Moral Foundations Theory

Moral Foundations Theory

Moral Foundations Theory was created to understand why morality varies so much across cultures yet still shows so many similarities and recurrent themes. In brief, the theory proposes that five innate and universally available psychological systems are the foundations of “intuitive ethics.” Each culture then constructs virtues, narratives, and institutions on top of these foundations, thereby creating the unique moralities we see around the world, and conflicting within nations too. The foundations are:

1) Harm/care, related to our long evolution as mammals with attachment systems and an ability to feel (and dislike) the pain of others. This foundation underlies virtues of kindness, gentleness, and nurturance.
2) Fairness/reciprocity, related to the evolutionary process of reciprocal altruism. This foundation generates ideas of justice, rights, and autonomy.
3) Ingroup/loyalty, related to our long history as tribal creatures able to form shifting coalitions. This foundation underlies virtues of patriotism and self-sacrifice for the group. It is active anytime people feel that it's "one for all, and all for one."
4) Authority/respect, shaped by our long primate history of hierarchical social interactions. This foundaiton underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.
5) Purity/sanctity, shaped by the psychology of disgust and contamination. This foundation 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).

Much of our present research involves applying the theory to political "cultures" such as those of liberals and conservatives. The current American culture war, we have found, can be seen as arising from the fact that liberals try to create a morality relying almost exclusively on the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity foundations; conservatives, especially religious conservatives, use all five foundations, including Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity. You can find out your own moral foundations profile at www.YourMorals.org.

--------------
Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

Neal Boortz...

From his daily email...

The taxpayers of Prior Lake-Savage in Minnesota should be outraged. Their tax dollars funded the construction of a brand new $16.8 million elementary school. The people of the school district were so excited because their schools are "overcrowded." Do you know why they are overcrowded? Bluntly speaking ... too many parents having children that they (a) can't afford to raise; and, (b) won't take responsibility for. But don't get me started on that...

Question... since the Regan revolution of tax cuts... the economy that people once knew and still desire went away. Government after the Regan revolution no longer protected people and no longer empowered the economy to grow and reap rewards at all income levels. It turned our economy into an every man for themselves affair.

Unfortunately for those impacted by the Regan revolution (i.e. most everyone) economists since Adam Smith have been pointing out that an economy is a collective effort. You feel it every day and in many ways you don't even realize.

Why turn to the negative? Imagine if these people assumed the economy of the New Deal era... with all the post war growth and the newly created middle class--which the government program known as the G.I. Bill almost single candidly did... could it be possible that they were expecting the conservative revolution to pay off the way conservatives claim... and so made economic decisions that obviously seem unwise--is that a nicer way of putting it?--to Boortz.

Plus isn't behavioral economics and cognitive science addressing the question of people acting through emotion and biology rather than a reasoned and economically rational way. And if this holds true. Why would Boortz's bash people for doing that which isn't logical but is still natural.

You could simply flip it around and create incentives to do rational, efficient, and economically productive things rather than feel the need to punish and condemn. My job isn't to punish and condemn. My job is to forgive, protect those who are weaker, and empower those who need a hand up.

Boortz always seem to see a hand-out... when quite often it is really a hand-up.

--------------
Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

response to Bellum omnium contra omnes comment...

On my political and rhetorical approach...

Stating people possess the scenario between conservative or liberal cognition seems like an "either-or" fallacy. I will need to read the study further to be certain. I too believe in checks and balances in the form of policy. There is no evidence one form of political rhetoric is more harmful to our republic than another, at the least there is no harm when there is balance between the ideologies. The combination of conservative and liberal values (independence versus social welfare) can work together in the government system. Evidence for my claim can be found here.

"The combination of conservative and liberal values (independence versus social welfare) can work together in the government system."

To protect and empower... you can't do any of that with conservative policy goals... so I would disagree. Every man for themselves pull yourself up by your boot-straps... individualist ethics is destructive economically and socially. See Adam Smith... Stiglitz... modern economics as a whole on the importance of infrastructure investment which the private sector never does...

So i'd totally disagree on that one. Oh and I'd love to see the impacts on people from the welfare reform now that the growth of the Clinton era are now gone.

Science can't create either/or fallacies. The world is either flat or its not...

if the empirical data doesn't hold then that would be the legitimate challenge. Not likely though... we're getting better and better at cognitive science and neuroscience... and free will as we conceive of it... and all of that nonsense entailed in it will soon fade (okay not likely... but a boy can dream.)

the age of reason is quite dead...

Thats the biggest problems with philosophy in general... it sticks to theory and all these "ideas" that are reasoned out...

My philosophy professor at UC Davis... a guy name Cummins had a great cartoon it had an armchair with a red cross over it... like no smoking. It was "no arm-chair philosophy".

