Anomalies & Outliers: Field Notes on a Human Tribe
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Ich bin dabei! This is the night when most of Hamburgs churches open their doors.
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I am deep into my contemplation of Haidt et. al.’s Moral Foundation Theory.
It is clear to me that there is some problem with the way they have conceived of the Fairness/cheating foundation and the Loyalty/betrayal foundations.
I was first troubled by the fact that this theory implied that those of the liberal moral viewpoint don’t engage in any of the “binding” foundations: loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation. The binding foundations are the three moral foundations that bind a group together, and this theory bases them on the way they look from the conservative moral viewpoint: loyalty to country and family, sense of respect for traditional authority, and views on purity generally related to religious belief.
The liberal moral viewpoint “bind and blind” goggles are really easy to see when on the receiving end of intolerance from the famously tolerant liberal viewpoint, an intolerance I regularly experience, one based entirely on my religiously observant dress. I did assume at one time that such a thing would surely not bother liberals, that one could wear anything, but that is not so. I want not to be liked but to be seen, and not dismissed with prejudice and inaccurate assumptions.
I am someone who loves the truth more than comfort, ease, or being liked. I want to get at the *truth* of the differences between conservatives and liberals. I am starting to believe that the best viewpoint would allow for an essential balance between the two: strong traditions and authorities that build up wisdom over time and people to keep questioning them so that they do become better over time.
Bill Moyers is back, though in a modified form, conducting an interview with my favorite moral psychologist: Jonathan Haidt. It is an excellent interview.
Here’s the deal. As far as I can tell, Haidt et al’s moral foundation theory still doesn’t include any of the things that those of the liberal moral viewpoint tend to sacralize. The definition for the sanctity/degradation moral foundation currently online:
Sanctity/degradation: This foundation was shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. It underlies religious notions of striving to live in an elevated, less carnal, more noble way. It underlies the widespread idea that the body is a temple which can be desecrated by immoral activities and contaminants (an idea not unique to religious traditions). (From http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/mft/index.php/the-theory/)
“Moral systems are interlocking sets of values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, institutions, technologies, and evolved psychological mechanisms that work together to suppress or regulate selfishness and make cooperative social life possible.” Jonathan Haidt’s definition of morality, from Chapter 22: Morality, The Handbook of Social Psychology, Fiske, Gilbert and Linzey, eds.
I like this definition, broadly speaking. I just find one aspect of it really challenging: just how difficult it is to always understand how a moral system is defining “selfishness.” Moral Foundation Theory is great as far as it goes, but one of the things it does not capture (or even give a hint at defining) is this key component of moral systems as described by Haidt.
I have just finished reading Jonathan Haidt’s new book Righteous Mind. I don’t think he left anything out. I think my kitchen sink was in there, with a Mr. Clean sparkle and shine to boot. Great book. Fabulous book.
As I have been since I first engaged Haidt’s work, I am just stuck on his Sanctity moral foundation and the theory that it is not being engaged much by those of the liberal moral viewpoint. This stuckness is walking hand in hand with my feeling that there is something wrong with the heavily-explored (and widely validated) theory that liberals feel less disgust. Haidt connects (correctly, I feel sure) disgust and sanctity via purity. When I review my own feelings, disgust feels like a primal, deep and extremely powerful basis for moral judgment. Rather than believing, as is widely posited, that conservatives feel disgust more strongly than liberals, it seems inescapable that, as human beings, liberals feel just as much disgust just about different things. I’m even going to make the prediction that it will some day be found that people who are more partisan experience more disgust, whatever their side of the aisle.
To borrow a metaphor from the philosopher of science Ronald Giere, theories are like maps: the test of a map lies not in arbitrarily checking random points but in whether people find it useful to get somewhere. (From Overcoming Physics Envy, by Kevin A . Clarke and David M. Primo, published 3/30/2012 in the New York Times.)
I have found Moral Foundations Theory profoundly helpful in “getting me somewhere” in understanding some of the conflicts I have found myself, quite unexpectedly, engaged in. I am grateful for this book and this discussion. Jonathan Haidt, even when not promoting a book, seems laudably generous with his time and knowledge, and at the moment he seems everywhere at once.
I am finding myself troubled by a couple of things, and some of it comes up somewhat in the very long discussion between Haidt and Robert Wright I link to above. Haidt uses the term “sacralization” quite a bit to describe all manner of objects and people that groups elevate to help bind themselves, and then the phrase “follow the sacredness” which I find useful, is also prevalent. But then the liberal moral viewpoint is described, broadly, as not engaging the Sanctity, Loyalty or Authority foundations. Though the book treats it a bit more subtly, by connecting the liberal moral viewpoint to Sanctity, Loyalty and Authority with “thin” lines, when discussing Moral Foundation Theory, the generalization comes up repeatedly that liberals don’t engage these foundations and conservatives do. I find it very problematic differentiating the liberal moral viewpoint (and the brain that holds it) as unique in not engaging the moral foundations that are regularly described as essentially maladaptive: racist, homophobic, xenophobic, tribal, and the source of violence. If those of the liberal viewpoint could begin to see how they do engage these foundations, they might begin to understand reality as others experience it.
