Liberals & Conservatives

I have had a chance now to digest Jonathan Haidt's article in Reason, "Born This Way," that I referenced in my last post. Haidt is a psychologist doing research on the foundations of political and moral opinions. You can sample his scholarship at his home page. You can also participate in his research at this site. I have now looked at some of his more scholarly publications.

Haidt is one of the developers of Moral Foundations Theory, which outlines six "clusters" of moral concerns:

1. Care/harm
2. Fairness/cheating
3. Liberty/oppression
4. Loyalty/betrayal
5. Authority/subversion
6. Sanctity/degradation.

Haidt claims that "all political cultures and movements" base their moral appeals on these clusters. I haven't given this enough scrutiny yet, but it seems plausible.

His research establishes the following:

Political liberals [in the U.S.] tend to rely primarily on the moral foundation of care/harm, followed by fairness/cheating and liberty/oppression. Social conservatives, in contrast, use all six foundations. They are less concerned than liberals about harm to innocent victims, but they are much more concerned about the moral foundations that bind groups and nations together, i.e., loyalty (patriotism), authority (law and order, traditional families), and sanctity (the Bible, God, the flag as a sacred object). Libertarians, true to their name, value liberty more than anyone else, and they value it far more than any other foundation.

This strikes me as basically correct and it has one outstanding virtue. It recognizes that the difference between left and right is not a matter of opposing values so much as a difference in preferences when choosing from the same moral pallet. Liberals aren't unpatriotic (necessarily), but they are rather suspicious of and embarrassed by appeals to patriotism. Conservatives aren't uncaring (necessarily), but that is not the spot on the pallet where they most often dip their brushes.

One difference that does emerge from his research is that conservatives understand liberals a lot better than vice versa. Haidt, Jesse Graham, and Brian Nosek tested this question with a sample of 2000. A third of the respondents were asked to fill out a survey described their own opinions. Another third was asked to fill it out "as they think a 'typical liberal' would respond", and another third was asked to fill it out as a 'typical conservative' would respond.

The results were clear and consistent. Moderates and conservatives were most accurate in their predictions, whether they were pretending to be liberals or conservatives. Liberals were the least accurate, especially those who described themselves as "very liberal." The biggest errors in the whole study came when liberals answer the care and fairness questions while pretending to be conservatives.

Again, that seems to me to be about right. Liberals see themselves as less fearful, more open to change and they see conservatives as the opposite. A lot of recent scholarship backs them up on that. Liberals also see themselves as more open minded than conservatives. That seems not to be true.

Comments

[Bill Fleming]

Good to hear. It takes the pressure off. We liberals can now put away the "forgive them for they know not what they do" excuse when dealing with the arbitrary and irrational extreme right and instead adopt the position of "they know better than this, that in the hell's wrong with them?" LOL.

[Bill Fleming]

...make that WHAT in the hell's wrong with them? Sorry.

[Dave]

Well, if it "seems plausible"...

[larry kurtz]

Assuming you meant palette rather than "pallet" in your metaphor of moral choices, Ken: how do you relate your post to your biopolitics thesis?

[caheidelberger]

I'd accept "pallet." I paint from gallon cans and five-gallon buckets. Pallets can be handy.

[Ken Blanchard]

Larry: thanks for correcting inglish. If opinions are heritable, and they are to some degree, then biopolitics has a lot to say about this. Thanks for the support, Cory.

[LK]

I find Haidt's analysis in this NYT piece correct but disconcerting. When political issues become who or what is sacred, voting against party, even if good governance, becomes apostasy. That attitude seems to sum up much of the gridlock currently facing the country.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/17/forget-the-money-follow-the-sacredness/

[Bill Fleming]

LK, such a great point. Thanks for making it.

[Mike Cooper]

If conservatives are "less concerned than liberals about harm to innocent victims," why are the vast majority of pro life people conservative? No one is more innocent than the unborn baby.

[Ken Blanchard]

LK: I follow Bill in appreciating your post. The relevant cluster is sanctity/degradation. The left has its own version of this. That is what such terms as "free range", "organic", and "fair trade" are all about. The problem is that conservatives know they take the dichotomy seriously. The left is offended by the very idea of sanctity/degradation, even if they make the distinction in practice.

I disagree that the element of sacredness (or sanctity) leads to gridlock. All religions have found it necessary to make concessions in some circumstances. Jewish armies will fight on the Sabbath, if necessary. Thanks for the provocative note.

[Ken Blanchard]

Mike: "less concerned" does not mean "unconcerned." Abortion is one issue on which the sides seem to flip. The Left likes to think it always defends the powerless, but no one is more powerless than an unborn human being.

The point here is that conservatives generally rank other concerns higher than care/harm, not that they don't care about that cluster of values.

[Mike Cooper]

Ken, I do agree in part. However, I think the reason the left appears to champion some of the "powerless" such as blacks and the poor, and not the truly powerless such as the unborn, is that blacks and the poor vote. The unborn do not. Support for the unborn is the closest thing to altruism in politics.

Mike Cooper