AlterNet: Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe -- And Here's Why I... - The Diigo Meta page

• 03 May 09
  

  Nelson Cevallos

  política EEUU

  • Liberals and conservatives, he insists, inhabit different moral universes.
  • "Jonathan is a thoughtful and somewhat flamboyant theorist," says Dan McAdams, a Northwestern University research psychologist and award-winning author.
  • 15 more annotations...
  • • "Psychology, as a field, has lots and lots of data, but we don't have very many good new ideas," agrees Dennis Proffitt, chairman of the University of Virginia psychology department.
    • An unapologetic liberal atheist, Haidt has a remarkable ability to describe opposing viewpoints without condescension or distortion. He forcefully expresses his own political opinions but understands how they are informed by his underlying moral orientation.
    • he found philosophy "generally boring, dry and irrelevant."
    • Fascinated by Rozin's research, Haidt wrote his dissertation on moral judgment of disgusting but harmless actions
    • when you moved down in social class or into Brazil, morality is based not on just harm. It's also about loyalty and family and authority and respect and purity.
    • Your stomach doesn't say 'thank you' to your esophagus for passing the food to it!
    • the Confucian/Hindu traditional value structure is very good for maintaining order and continuity and stability
    • if the goal is creativity, scientific insight and artistic achievement, these traditional societies pretty well squelch it. Modern liberalism, with its support for self-expression, is much more effective.
    • In his 1981 volume The Philosophy of Moral Development, Kohlberg essentially argued that other moral systems are mere stepping-stones on a path that will eventually lead the entire world to embrace Western humanist values. Reviewing the book for the journal Contemporary Psychology, Shweder politely but effectively tore that notion apart
    • broke down primal moral impulses into a "big three": autonomy, community and divinity
    • liberals feel strongly about the first two dimensions -- preventing harm and ensuring fairness -- but often feel little, or even feel negatively, about the other three. Conservatives, on the other hand, are drawn to loyalty, authority and purity, which liberals tend to think of as backward or outdated
    • Libertarian essayist Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute -- one of many self-reflective political thinkers who are intrigued by Haidt's hypothesis
    • Of Haidt's five moral realms, the one that causes the most friction between cosmopolitan liberals and traditionalist conservatives is purity/sanctity. To a 21st-century secular liberal, the concept barely registers.
    • Haidt doesn't want religious fundamentalists dictating public policy to ensure it lines up with their specific moral code. Even if you perceive purity as a major-league issue, it doesn't have to be on steroids. But he argues it is important that liberals recognize the strength that impulse retains with cultural conservatives and respect it rather than dismissing it as primitive.
    • "If I had my way, moral psychology would be a mandatory part of high-school civics classes, and civics classes would be a mandatory part of all Americans' education,"
• 26 Apr 09
  

  Clay Burell

  psychology ideology conservative liberal

  • He views the demonization that has marred American political debate in recent decades as a massive failure in moral imagination. We assume everyone's ethical compass points in the same direction and label those whose views don't align with our sense of right and wrong as either misguided or evil. In fact, he argues, there are multiple due norths.

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