Moral Foundations Theory as a Theory of Political Science
Saturday, 26 Nov 2022, 07:59
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Given the reservations I have about Moral Foundations Theory, perhaps it might be too much to expect that I think it has anything interesting to say about political science. However, even though I believe Haidt is wrong about moral politics, I think it is wrong in an interesting way that sheds some light on what we do and don't know about the topic.
Haidt's approach in Moral Foundations Theory implies that each foundation is a personality dimension on which individuals will find themselves, and further, that the strength of this feeling between individuals is likely normally distributed across the population. There is an average or median level of concern about care and harm, or sanctity, or liberty, and that is where most of the voters are. It seems logical to conclude from this that a political party wishing to gain power and a mandate has simply to strike at the median voter's strength of moral prejudices to take the biggest share of the vote and govern in the most democratic way. This, Haidt insists, is the problem with the US Democrats. They are just too left wing. Too liberal. They don't appeal to the median voter. The Republicans on the other hand, draw on all the moral foundations, and therefore appeal to the median voter more easily.
The practical application of this theory is decidedly mixed at best. In the case of trying to take the whole population along by appealing to the middle voter, one recent example is the UK based "Independent Group for Change", members coming from each side of the political aisle, who decided the best way was straight down the middle - got ignored by voters. In the case of reaching across the aisle and grabbing swing voters, results are more encouraging, for instance the UK Labour Party's victory in the 1997 general election after following a more neoliberal line of messaging than the traditional pro-union platform. It remains to be seen whether this works in times of polarisation. Keir Starmer is certainly trying to reach across the aisle to people with 'concerns about immigration' and 'eco-terrorists,' however he seems to be alienating many Labour activists with his language.
As I've argued in the section on MFT as a cognitive theory, we likely don't need a theory of distinct modules to understand the association between moral language and emotions. That doesn't mean Haidt hasn't discovered something interesting though, which is that different political factions draw on different discourses of morality to gain political support. Haidt argues this reflects a genetic personality difference in voters (amplified by their social environment and identity), but I think we should also consider the social context within which these different discourses work. The question is whether Haidt has discovered a 'universal' distinction (being true for all places and times) or a 'particular' distinction (referring to a particular place and time). For example, Haidt focuses on two extremes of a spectrum (later broadening to three distinct groups) - but it's almost certainly no coincidence that he does this in the context of the two-party system of US politics. Is this the result of there being essentially two extremes of political personality or is something else happening?
It's been argued by others (Ian Shapiro has an interesting series on modern politics on this) that a first-past-the-post political system almost inevitably results in a two party system, and of course, US politics is FPTP. Other systems can support larger alternative parties (such as the proportional representational system used in countries such as Germany and Spain). This means that in the US there are two main political identities; there are also people who have chosen one of them, and people who have not. Much of the research on social identity shows us that once we start identifying as part of a group, we are locked into the norms (including moral norms) of the group and this makes us sort of blind to the norms of the other. Research does show (Cohen, I think?) that people who identify as Democrats are less likely to endorse policies which are presented as Republican, and vice versa, but if those same policies are presented as Democratic, then they do support them. This leaves us with a dilemma. Do people hold moral and political beliefs because of their brains or identities? Haidt argues that, in this case, identity follows personality; our personalities suit us for different kinds of life and interests, and ultimately make one identity more appealing than another.
However transferring this theory to UK politics we might see a different picture. In the UK the system is nominally FPTP but we only vote on local representatives, not for the presidency. Can we really say there are two extremes in British politics? If so what is different about the personalities of the Scottish voters who keep re-electing the Scottish National Party? Are they more progressive and liberal, or more nationalist and conservative? We could certainly test their attitudes, but likely the most important factor is going to be Scottish national identity, expressed in whatever moral terms necessary. There are also Green voters, who draw on discourses of care, but also of sanctity (in a completely different way than the northern Irish DUP). The point here is just that identity often does not follow personality, but can be made up of all kinds of competing factors such as geography, social class, parenthood, etc.
