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Who are more moral? Liberals or Conservatives?

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Liberals and conservatives often give the impression that they believe themselves to be more moral than others, and can’t figure out why the other side doesn’t ‘get it.’

Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham of the University of Virginia propose that liberals and conservatives have different foundations for moral intuitions.  They start with two moral foundations that are shared by both liberals and conservatives:
  • Harm - Primates, including humans, are sensitive to the suffering of others beyond our own offspring, so we approve of people who can prevent or relieve harm. Kindness and compassion are considered virtues while cruelty and aggression are considered vices.
  • Reciprocity - All cultures have developed virtues related to fairness and justice. However, only in some cultures has this led to the elaboration and valuation of individuals rights and equality.
In addition to these, conservatives have three other moral foundations: 
  • Ingroup - People have strong social abilities backed up by strong social emotions related to recognizing, trusting, and cooperating with members of one’s ingroup, while being wary and distrustful of members of other groups. Most cultures have constructed virtues such as loyalty, patriotism, and heroism.
  • Hierarchy – Long history of living in hierarchically-structured ingroups, where dominant males and females get certain perquisites but are also expected to provide certain protections or services. People often feel respect, awe, and admiration toward superiors, and many cultures have constructed virtues related to good leadership. Conversely, many societies value virtues related to subordination: respect, duty, and obedience.
  • Purity – Only humans have the emotion of disgust, which mostly has to do with protecting the body against disease transmission. However, in most human societies disgust has become a social emotion as well, attached at a minimum to those whose appearance or occupation makes people feel queasy. In many cultures, disgust goes beyond such contaminant-related issues and supports a set of virtues and vices linked to bodily activities in general and religious activities in particular.
Why are there differences? Why is it that in most of Europe and parts of the United States that moral concerns have been restricted to issues related to harm/welfare/care and justice/rights/fairness? Haidt and Graham think it probably has to do with the growth of free markets, social mobility, science, material wealth, and ethnic and religious diversity.
“Mobility and diversity make a morality based on shared valuation of traditions and institutions quite difficult (Whose traditions? Which institutions?)”
In the 2004 election, the great majority of counties that voted for John Kerry are near waterways, where ports and cities are usually built and where mobility and diversity are greatest. Areas with less mobility and less diversity generally have the more traditional five-foundation morality, and therefore were more likely to vote for George W. Bush.

This has implications for the United States and the world as globalization pushes people from diverse backgrounds, and with moral values based on five foundations, together. Perhaps the liberal, two-foundation moral structure is the future.


Posted by Sam on Oct 19 2006 under Conservatism, Culture wars, Liberalism, Morality, Radio topics




2 Responses to “Who are more moral? Liberals or Conservatives?”

  1. Sam Says:
    October 31st, 2006 at 8:00 am

    Chris Hibbert of PanCrit.Org references Haidt and Graham in Moral intuitions and discusses the two-foundation liberal view of morality from the perspective of Libertarians. He says,

    “I think libertarians believe strongly in justice and fairness, but the emphasis is quite different from liberals: for libertarians, the point is equal treatment, while for liberals, it more often equates to equality of outcome. I wouldn’t have included ‘reciprocity’ in that constellation. And libertarians view compassion as a personal virtue or preference, rather than something for which you fault others. Compassion is much less a driver of fundamental moral insights for libertarians as long as justice and rights are respected.”

    He says the causes of the shrinking list of moral concerns of modern liberals, “the growth of free markets, social mobility, science, material wealth, and ethnic and religious diversity” are the same for libertarians, because “mobility and diversity make a morality based on shared valuation of traditions and institutions quite difficult.”

  2. Cause and Effect World » Agreeing with Jeff Jacoby, and still freaked out about it Says:
    June 14th, 2007 at 10:35 am

    [...] * See Who are More Moral?  Liberals or Conservatives? for a discussion of how conservatives view in-group vs. out-group. Posted by Sam on Jun 14 2007 under Conservatism, Media, Immigration [...]

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