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Curzon
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Curzon

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May 28th, 2007

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Morality: Left and Right

What influences your moral reasoning? What factors do you consider in evaluating something as right or wrong?

In the current issue of Science, Jonathan Haidt has an article titled “The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology” regarding research on what influences human moral judgment. The conclusion of surveys was that people who described themselves as liberal focused on “harm” and “fairness.” Self-described conservatives took a more widespread review, with intuitions about ingroup-outgroup dynamics and the importance of loyalty, authority, and the importance of respect and obedience. A graph of the difference looks something like this:

moral-judgment.jpg

The graph was drafted by asking respondents 15 questions about which considerations are relevant to deciding “whether something is right or wrong.”? Those who described themselves as “very liberal”? gave the highest relevance ratings to questions related to the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity foundations and gave the lowest ratings to questions about the Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity foundations. In other words, the more conservative the participant, the more the first two foundations decrease in relevance and the last three increase. The data in the graph above was aggregated from two surveys citizens of the United States, and data for 476 citizens of the United Kingdom revealed a similar result.

As a rather conservative person myself, I take comfort in that the survey appears to show that the more conservative you are, the more sophisticated moral compass you have. But some may disagree with that (admittedly simplified, and therefore rather ironic) conclusion.

Comments to this entry

Admiral Waugh
May 28, 2007
5:55 pm
As a fairly conservative person myself, I guess I would find it intuitive. It seems to me that it has a lot to do with a sort of patience, and perhaps a kind of maturity as well. Instead of whining about fairness, or elevating the harm of some birds to millions of humans (http://armchairgeneralist.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/05/rachel_carson_t.html), conservatives also try to keep institutions intact, and at least pay lip service to things like honor that keep people strong and bound together. I am more and more thinking liberals are an evolutionary, though constant, scourge on the human race.
Daniel Nexon
May 28, 2007
6:09 pm
Well, a liberal would look at the distribution and conclude that conservatives rely on specious criteria for moral judgments, such as the the identity or norms of an in-group, deference to authority, and so forth. But it shouldn't be describing that self-described "conservatives" (or "liberals") would read these results as confirming the inherent superiority of their moral compasses, because...

This "science of morality" regurgitates what Edmund Burke and his critics argued 2+ centuries ago about the nature of justice, fairness, and ethics. In other words, this is just survey data that shows that liberals and conservatives evaluate morality more or less as their ideological orientations suggest they should.
Ken
May 28, 2007
8:06 pm
In terms of how we talk about it in USA, I grew up as a "yellow dog" democrat...buncha' stuff went on and I read Rand, and Hayak, and Buckley(W. F.), and J. S. Mills and others....and started thinking...went through an "anarcho-nilistic" period...Now, I consider myself (rightly? wongly?) more or less a "reacitonary" classical liberal-GET THE ESTATE OUT OF OUR WAY!! darnit. Yes, a "saftey net" for those that need it, but NOT for the able bodied and able minded...
Dan~tdaxp
May 29, 2007
7:48 am
Off the top of my head, I don't remember a correlation between moral reasoning and moral behavior.

What I think you're getting in this study is differences in how people BS their beliefs, rather than differences in what they actually do.

If you look at behavior, conservatives tend to be more cooperatie, which both means altruistic and vindictive.
subadei
May 29, 2007
9:08 pm
Liberals tend to embrace subjectivity and idealism where as conservatives lean more toward objectivity and realism. The "moral" correlation or, as Dan refers to it, how individuals BS their beliefs is directly related to these principles.
A liberal will watch a child toil in a factory or field and see exploitation and cruelty. A conservative will watch the same child and deduce the child is doing what he must to survive. Which is funny because in terms of charity a conservative is more likely to give than a liberal. You'd think it'd be the other way around.
snow
May 30, 2007
2:50 am
Perhaps this survey will persuade a few so-called liberals to realize that conservatives are not just a bunch of fascistic morons. I find that many liberals dismiss conservative arguments, solely because they think that conservatives take their positions unthinkingly or because of racist or other reasons, when in fact, conservatives often take their positions from very reasoned and rational perspectives. When I was a leftist, I became disenchanted with the lack of reason and irrational thinking and behavior indulged in by so many that called themselves leftists. Not that the right is perfect, but many of their arguments are certainly based on reasonable positions, even if one may not always agree (I'm thinking of the group most hated by leftists-evangelical Christians).
Curzon
May 30, 2007
5:17 am
Dr. Nexon:

Well, a liberal would look at the distribution and conclude that conservatives rely on specious criteria for moral judgments, such as the the identity or norms of an in-group, deference to authority, and so forth.


A liberal may say that -- but can we objectively say this is true? Harm and fairness are just as nebulous concepts as authority and purity.
Ken
May 30, 2007
7:29 am
I will never post here again whilst I'm intoxod! Sorry, I made no sense at all.
Daniel Nexon
May 30, 2007
12:56 pm
Curzon -- I'm not suggesting that it is "objectively true," merely that these findings suggest that liberals are liberal and conservatives are conservative. Thus, we shouldn't be surprised if members of both ideological poles feel vindicated by the results :-).

The liberal critique of such markers of morality, however, doesn't rest on their abstract character, but on philosophically liberal objections to claims that the morality of an action depends on the group affiliation of someone performing the action, etc. etc. Think of Kant vs. Burke.
Dan tdaxp
May 31, 2007
8:49 pm
Dr. Nexon,

So contextualism and relativism are conservative styles of moral reasoning?