Edited by Samuel George Gaze, Monday, 21 Nov 2022, 23:07
In reading the Righteous Mind beyond its account of Haidt's development of the theory of moral intuitions, he begins to drift more into a polemic about the current state of US politics and what he believes can be done to improve it. Namely, he is talking about the polarisation of US politics into groups of liberals and conservatives, something he blames partly on the particular blindness and tone-deaf messaging of liberals to the moral values of conservatives. He believes that present day America, and some other western nations, are fundamentally divided by their moral attitudes and headed for disaster - perhaps civil war, certainly decline relative to other nations like China or Russia.
The MFT sociological theory goes like this. There are six moral intuitions. They are innately evolved to provide large groups of humans with the social trust or cohesiveness to sustain the group itself. While the care/harm foundation underpins such social institutions as the family, the foundation of fairness discourages cheating individuals from ruining collective action, the foundation of authority allows us to work together in hierarchies, the foundation of loyalty encourages us to prioritise our group above others, and the foundation of sacredness helps us to maintain the institutions of religion that create bonding social capital, the boundaries of the group and the internal hygiene of the group.
Without these, societies begin to lose trust and 'turn bad', Haidt argues. In so arguing he invokes the sociocentric view of humanity taken by sociologist Emile Durkheim; people do not exist as individuals, in order to survive, they must act for the good of the whole colony, and this sometimes means submitting to collective attitudes and expectations without being critical or individually pursuing a different course that may seem right to us. It is almost certainly true that social trust is necessary for the smooth functioning of social institutions, from the family, to the workplace, to hospitals and government. What we call loyalty and reciprocity are undoubtedly implicated in this trust, on some occasions deference or equality will be implicated. The foundation of sacredness might be implicated through whatever moral, religious or aesthetic resources are used to create the myth of a singular 'society' that is to be defended, and whose members one can trust as having the same ultimate co-operative interests. However, if we examine what Haidt might mean by societies becoming maladaptive, this sociological theory struggles to hold up.
Of course, it is time to again invoke the Nazis, who are always referred to when we imagine what a 'bad society' might be. However, looking at the Nazis through the lens of Moral Foundations Theory, we see quite a different picture. Instead of being bad, the Nazis seem to have much that a so-called "morally developed society" might wish to emulate. White Christian Germans were told they could enjoy high levels of social trust through loyalty and reciprocal relationships between themselves, with a strong religious community that cared for in-group members united around sacred symbols of the race and fatherland. But this is clearly a morally repugnant conclusion - the Nazis are the embodiment of evil; the cause of the most deadly conflict in human history, murderers, torturers, capable of arbitrary cruelty on an industrial scale. It does not escape Haidt's notice that taken as a normative theory, MFT would likely vindicate Fascism, which is why he squeezes in a sixth moral foundation, liberty/oppression, and is so careful to point out it is not a normative theory,
Not a normative theory, except of course, when it comes to assessing the plight of the contemporary USA. What Haidt seems to be concerned most about is the potential for violence between the liberal and conservative extremes of US politics. This would be bad, presumably because it would result in so much bodily harm to people; an ironically liberal foundation for concern. Haidt is essentially arguing that liberals are simply not able to understand conservative moral intuitions, and are thus dragging society left when it refuses to budge any further, and he infers, would likely be worse for doing so because it would undermine US social cohesion, its future as a nation, and its defence against threats. This could be categorised by Haidt's own lights as a conservative concern. Being too focused on preventing harm or providing equality, he argues, means that a society becomes too individualist, and will thus fail to reproduce itself. However, there is no historic evidence presented for this claim. This picture is almost pure rhetoric.
Haidt takes the research that shows differences in the stated and implicit attitudes of current US liberals and conservatives and comes to the conclusion that liberals alone could not maintain a cohesive society because they do not care enough about proportional fairness, the sanctity of the group, or even long-term loyalty. If we think about this for more than two minutes, it stops making sense. Do liberals actually not care about proportional fairness? For instance, do they think that universities should give everyone first class honours no matter what work they do? When it comes to loyalty, are liberals more likely to cheat on their spouse, abandon their children, or sell state secrets to foreign powers? When it comes to sacredness, are liberals any less clean than conservatives, any less committed to the 'purity' of soul or virtue? Any less respectful of the buildings and symbols of what they believe to be good in society? It's worth noting that in Haidt's own research he found that it isn't that Liberals lack the other moral foundations, but that they are able to critique their value in specific cases.