This leads back to the more general critique I have of the theory, which is that the themes of the moral discourses don't have necessary connections with any particular political issues. It is easy to rationalise why liberals might care more about the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy than conservatives in terms of a personality theory; but there doesn't necessarily need to be a debate about the topic in the first place. This is not something that is a huge conservative concern in Britain, for example; and attitudes in the US were not always so polarised. It is not an argument between the eternal foundations of care and sanctity of life; it is merely an argument about abortion between two socially opposing forces that draws on the concepts of care and sanctity to make a case for each side. Focus on the issue has defined it and separated the sides, turning it into a political weapon to beat the others with.
Instead of reflecting an underlying quality of human nature, it seems that these moral issues in political messaging are actually acting as forms of brand marketing; each party in the system must have a unique selling point that activates the emotions of the consumers (er, the voters). It feeds a social division more acute than that of the iPhone v Android, which people in the middle don't care about and unfortunately cannot seem to avoid. Going for the middle also doesn't work, because the middle is now apathetic and sees no hope of resolving the issue. On the other hand, this moral divide is likely also driven by media narratives. Moral messaging about political issues is universally filtered through some kind of mass media. Haidt could argue that different personalities are activated by different kinds of headlines, but perhaps there are more prosaic reasons that media outlets are able to define the terms of moral debate - "the medium is the message". It's perhaps a cliché argument, but getting your political news from newspapers, Facebook, news channels, YouTube or Twitter results in a completely different view of the world due to the material factors in the production of the news.
As to what this all means, I can't go much further into detail, as I didn't study political science; however it seems quite an intractable problem of democracy that it can easily be dragged towards factionalism and away from the goal of utilitarian policy making. In terms of Moral Foundations Theory, it is far from settled that personality is the only, or even main factor in the structural problems of democracy. However, at least in raising the question MFT gives us reasons to further examine the moral discourses of politics.
Moral Foundations Theory as a Theory of Political Science
Given the reservations I have about Moral Foundations Theory, perhaps it might be too much to expect that I think it has anything interesting to say about political science. However, even though I believe Haidt is wrong about moral politics, I think it is wrong in an interesting way that sheds some light on what we do and don't know about the topic.
Haidt's approach in Moral Foundations Theory implies that each foundation is a personality dimension on which individuals will find themselves, and further, that the strength of this feeling between individuals is likely normally distributed across the population. There is an average or median level of concern about care and harm, or sanctity, or liberty, and that is where most of the voters are. It seems logical to conclude from this that a political party wishing to gain power and a mandate has simply to strike at the median voter's strength of moral prejudices to take the biggest share of the vote and govern in the most democratic way. This, Haidt insists, is the problem with the US Democrats. They are just too left wing. Too liberal. They don't appeal to the median voter. The Republicans on the other hand, draw on all the moral foundations, and therefore appeal to the median voter more easily.
The practical application of this theory is decidedly mixed at best. In the case of trying to take the whole population along by appealing to the middle voter, one recent example is the UK based "Independent Group for Change", members coming from each side of the political aisle, who decided the best way was straight down the middle - got ignored by voters. In the case of reaching across the aisle and grabbing swing voters, results are more encouraging, for instance the UK Labour Party's victory in the 1997 general election after following a more neoliberal line of messaging than the traditional pro-union platform. It remains to be seen whether this works in times of polarisation. Keir Starmer is certainly trying to reach across the aisle to people with 'concerns about immigration' and 'eco-terrorists,' however he seems to be alienating many Labour activists with his language.
