As a simple matter, it keeps my city clean - we all put garbage in the bins (yes there's a law, but no way could it be enforced if the great majority of people didn't do it already). More dramatically and recently, the protests in India.
> society
Society is us - you, me, everyone. Nobody else is coming to help us.
I'm responsible for what I do, for the consequences of my actions. It's embarassing to say it's someone else's job (especially when the someone else is 'society'), and therefore I'm not going to do anything.
That term lacks all credibility - it's just a weak attack based on mind-reading - and is a signal itself.
Most people actually want do good - humans naturally are very social and want to do well for the group - and without prioritizing signaling. How sad that some are so politically driven by reactionary politics that their contribution is to snipe at others.
I disagree. There's coherent economic theory about how costly actions can be used to provide credible signals. It's been used in a wide variety of disciplines including biology (peacock's tails). No mind-reading is needed. I understand that sometimes it is used by right-wingers to attack left-wing positions. My comment wasn't driven by reactionary politics, and my point was to encourage people to think about what actually does well for the group - which, at the risk of repeating myself, is about minimizing the cost for a given level of benefit.
To describe something in the real world, you need objective evidence, in this case of someone's motive - or there's always mind-reading.