To see logical knock-out blows to metaphysics as an accurate description of the world and all that is there-entailed see Logic, Truth, and language by A.J. Ayer.

Metaphysics is useful for subjective truth and the way individual brains understanding the paradoxes and complexities of the world, as well as human interaction. But science is the method for accurate descriptions of the world that can be verifiable and therefore the only rational public discourse that one can use in areas such as politics.

Its fine for interpersonal relations and religion and such... but those are subjective at their core... (think of the bond between two friends... or the subjectivity of what one person means by god... as compared to another... see the quote by Dennett at the top of the page)

Bellum omnium contra omnes... kudos to you for using a blog the way its supposed to be used... to debate and create a dialogue... I'm learning a lot from you and improving my ability to explain and understand my own positions. Thanks!

--------------
Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

On my political and rhetorical approach...

Bellum omnium contra omnes made a very accurate point on the comments page...

You use my quotes as a pseudo representation of the Republican Party (although I'm more of a moderate-Independent, Libertarian).

There is something to that... and here is why I do it--Cognitive Scientist George Lakoff and others are finding that the Brain uses frames, metaphors, and linguistic constructs in certain ways... these are biological.

Lakoff argues that there are--broadly--two frames. He calls them conservative and progressive. He isn't arguing about political philosophy and more so about how peoples brains respond and or react because of things they see, hear, and think... and they have found that everyone has these. He argues there is no such thing as the center... (i.e. "centrists" "independents") because those are just people who use progressive frames in some circumstances and conservative frames in others.

There are two important points to that...

first conservatives use certain language and phrases... these are the tricks of the trade to make people more inclined to support their policies (i.e. words and phrases that are more inclined to cause certain patterns in the brain to fire rather than others).

So I'm learning more and more to pick up on it and point it out to others. Lots of people get offended because they don't think they are conservatives and/or don't like the fact that conservatives undermine our civil liberties, torture at will, and refuse the founding fathers principles of checks and balances and think that their language usage is not a form of acceptance of that. WHich I agree they don't think its a form of acceptance... but it is.

Basically when people use conservative frames they are doing the bidding of the Dick Cheney's and Heritage Foundation's of the world. Its a meme thats spreads for free without any conservative dollars being put to use. Most of McCain's attack adds... you know the Obama next to a white woman ads have been shown very little and have spread across the universe for free in the media and online. People talk to their friends and family with those frames... and poof...

One is inadvertently spreading the conservative frames when you use their words and ways of approaching questions, which increases conservatives ability to impact policy. The more people hear it and think it the more inclined their brains our to use conservative frames and think in terms of conservative frames.

These frames undermine our economy, our solidarity within society, and our communities at large. These frames keep people apathetic, helpless, and frightened to the point of seeing their neighbor and/or those who need our protection as threats to their well being.

I work hard to re frame things in terms of empowerment and protection. They work hard to make people feel that its every man for themselves. Having come up in a Methodist household I stay true to my belief that it is that which we do to the least of these... ironically my passion for the market system has caused me to be even more passionate and committed to those values know that I know my morals and the market system work on the same principles.

So I'm not spoofing quotes... I'm accurately pointing out from the work of Lakoff that you are doing the bidding of authoritarians, statists, and perpetrators of human rights violations... I sincerely doubt that is your intention. But your intention, your will, isn't the question. You can't control that which you have no control over.
--------------
Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

"People without math training naturally think in terms of ratios"

A Natural Log: Our Innate Sense of Numbers is Logarithmic, Not Linear


--------------
Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

its in our heads...

Hard-Wired for Fairness


--------------
Jim Nichols
A Speculative Fiction
www.JimNichols4.com

motley collection of half-truths

"As vast experimental literature shows, our intuitive theories are often a motley collection of half-truths that get us through the average day rather than true redescriptions of the world." --Gary Marcus

Something nobody has been able to answer for me...

There are a lot of very smart people who spend a lot of time creating very clever narratives about why Religion--more specifically Christianity--is a form of Revelation that is rock solid. The most truthful of true.

These are very smart people who are far smarter and better educated than I am; so maybe there is just something I don't quite understand.

I mean; I accept the a priori existence of God through the rules of our language, the likely a priori of its biological existence in our brains, the usefulness in the early development of our economy--its organizational and sociological capabilities.

But why do intellectuals adhere to it?

Some argue its a political alliance--a decision to pick one cultural faction over another, some say its needed to create and sustain community through the harsh truth of living, some argue that it is a useful means of explaining in narrative form important views to allow less educated people to flourish--which to me seems condescending of people and inaccurate aside from abnormal developments of some humans.

It just doesn't seem to add up. Doesn't inaccurate information harm our productive possibilities and humanistic capabilities? I don't know the answer to that one... any one care to give it a go?

A.I in NYT's

Pursuing the Next Level of Artificial Intelligence