As I've argued in the section on MFT as a cognitive theory, we likely don't need a theory of distinct modules to understand the association between moral language and emotions. That doesn't mean Haidt hasn't discovered something interesting though, which is that different political factions draw on different discourses of morality to gain political support. Haidt argues this reflects a genetic personality difference in voters (amplified by their social environment and identity), but I think we should also consider the social context within which these different discourses work. The question is whether Haidt has discovered a 'universal' distinction (being true for all places and times) or a 'particular' distinction (referring to a particular place and time). For example, Haidt focuses on two extremes of a spectrum (later broadening to three distinct groups) - but it's almost certainly no coincidence that he does this in the context of the two-party system of US politics. Is this the result of there being essentially two extremes of political personality or is something else happening?
It's been argued by others (Ian Shapiro has an interesting series on modern politics on this) that a first-past-the-post political system almost inevitably results in a two party system, and of course, US politics is FPTP. Other systems can support larger alternative parties (such as the proportional representational system used in countries such as Germany and Spain). This means that in the US there are two main political identities; there are also people who have chosen one of them, and people who have not. Much of the research on social identity shows us that once we start identifying as part of a group, we are locked into the norms (including moral norms) of the group and this makes us sort of blind to the norms of the other. Research does show (Cohen, I think?) that people who identify as Democrats are less likely to endorse policies which are presented as Republican, and vice versa, but if those same policies are presented as Democratic, then they do support them. This leaves us with a dilemma. Do people hold moral and political beliefs because of their brains or identities? Haidt argues that, in this case, identity follows personality; our personalities suit us for different kinds of life and interests, and ultimately make one identity more appealing than another.
However transferring this theory to UK politics we might see a different picture. In the UK the system is nominally FPTP but we only vote on local representatives, not for the presidency. Can we really say there are two extremes in British politics? If so what is different about the personalities of the Scottish voters who keep re-electing the Scottish National Party? Are they more progressive and liberal, or more nationalist and conservative? We could certainly test their attitudes, but likely the most important factor is going to be Scottish national identity, expressed in whatever moral terms necessary. There are also Green voters, who draw on discourses of care, but also of sanctity (in a completely different way than the northern Irish DUP). The point here is just that identity often does not follow personality, but can be made up of all kinds of competing factors such as geography, social class, parenthood, etc.
This leads back to the more general critique I have of the theory, which is that the themes of the moral discourses don't have necessary connections with any particular political issues. It is easy to rationalise why liberals might care more about the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy than conservatives in terms of a personality theory; but there doesn't necessarily need to be a debate about the topic in the first place. This is not something that is a huge conservative concern in Britain, for example; and attitudes in the US were not always so polarised. It is not an argument between the eternal foundations of care and sanctity of life; it is merely an argument about abortion between two socially opposing forces that draws on the concepts of care and sanctity to make a case for each side. Focus on the issue has defined it and separated the sides, turning it into a political weapon to beat the others with.
Instead of reflecting an underlying quality of human nature, it seems that these moral issues in political messaging are actually acting as forms of brand marketing; each party in the system must have a unique selling point that activates the emotions of the consumers (er, the voters). It feeds a social division more acute than that of the iPhone v Android, which people in the middle don't care about and unfortunately cannot seem to avoid. Going for the middle also doesn't work, because the middle is now apathetic and sees no hope of resolving the issue. On the other hand, this moral divide is likely also driven by media narratives. Moral messaging about political issues is universally filtered through some kind of mass media. Haidt could argue that different personalities are activated by different kinds of headlines, but perhaps there are more prosaic reasons that media outlets are able to define the terms of moral debate - "the medium is the message". It's perhaps a cliché argument, but getting your political news from newspapers, Facebook, news channels, YouTube or Twitter results in a completely different view of the world due to the material factors in the production of the news.
As to what this all means, I can't go much further into detail, as I didn't study political science; however it seems quite an intractable problem of democracy that it can easily be dragged towards factionalism and away from the goal of utilitarian policy making. In terms of Moral Foundations Theory, it is far from settled that personality is the only, or even main factor in the structural problems of democracy. However, at least in raising the question MFT gives us reasons to further examine the moral discourses of politics.