On Saturday, Pretti, a 37-year-old American citizen, was held on the ground by Border Patrol agents and shot multiple times. There is a term for this permission structure: vice signaling. On the surface, vice signaling appears to be the opposite of virtue signaling, philosopher Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò recently wrote. Vice signaling, then, is typically a version of virtue signaling rather than an alternative to it. And the more one relies on vice signaling as a style of action and communication, the less relevant and powerful the in-group’s moral compass is as a practical constraint on anyone’s behavior.