe
and points the sole toward the offender in an effort to signal his
indignation at the perpetrator through an act of accountability
signaling and also to signal the quality of his will toward Franklin
through an act of quality signaling. Franklin is confused by Esau’s
actions, and therefore he does not interpret Esau’s actions as Esau
wishing to maintain good will.

What has gone wrong here? In many Arab cultures displaying the soles of one’s shoes
is a particular way of signaling indignation. When Esau stands witness to Franklin
being harmed by some third party, Esau tries to signal his indignation toward this
third party. If all goes well, Esau should successfully accountability signal to the
perpetrator that he thinks the perpetrator has shown ill will, and he also should
have successfully quality signaled to Franklin the quality of his will. But he has at
least failed to do the latter, for when Franklin sees Esau take his shoe off and
point the sole toward the perpetrator, he is simply confused by Esau’s behavior.
Here, diversity has caused problems rather than offered solutions. The diversity
between Esau and Franklin seems too great in Soles, causing a breakdown of
communication. We are thus left with a somewhat pessimistic and trivial
conclusion: diversity is sometimes capable of solving our assurance problem
except when it cannot.

M O R A L D I V E R S I T Y A N D M O R A L R E S PO N S I B I L I T Y 

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We now wish to make more nuanced our claim that moral diversity is capable of
solving our assurance problem by inducing costs on our quality signaling. Consider
two ways in which diversity might manifest itself.

Token diversity. Token diversity characterizes Esau and Franklin’s
relationship if and only if they disagree about how it is they ought to
engage in accountability and quality signaling.

Felicity diversity. Felicity diversity characterizes Esau and Franklin’s
relationship if and only if they disagree under what conditions they
ought to engage in accountability and quality signaling.

With this distinction in hand we now refine the central thesis of our paper: in order to
solve the assurance problem, there needs to be significant felicity diversity but very
little token diversity. In other words, when it comes to how it is we engage in
accountability and quality signaling, we seek homogeneity; when it comes to
under what conditions we should engage in accountability and quality signaling,
we seek heterogeneity.

Why is this so? The problem with token diversity is that there may be confusion
concerning when a signal is a signal. This seems to be what went wrong in Soles.
Here, Esau tried to signal his indignation toward the perpetrator and his quality
of will toward Franklin by displaying the sole of his shoe. But because Esau and
Franklin disagree about how it is they ought to express their reactive attitudes—
Franklin thinks a simple ‘Hey, buddy what’s the matter with you?’ is what’s called
for—Esau’s signal fails to achieve its intended outcome. Franklin does not
interpret it as a signal in the first place due to the pair’s token diversity. Hence
successful communication has broken down.

Note that many of the instances of successful costly signaling we have discussed
thus far in the paper can fail as successful instances of communication when token
diversity obtains. Consider the first case we introduced in section  above: where
Althea and Bertha must assure one another that they will mutually display good
will. The example of costly signaling we used was Althea cutting her hand open—
something that most agree is costly. But now suppose Althea and Bertha are from
radically different cultures: Althea is from a wealthy Western liberal democracy
and Bertha is from a pre-agricultural foraging society. To convince Bertha that she
really intends to maintain good will, Althea burns a pile of money, which is the
common example of costly signaling used in the technical game theory literature
(indeed, the title of Bernheim and Redding’s  paper is ‘Optimal Money
Burning: Theory and Application to Corporate Dividend Policy’). But in this case
Bertha does not know what money is. To her, Althea sets aflame funny looking
pieces of paper. As such, Bertha cannot interpret Althea’s costly signal as a
genuine costly signal because token diversity obtains between the two. If there is
token homogeneity, though, then these problems dissipate.

But this same homogeneity cannot characterize the conditions under which we hold
people responsible for the moral diversity solution to work. For as we have seen, it is
precisely in cases of moral diversity—in terms of felicity conditions specifically—that

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expressions of our reactive attitudes can become costly, for we open ourselves up to
sanction from those whose moral norms we criticize. It is this costliness that assures
others that we wish to maintain good will toward them. Hence, when it comes to
moral diversity broadly construed, we face a double-edged sword: diversity in terms
of how we express our attitudes can induce noise, but diversity in terms of the
moral standards we hold each other accountable to is one mechanism that can help
facilitate a community in which all maintain good will toward all.

. Taking Disagreement Seriously

Unfortunately, significant felicity diversity along with high levels of token
homogeneity within a community are still not sufficient to ensure that costly
signals are sent that are capable of solving our assurance problem. Along with
felicity diversity and token homogeneity, persons in a shared community must
have the right kinds of attitudes toward the diversity they confront. There are two
ways of responding to disagreement that, if they obtain, cause problems for our
proposal. We now wish to highlight these problematic attitudes.

