Variable Emphases on Morality

A friend of mine recently pointed out an AlterNet article on the work of progressive Jonathan Haidt, who has outlined, through a construct that I'll share in brief later, different views that conservatives and liberals have around morality, and why liberals should be able to understand, if not appreciate, their counterparts' point of view in hope to work constructively and collaboratively going forward.

Haidt basically argues that the morality is multi-faceted, and that despite traditional liberal arguments that they're either "more" moral or "just as" moral as backward-thinking conservatives, both groups simply have different emphases on the spectrum.

Dan McAdams, a fellow acacdemic, summed up Haidt's five foundational moral impulses as such:

• Harm/care. It is wrong to hurt people; it is good to relieve suffering.

• Fairness/reciprocity. Justice and fairness are good; people have certain rights that need to be upheld in social interactions.

• In-group loyalty. People should be true to their group and be wary of threats from the outside. Allegiance, loyalty and patriotism are virtues; betrayal is bad.

• Authority/respect. People should respect social hierarchy; social order is necessary for human life.

• Purity/sanctity. The body and certain aspects of life are sacred. Cleanliness and health, as well as their derivatives of chastity and piety, are all good. Pollution, contamination and the associated character traits of lust and greed are all bad. 

The research that Haidt has done has shown liberal emphasis on the first two and conservative emphasis on the last three. None of this is surprising, and he makes the point that it's not as if either group completely ignores the areas of non-emphasis, pre-empting challenges from either group from protesting, "Hey, it's not as if I don't care about XXX." The construct is a means for a liberal to tell other liberals (and conservatives for that matter), how to get their heads around understanding opposing moral viewpoints without being condescending.

Looking at the user comments, which are mostly left-leaning given the audience of the site, it's sad to see that many are stuck in the "I will not give moral equivalence or similarity to a hateful conservative agenda that is based upon people's ignorance and religious mythology" mode. There are glimmers of hope, such as one reader who refused to join in the legions of others dismissing an article which had the audacity to humanize conservatives instead of stating that "liberals are good and conservatives are evil":

One poster brought up that poelemic "America, Love it or Leave it" and said that conservatives should have done that. Have we as liberals really come that far? That same poster decried that conservatives saw that they didn't like America and worked to change it. Isn't that a value that we as liberals espouse? When I started working for social change I heard almost continuously the refrain "If you don't like it here go to Russia where you belong!". I always thought, "But don't you get it? That's why I love it here, because I CAN do this!". Have we really come full circle and it's now time for us to kick the other guy out? 

They say power corrupts and if that is what is happening keep me out of power forever! I may never agree with what someone who dissents says (like the teabaggers--fake though it was the people involved did not think so!) but I will defend to the death their right to do so! 

I have gotten myself off topic here (as I am famous for!). To get back on point.......we need to understand each other--if we do not we will be forever divided--if we are forever divided we will cease to be the rulers of our own destiny. I, for one, do not want that to be the kind of world my children inherit. I hope I am not alone.........

As a fallen people, we all have our blind spots. Even Christians have, in practice, imperfect and imbalanced moral constructs which, despite our best efforts, lean somewhere between Jim Wallis of Sojourners and James Dobson of Focus on the Family. None of us completely gets it, but I look at the God of redemption in the Bible - I look at Jesus' ministry here on earth, and I see the manifestation of perfection in each of those moral impulses.  For those who are followers of Christ, I would hope that a truly open and non-politically skewed pursuit of him would lead to the revelation and addressing of some of our own blind spots.