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Notes -
I can think of examples, I suppose, where mood is a relevant piece of evidence for judging a person's sincerity.
Suppose I'm favour of stronger welfare policies and more generous handouts for people in poverty, and I'm arguing with a person who believes that, however well-intentioned, public handouts like this are bad. They disincentivise people working to better themselves, they involve the government in what ought to be private charity, and so on. The state providing free welfare for the poor is ultimately detrimental both to the poor and the state. I suggest that their position is heartless, and they protest, "Not at all! My heart goes out to the poor as well. I really care about their plight. We just disagree about the best way to help them."
Suppose I then discover this person cheering as people get kicked off the dole and laughing. I would probably conclude that they're insincere and that their real motives are not empathy. Even if they sincerely think the dole is bad, mockery of desperate people is a cruel thing to do, and unlikely to coexist with genuine empathy. Alternatively, suppose I instead discover that this person volunteers at the soup kitchen run by their church. I would probably conclude that they are sincere, they really do empathise with and want to help the poor, and that they realy do believe there's an important moral distinction between public and private interventions.
I'm sure you can think of lots of examples like that. The key there is that the person presents as having certain motives, but behaves consistently or inconsistently with that motive.
The typical case is when someone neither particularly hates or helps the poor. But the missing mood test looks at how things are framed and at superficial elements. So if he thinks the dole is good for the poor, he doesn't need to prove himself, because the belief itself already says that he "wants to help the poor". But if he thinks the dole is bad for the poor, he faces an uphill battle. The problems with this are obvious.
This also leads to moral busybodies. How exactly do you know that someone hates the poor privately? Well, if he's a friend or relative, maybe you know him. But if he's a politician or someone else you don't know personally, this is an incentive to dig up ten year old Twitter posts out of context to "prove" that he's cruel so you can dismiss his beliefs.
And then there's the situation where someone who thinks some policy harms themselves always fails the missing mood test. After all, they aren't showing concern for the other people who are helped by the things that harm themselves. (And "I think my harm is more important than someone's benefit" is selfish, so it doesn't count as showing concern even if you acknowledge that someone benefits.)
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