And of course it must be this way. It seems to escape Haidt that if he believes that liberals and conservatives are two different social groups, then it stands to reason that they would use the same mechanisms of policing loyalty, sacred boundaries, advocating for their respective authorities and caring for other members of their group. Anyone who has been on twitter knows that liberals are just as passionate about this as conservatives. Both groups draw on these different discourses of morality to maintain their sense of group identity, and thus it is unlikely that liberals actually care less about sanctity and loyalty. It is just that the two groups differ in the content of what they think is morally relevant.
What we are left with is the possibility that the so-called WEIRD moral imagination of liberals, so distinct from conservatives, maybe an artefact of the surveys and experiments used to measure those foundations in the first place. Let's take an example. One question that assesses the dimension of sanctity is this: "How relevant to morality is it whether or not someone acted in a way that God would approve of?" The question assumes that belief in God is a necessary condition for the moral emotion of sanctity, and thus weights the whole dimension away from atheists and towards (Christian) believers. This would clearly impact on measurements of liberal populations in the US, who are far more likely to identify as atheist or agnostics. The questionnaire also hinges on the definition of what is "moral" - and not simply sociable; again in the case of sanctity, a liberal definition of what is moral might not include handwashing after the toilet, but it would almost certainly be understood as a sociable behaviour, and a generally good thing to do, underpinned by the same emotion (disgust) as the proposed sanctity foundation.
This is one criticism that can easily be levelled at MFT as a sociological theory, that it simply reifies the concerns and divisions of contemporary US society and makes them appear universal - the questionnaire itself seems particularly primed to find differences between supporters of the different US political factions, instead of trying to work out what they may have in common. In so doing, it lays the blame squarely at the feet of liberals and their inability to compromise, ironic, given a similar inability to compromise on the part of US conservatives. I'll discuss the implications of this when it comes to Haidt's proposed use of MFT in political messaging and action in the next instalment of the blog. Then I'll move on to what, if anything, the theory has to contribute to moral philosophy.
Moral Foundations Theory as a Sociological Theory
In reading the Righteous Mind beyond its account of Haidt's development of the theory of moral intuitions, he begins to drift more into a polemic about the current state of US politics and what he believes can be done to improve it. Namely, he is talking about the polarisation of US politics into groups of liberals and conservatives, something he blames partly on the particular blindness and tone-deaf messaging of liberals to the moral values of conservatives. He believes that present day America, and some other western nations, are fundamentally divided by their moral attitudes and headed for disaster - perhaps civil war, certainly decline relative to other nations like China or Russia.
The MFT sociological theory goes like this. There are six moral intuitions. They are innately evolved to provide large groups of humans with the social trust or cohesiveness to sustain the group itself. While the care/harm foundation underpins such social institutions as the family, the foundation of fairness discourages cheating individuals from ruining collective action, the foundation of authority allows us to work together in hierarchies, the foundation of loyalty encourages us to prioritise our group above others, and the foundation of sacredness helps us to maintain the institutions of religion that create bonding social capital, the boundaries of the group and the internal hygiene of the group.
Without these, societies begin to lose trust and 'turn bad', Haidt argues. In so arguing he invokes the sociocentric view of humanity taken by sociologist Emile Durkheim; people do not exist as individuals, in order to survive, they must act for the good of the whole colony, and this sometimes means submitting to collective attitudes and expectations without being critical or individually pursuing a different course that may seem right to us. It is almost certainly true that social trust is necessary for the smooth functioning of social institutions, from the family, to the workplace, to hospitals and government. What we call loyalty and reciprocity are undoubtedly implicated in this trust, on some occasions deference or equality will be implicated. The foundation of sacredness might be implicated through whatever moral, religious or aesthetic resources are used to create the myth of a singular 'society' that is to be defended, and whose members one can trust as having the same ultimate co-operative interests. However, if we examine what Haidt might mean by societies becoming maladaptive, this sociological theory struggles to hold up.