In Moral Foundation Theory, the description of the Authority foundation leaves little room for doubt. Libertarians and Liberals have essentially no Authority foundation in their diet while Evangelicals and Conservatives eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I assert this perspective does not adequately describe the situation. The moral viewpoint undergirding Authority experiences isn’t an on/off switch, rather it is a slider that insists True Authority resides in the Self or Outside the Self. Those who experience True Authority as residing in the Self are not just baffled by those who place it Outside the Self (God, Country, Familial duty) but actually feel reflexively that people doing that are wrong and immoral.
It has become useful to me to think of Conservatives (broadly speaking, those holding a conservative moral viewpoint) as the cheater-detection unit for society and of Liberals (broadly speaking, those holding a liberal moral viewpoint) as the bully-detection unit, in the context of evolutionary anthropological theory. I suppose Libertarians might equally detect cheaters and bullies, which might make them a little anti-social perhaps ;)
I continue to wonder about giving the liberal moral viewpoint a complete pass on the binding foundations. In Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt modulates the theory somewhat by connecting the liberal moral viewpoint to these foundations with “thin” lines and the conservative moral viewpoint with “heavy” lines. Both liberals and conservatives seem satisfied to say that the liberal moral viewpoint doesn’t much evoke these three foundations (sanctity, loyalty, authority). I think the liberal moral viewpoint does, that they may look different (and even be denied) but that they are there mechanistically/physiologically. I just don’t think, over time, this making a special case of the liberal moral viewpoint will hold up. Let me take Sanctity as an example.
[Modified slightly from a reply at The Independent Whig.]
(This is an extended version of an article, written for a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) audience, published in the Sixth/Seventh Month issue of Friends Journal, where I use Moral Foundation Theory to analyze a conflict between Friends of differing branches.)
The conflicts between the branches of Friends are sometimes viewed as trivial, the schisms as shameful.(1) These conflicts, however, are expressions of real differences. They should not be ignored or dismissed; rather, they should be understood. If we were to recognize the different moral viewpoints, visions, and definitions of Quakerism held by Friends, we would have a useful perspective from which to understand this conflict.
I have been frustrated for some time with some aspects of Moral Foundation Theory, as most recently explicated in Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. When I first found it, it was a revelation. Finally, a way to describe in a meaningful way the conflicts I kept inducing by my mere presence: they were moral conflicts, though people did not use that word. Though not always engaged explicitly, moral viewpoints are profoundly essential to our view of ourselves and our place within our groups and society, including how others should behave and dress. Pivotal information I desperately needed as a walking social science experiment. It did not take much time working with Moral Foundation Theory to realize that it had some holes and was not useful to explain some particular experiences I repeatedly had among those of the liberal moral viewpoint. I began this blog as a way of trying to start a wider conversation about the limitations I had been discovering.
I have been troubled, deeply troubled, by the effort in the social sciences to explain the differences between statistical conservatives and statistical liberals as innate, genetic, essential and irremediable differences where, frankly, conservatives are all manner of unpleasant things. It feels partisan. Where conservatives are every bad thing in personality and in government and where every bad thing in personality and in government are conservative. (From here on out, I will use capitalized Conservatives and Liberals to mean statistical conservatives and statistical liberals: imaginary, though currently considered measurable, people.)
I received an e-mail from someone trying to help me place my experiences as a traditionally-dressed Quaker visiting liberal groups into a more orthodox understanding of Haidt et al’s Moral Foundation Theory (hereafter, MFT).
“I think the core liberal sacred commitment is to victims, especially women as victims, and African Americans as victims. That’s not sanctity, it’s care plus liberty/oppression, but I agree with you that when liberals perceive any hint of racism or sexism, they then treat the offender as untouchable … I wonder if your dress is interpreted as traditional and therefore anti-feminist and therefore it’s as though you were wearing a swastika armband, or a burka?”
It occurs to me that those of the statistical liberal moral/cultural viewpoint have one broad conception of what it means to “care” morally, while those of the statistical conservative moral/cultural viewpoint have a differing broad conception of what it means to “care” morally. I see a few different ways to slice and dice it, but I will start by discussing it from the perspective of Moral Foundation Theory (hereafter MFT). MFT, as put forward by this motley crew, has a moral foundation known as “care/harm.” Per their website, they describe it so:
This foundation is related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. It underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
What is wrong with the science of communicating the science of science communication (i.e. Cultural Cognition of Risk theory) is a failure to apply the theory to its own endeavor.