To highlight the first problematic attitude, consider the following variation on
Honor Killing.

Silent Honor Killing. Dupree resides in a community where honor
killings are performed against women who violate traditional sexual
norms. Cassidy, a young woman in the relevant community, engages
in premarital sex. As a result, the community kills Cassidy according
to the relevant honor killing standards. Though Dupree disagrees
sharply with the community’s standards, he does not express any
indignation for he has no reason to think his moral standards are
superior to the community’s or vice versa.

What went wrong in Silent Honor Killing? In the case as stated, Dupree does not
express his indignation toward the community and thus fails to send any kind of
signal at all, costly or not. Clearly this is a problem, for it is the sending of costly
signals that solves our assurance problem, and Dupree sends no such signal in the
current case.

The more general worry with Silent Honor Killing is that Dupree embraces one
common—all too common among our undergraduate students—way of
responding to the fact of moral disagreement, what we shall call naïve relativism.
Far from actually having any interesting metaethical commitments, the naïve
relativist reasons in something like the following manner: because there is no
obvious way to judge between competing moral demands, there is no point in
engaging in argumentation over these demands. Naïve relativists like Dupree
believe they lack the moral standing to blame, given that his view is no better than
anyone else’s. So he fails to express his reactive attitudes publically. It should be
clear why this sort of attitude toward moral disagreement is a problem. On the
view advanced in this paper, it is precisely public disagreement with conflicting
moral demands that acts as a costly signal capable of solving our assurance

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problem. But if persons are naïve relativists, then they see no point in disagreeing
with others at all and thus will send no signal in the first place. The first
presumption our proposal makes when it comes to attitudes toward moral
disagreement is thus that persons are not naïve relativists. Rather, they think there
is at least some point to engaging in substantive moral debate with others.

The importance of avoiding naïve relativism seems rather clear. But there is
another kind of attitude toward moral diversity that also causes problems for our
proposal. To highlight this second problematic attitude, consider another case.

Trump. Guyute blames a Trump voter for supporting what Guyute
believes to be an unconscionable candidate. The Trump supporter
fights back, telling Guyute that he ought to be ashamed for passively
standing by and watching his country slowly but surely be torn apart
by cheap immigrant labor while simultaneously more and more jobs
get shipped overseas. Far from being taken aback by such a
reprimand, Guyute finds the Trump supporter’s indignation amusing.
He believes Trump supporters are not the kinds of people worth
taking seriously and finds it quite funny whenever one of them
expresses indignation toward him. Nevertheless, Guyute is often
indignant at what Trump supporters say and do.

Now what has gone wrong in this case? Perhaps at first glance nothing, for maybe
Guyute is correct that it is not worth engaging with certain kinds of persons who
hold certain kinds of views and thus is correct in ignoring the reprimand aimed at
him. But on second glance there is some cause for concern. Intuitively, Guyute
incurs no costs for his actions in the current case, for in not taking seriously the
Trump supporter’s expressions of indignation, Guyute does not suffer the
psychological costs we argued are typically associated with moral disagreement.
Since Guyute predictably suffers no costs in these cases, the expression of his own
reactive attitudes toward others is cheap. This raises the worry that others in the
community (especially the Trump supporter herself) might not think that Guyute
is committed to maintaining good will, leading us back to our original assurance
problem. Perhaps counterintuitively, taking the Trump supporter seriously would
be costly for Guyute and would thus assure others (and especially the Trump
supporter herself) that he has a desire to maintain good will.

Guyute harbors the second problematic attitude toward moral disagreement,
what we call hubristic realism. Also free from any kinds of interesting metaethical
commitments, the hubristic realist reasons in something like the following way:
even though people disagree with me when it comes to the appropriate moral
standards for governing social life, I need not care about such disagreements
because it is my view that is the correct view, and everyone else is deeply
misguided. For the hubristic realist, disagreement can often be seen as an insidious
effort to undermine community, rather than as genuine evidence that one might be
mistaken. This is what may happen in the aftermath of Honor Killing. Dupree’s
community may fail to see his blame as a costly signal because, of course,
someone who believes that honor killing is wrong must be wicked to the core.