Of course, it is time to again invoke the Nazis, who are always referred to when we imagine what a 'bad society' might be. However, looking at the Nazis through the lens of Moral Foundations Theory, we see quite a different picture. Instead of being bad, the Nazis seem to have much that a so-called "morally developed society" might wish to emulate. White Christian Germans were told they could enjoy high levels of social trust through loyalty and reciprocal relationships between themselves, with a strong religious community that cared for in-group members united around sacred symbols of the race and fatherland. But this is clearly a morally repugnant conclusion - the Nazis are the embodiment of evil; the cause of the most deadly conflict in human history, murderers, torturers, capable of arbitrary cruelty on an industrial scale. It does not escape Haidt's notice that taken as a normative theory, MFT would likely vindicate Fascism, which is why he squeezes in a sixth moral foundation, liberty/oppression, and is so careful to point out it is not a normative theory,
Not a normative theory, except of course, when it comes to assessing the plight of the contemporary USA. What Haidt seems to be concerned most about is the potential for violence between the liberal and conservative extremes of US politics. This would be bad, presumably because it would result in so much bodily harm to people; an ironically liberal foundation for concern. Haidt is essentially arguing that liberals are simply not able to understand conservative moral intuitions, and are thus dragging society left when it refuses to budge any further, and he infers, would likely be worse for doing so because it would undermine US social cohesion, its future as a nation, and its defence against threats. This could be categorised by Haidt's own lights as a conservative concern. Being too focused on preventing harm or providing equality, he argues, means that a society becomes too individualist, and will thus fail to reproduce itself. However, there is no historic evidence presented for this claim. This picture is almost pure rhetoric.
Haidt takes the research that shows differences in the stated and implicit attitudes of current US liberals and conservatives and comes to the conclusion that liberals alone could not maintain a cohesive society because they do not care enough about proportional fairness, the sanctity of the group, or even long-term loyalty. If we think about this for more than two minutes, it stops making sense. Do liberals actually not care about proportional fairness? For instance, do they think that universities should give everyone first class honours no matter what work they do? When it comes to loyalty, are liberals more likely to cheat on their spouse, abandon their children, or sell state secrets to foreign powers? When it comes to sacredness, are liberals any less clean than conservatives, any less committed to the 'purity' of soul or virtue? Any less respectful of the buildings and symbols of what they believe to be good in society? It's worth noting that in Haidt's own research he found that it isn't that Liberals lack the other moral foundations, but that they are able to critique their value in specific cases.
And of course it must be this way. It seems to escape Haidt that if he believes that liberals and conservatives are two different social groups, then it stands to reason that they would use the same mechanisms of policing loyalty, sacred boundaries, advocating for their respective authorities and caring for other members of their group. Anyone who has been on twitter knows that liberals are just as passionate about this as conservatives. Both groups draw on these different discourses of morality to maintain their sense of group identity, and thus it is unlikely that liberals actually care less about sanctity and loyalty. It is just that the two groups differ in the content of what they think is morally relevant.
What we are left with is the possibility that the so-called WEIRD moral imagination of liberals, so distinct from conservatives, maybe an artefact of the surveys and experiments used to measure those foundations in the first place. Let's take an example. One question that assesses the dimension of sanctity is this: "How relevant to morality is it whether or not someone acted in a way that God would approve of?" The question assumes that belief in God is a necessary condition for the moral emotion of sanctity, and thus weights the whole dimension away from atheists and towards (Christian) believers. This would clearly impact on measurements of liberal populations in the US, who are far more likely to identify as atheist or agnostics. The questionnaire also hinges on the definition of what is "moral" - and not simply sociable; again in the case of sanctity, a liberal definition of what is moral might not include handwashing after the toilet, but it would almost certainly be understood as a sociable behaviour, and a generally good thing to do, underpinned by the same emotion (disgust) as the proposed sanctity foundation.
This is one criticism that can easily be levelled at MFT as a sociological theory, that it simply reifies the concerns and divisions of contemporary US society and makes them appear universal - the questionnaire itself seems particularly primed to find differences between supporters of the different US political factions, instead of trying to work out what they may have in common. In so doing, it lays the blame squarely at the feet of liberals and their inability to compromise, ironic, given a similar inability to compromise on the part of US conservatives. I'll discuss the implications of this when it comes to Haidt's proposed use of MFT in political messaging and action in the next instalment of the blog. Then I'll move on to what, if anything, the theory has to contribute to moral philosophy.