Dr. Val FarmerDr.Val
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Rural Mental Health & Family Relationships

View Of Morality Underlies Voting

September 22, 2008

University of Virginia psychology professor Jonathan Haidt has studied moral decision-making in both the secular left and the religious right. He feels there are five factors in defining morality. Individuals from the secular left make their decisions primarily on the first two factors while the people from the religious right consider all five factors equally in making their moral judgments.

Moral values:

1. Justice - fairness. Implicit social contracts and explicit are needed to foster a safe, fair and free society in which individuals can pursue interests, creativity and relationships as they please.

2. Care of others - Protection of the vulnerable. Rights need to be extended to vulnerable individuals to maximize happiness and minimize suffering through an ethic of care and altruism.

Taken together, these two values support virtues and practices that protect individuals from each other and to live in harmony while being autonomous agents focusing on own goals. Morality is about individual happiness and prevention of suffering.

3. Ingroup - loyalty. Loyalty to the group, whether it is the family, community, religious faith, ethnic group or country, takes precedence over individual rights. Self-sacrifice, doing one’s duty and suppression of selfishness are necessary for the good of the whole to flourish. Personal lives and habits are regulated by the group. This supports a world of order and tradition united by commitment to a shared moral code and trust in each other to play out interdependent roles.

4. Authority - respect. Authority resides in a hierarchically organized structure with authority residing in parents, elders, and sanctioned religious leaders. People recognize authority higher than their own and sacrifice for causes greater than their own.

5. Purity - sanctity. Restricting sexual rights and encouraging conformity to gender roles upholds the family structure and community morals. Some ways of living are deemed higher, more noble and less carnal than others. Sex is regarded as sacred and is to be channeled through social and religious norms.

The last three moral values promote a strong sense of belonging to a group bound together by shared moral commitment. They support a morally ordered society where self control is valued over self-expression, duty over rights, and loyalty to one’s own group valued over concern for other groups. Life is to be lived nobly, with a sense of duty and self-sacrifice for others.

Liberals see these last three values as opposing rights of individuals and containing the seeds of fascism, racism, patriarchy and homophobia. They feel restricted or condemned by moral values they don’t feel are legitimate.

Religious conservatives value all five values equally. They value freedom, social justice and care for others as a part of their moral judgments. Additionally they value that part of the spectrum that values binding people together through patriotism, religious faith, respect for authority and reverence for the sacred.

Liberation or indoctrination? They represent alternative views on how to treat others and how to suppress selfishness and create a society that is orderly, peaceful and free - a place where there is mutual trust, justice, cooperation and commitment to the common good.

Which for of morality is superior? Arthur Brooks in his book, "Who Really Cares?" found that conservative religious believers are much more charitable with their money, time and even donating blood than secular liberals.

Morality expressed in the voting booth. Demographer Ron Lesthaeghe from the University of Michigan has also researched how voting patterns in American politics mirror behavior such as family formation, fertility and religious adherence. His research also supports how a cultural divide is at the base of our political differences.

Lesthaeghe’s key finding is that a culture war is being fought. Believers of traditional family structure and religious values governing personal behavior, which are 31 percent of the electorate, are against the 17 percent of secular individualists of the electorate who support individual autonomy, egalitarianism, tolerance of diverse lifestyles, emancipation and grass roots democracy. Secular individualists oppose religious values in government.

Caught in the middle of the culture war are the 46 percent of the electorate who are moderates. They do not fully accept either orthodox religious values or secular values. They have a mixture of both. The religious left and the libertarian right add minority voices to be heard in the cultural battle.

The religious right. Lesthaeghe found that the best predictor of religious orthodoxy are regular church attenders of the Catholic, Evangelical Christian and Mormon faiths. They share a deep commitment to marriage, raising children, and living by an orthodox moral code defined by God in holy scripture upheld by organized religion and supported by "responsible" civil authorities. This requires suppression of individuality and sacrifice of self-interest.

The religious right sense the threat of heading down the same path of weakened marriage, cohabitation, and less support for strong families. They provide resistance against the cultural forces that undermine strong family values and traditional morality.

The secular left. Secular individualists don’t want infringement on their liberty. They don’t want a "Moralist-in-Chief" passing moral judgments on themselves or others about diverse lifestyles and alternative family structure. The norms of popular culture are about independence, choice, bodily pleasure, and wealth.

The best predictors of voting for liberal politicians are urbanity, material wealth and female education. Specifically this means living in big cities, having incomes above $75,000, and having a large percentage of women 25 and older who have professional degrees. This demographic group is mainly identified by very late first marriages, a higher incidence of abortion, high rates of cohabitation, and by lower overall fertility levels among non-Hispanic whites.

If you don’t know where you stand already, you can take a test on your moral perspective by going to www.yourmorals.org.