Deception and Self-Deception in Symbolic Legislation: from Virtue Signalling to Epistemic Vices

“Symbolic legislation” is often used to refer to laws that are ineffective, that is, instrumentally inadequate in achieving their declared or expected purposes. It is often associated with lawmakers deceiving citizens about their actual aims, as when they legislate only to alleviate social pressure rather than to address social problems. However, more often than not, symbolic legislation involves no legislative intent to deceive, as when a law is not symbolic from the outset but becomes so later. A novel definition of “symbolic legislation” will be offered, making no reference to irrationality or deception and focusing instead on the prevalence of symbolic functions. These functions are those that laws perform when they are not interpreted according to legal-specialistic codes but according to different codes provided by extra-legal social norms. A classification of these functions is proposed, based on whether they rely entirely on pre-existing codes (as in symbolic signalling, including virtue signalling) or modify those codes by creating new symbols or changing their social meanings. In some cases, the prevalence of symbolic functions overshadows the laws’ lack of effectiveness: citizens are led by “expressive” concerns into what Newig has called “societal self-deception” regarding the instrumental adequacy of the laws they support. Although various alternative accounts of self-deception have been offered, it will be held that, when symbolic legislation is associated with societal self-deception, it fosters the propagation of identifiable epistemic vices within the community.