 B R I A N KO G E L M A N N A N D RO B E R T H. WA L L AC E

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The problem here is that when one is a hubristic realist, several of the costs
associated with moral disagreement simply vanish. If one thinks that one’s
interlocutors are wicked or foolish and not worth taking seriously, then one
incurs little psychological costs when one is reprimanded by them. Indeed, at the
limit, moral reprimand from those one disagrees with can actually provide a net
utility gain, for it can be amusing to take cheap shots from what one deems to be
the cheap seats. But when this is true, expressing the reactive attitudes in
environments of felicity diversity will not be costly; instead, such expressions will
be quite cheap. This leaves our assurance problem unresolved.

Note that it is an implicit assumption of many of the cases we have given thus far
that those expressing the reactive attitudes in cases of moral disagreement are not
hubristic realists. Returning to the original Honor Killing, if Dupree does not care
that the rest of his community thinks he is deeply misguided and also does not
care about the sanctions imposed on him, then the reprimand he receives for his
expressions of blame will not be costly. What was a case of costly signaling is now
cheap talk. The same applies to other cases: if the student who is indignant at her
fellow classmates for shutting down a campus speech simply does not care about
what her peers think of her, then such indignation is no longer costly. If one does
not care that one’s Twitter followers rake one over the coals for blaming Black
Lives Matter protesters, then, again, such an instance of blame is now cheap. And
finally, as highlighted by Trump, if one thinks the backlash one receives from
Trump supporters is funny or amusing after one blames them, then one’s blaming
them is no longer costly.

To some, these conclusions about the function of moral disagreement may sound
surprising. But it should not surprise us that hubristic realism undermines assurance
in the good will of other persons in conditions of moral diversity. Indeed, the
avoidance of hubristic realism is related to one of the characteristics of a
reasonable person. For, as Rawls argued, the burdens of judgment are those
factors that give rise to genuine good-faith disagreements among persons (Rawls
[] : –). Part of being a reasonable person (according to Rawls’s
definition) is to accept the burdens of judgment as an explanation as to why
persons disagree (Rawls [] : ). But in accepting this it is hard to see
how one could also be a hubristic realist. For if one accepts that a set of factors
leads to good-faith disagreements, then it is hard to see how one could also think
others are so deeply misguided to the point that they are not worth taking
seriously. This just means, though, that one is not a hubristic realist.

Thus, engaging in moral responsibility practices in cases of felicity diversity acts as
a costly signal only if we have the right kinds of attitudes toward moral diversity.
First, we must avoid being naïve relativists when confronted with disagreements
for, if we are naïve relativists, then we likely will not send any signal at all in the
first place. And second, we must avoid being hubristic realists for, if we are
hubristic realists, then we may not incur sufficient costs when we express our

 Hubristic realism makes several, but not all, costs vanish. Sometimes there are more than psychological costs
one bears when one vocally expresses moral disagreement—indeed, one could suffer serious bodily harm from such
an act. Being a hubristic realist does not make these costs go away.

M O R A L D I V E R S I T Y A N D M O R A L R E S PO N S I B I L I T Y 

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reactive attitudes in an environment of moral heterogeneity. To sum up: we must
engage in moral discourse as if there is something important at stake to be
resolved, but also with the humility that our positions on these moral questions
may be wrong and that those we disagree with—sometimes radically disagree with
—may in fact be right. When a community is constituted by persons so described
in which there is also sufficient felicity diversity with high levels of token
homogeneity, then we have reason to believe that all will be assured to continue
displaying good will toward all.

. Conclusion

It is by no means the case that our communities will be well-functioning. Indeed,
though many of us are fortunate enough to live in Western liberal democracies
where we are reasonably sure that others will display good will toward us and
where others are reasonably sure that we will display good will toward them,
much of the world lives in chaos rather than harmony. Beyond contributing to the
literature on moral responsibility, we hope that our paper offers one small insight
concerning why this disparity might exist. In communities where differences are
stark, the intentions of our fellow citizens may be more transparent than in cases
where we are characterized by sameness. Though perhaps a bit counterintuitive,
such a fact might help explain why some of us do in fact live better together.

BRIAN KOGELMANN

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

bkogel@gmail.com

ROBERT H. WALLACE
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

rhwallace@email.arizona.edu

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 B R I A N KO G E L M A N N A N D RO B E R T H. WA L L AC E

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M O R A L D I V E R S I T Y A N D M O R A L R E S PO N S I B I L I T Y 

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	Moral Diversity and Moral Responsibility
	Abstract
	Introduction
	The Possibility and Fragility of Mutual Good Will
	Communicating Good Will
	When Blaming is Costly
	Refining the Moral Diversity Solution
	The Right Kind of Moral Diversity
	Taking Disagreement Seriously

	Conclusion
	References