Is the Other Political Party Morally Insane?

If you answered yes, you’re right–from your own perspective. It doesn’t matter whether the other party is Republican, Democrat, or one of the other many political parties in the US.

Political parties are formed when individuals who share common moral beliefs come together to make or influence government decisions. The challenge is we all have our own set of moral beliefs, and we use our personal morality as the standard. Consider the following:

• What we think is moral is based on our subconscious intuitions
• We judge all others’ morality compared to what we individually feel is moral
• Sometimes our own thinking is insane, but we feel it makes sense
• While those within a political group think their morality is sound, those outside the group think the group’s morality — and consequently its politics — are insane.

Think insane is the wrong word? Webster’s defines insanity as: 1 the state of being insane; mental illness or derangement, usually excluding amentia: not a technical term. 2 Law Any form or degree of mental derangement or unsoundness of mind, permanent or temporary, that makes a person incapable of what is regarded legally as normal, rational conduct or judgment. 3 Great folly; extreme senselessness (italics added).

Human thinking is often warped in ways we’re not conscious of. This post seeks to explain, at a high level, different kinds of moral perspectives. It’s a reminder that just because others don’t share your moral view, it’s not because they’re insane. It’s because a different — sometimes radically different — moral framework is subconsciously influencing them.

Moral Foundations Theory Explains Different Moral Views

As a political advocate, I try to generate political support for specific policies and programs. Sometimes, I’m trying to influence politicians who have very different interests, priorities, and moral beliefs from mine. I have a lot more success when I use that politician’s morality — not my own — to build that support!

Consequently, I spend a lot of time thinking about something called Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). MFT has greatly helped me understand my own and others’ moral perspectives. It and my own addiction recovery experiences made me realize that insanity is often in the eyes of the beholder.

Jonathan Haidt wrote The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion to introduce people to MFT. He divided his book into the three parts shown below. In each part, he introduces and builds arguments supporting a major principle of moral psychology and how MFT supports that principle. Quoted material is from that book.

Principle	Explanation
“1. Intuitions Come First, Strategic Reasoning Second”	People make decisions based on their subconscious, emotion-based intuitions and use their conscious minds to justify their intuitions. Haidt made the point that despite believing we use logic and fact to make decisions, it’s actually our intuitions about whether what we perceive is good/helpful or bad/harmful that influences us to decide whether to support or oppose something. For more information see my Intuition and Reasoning page. These emotional intuitions arise from at least six different moral foundations and our past experience.
“2. There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness”	Haidt argued people use at least these six moral foundations to varying degrees when deciding what is moral and immoral: 1. Care/Harm 2. Liberty/Oppression 3. Fairness/Cheating 4. Sanctity/Degradation 5. Authority/Subversion 6. Loyalty/Betrayal Note: Since The Righteous Mind was published, MFT researchers split the Fairness foundation into two foundations: Equality and Proportionality. They also renamed the Sanctity foundation as Purity. In The Righteous Mind, Haidt proposed creating the Liberty/Oppression foundation based on research identifying libertarian moral tendencies. MFT researchers consider it a provisional foundation subject to more study to see how universal it is.
“3. Morality Binds and Blinds”	People act in their own self-interest about 90% of the time and subordinate that self-interest 10% of the time to act with others as a group to further shared goals. Members within a group are influenced by a similar arrangement of the moral foundations above and a similar interpretation of what beliefs and behaviors are moral within each foundation.

The Morality of Moral Groups

In Part 3 of The Righteous Mind, Haidt divided people into three broad moral groups and identified each group’s “common group-specific arrangement of foundational influences.” He called each group’s arrangement its “most sacred value”.

Group	Most Sacred Value
Conservatives	Preserve the institutions and traditions that sustain a moral community
Libertarians	Individual liberty
Progressives (Liberals)	Care for victims of oppression

MFT research shows that when making moral choices

• conservatives are influenced by all six foundations about equally
• libertarians are mostly influenced by the Liberty/Oppression foundation
• liberals are mostly influenced by the Care/Harm and Liberty/Oppression foundations

Let’s look at each group more closely.

Conservatives

In MFT research, the Sanctity, Authority, and Loyalty foundations are called the binding foundations. These three foundations are critical to binding people into groups. They also enable those groups to more effectively defend themselves against other groups competing for the same resources. The binding foundations influence people to curb their individual focused motivations arising from the non-binding moral foundations (Care-Harm, Liberty-Oppression, Fairness-Cheating).

The binding foundations are what make conservative morality more common and powerful in populations than liberal or libertarian morality. They also make conservative morality much more complex to understand. Unlike libertarians and liberals, conservatives are generally influenced by all six foundations, and their sacred value of supporting a moral community is much more subjective.

What does a moral community look like? I believe that depends on whatever the members of that community (group) agree is moral.

Sanctity Foundation Influence

Because conservative groups are usually built on the Sanctity moral foundation, the specific beliefs — and the institutions and traditions built upon those beliefs — can be very different from each other. Haidt suggests what each community defines as moral depends on their view of what is sacred (pure, holy, clean, good) and what is profane (impure, sinful, dirty, bad).

Individuals lacking enough needed qualities to be moral are excluded from the group. When enough group members have different ideas of what is sacred, the group splits into separate factions. Those factions can split into ever smaller factions with each faction having its own, specific view of what is sacred and what institutions and traditions are proper to support what is sacred.

The Sanctity moral foundation supports non-religious groups as well. Nations, sports teams, corporations, etc. can all be supported by intuitions arising from the Sanctity foundation. This foundation is what gives meaning to symbols. Sometimes, different groups assign different meanings to the same symbol. Part of what binds group members is they share a common subconscious understanding of what a symbol means and whether the symbol represents something good or bad. Remember, symbols can be extremely subjective. See my Sanctity page for more information.

Authority Foundation Influence

Intuitions from the Authority foundation are often based on one or more hierarchies. These hierarchies are themselves based on characteristics perceived to indicate relative purity from the Sanctity foundation. The higher the person’s or thing’s perceived purity is, the higher the authority granted to that person or thing. In the US, skin color (perceived to indicate race and nationality), gender, and wealth are just three of many characteristics upon which intuitive determinations of relative worth are often based. The closer the intersection of one’s set of characteristics are to whatever standards a group considers pure, the higher the level of authority that group grants to the person or thing.

The converse is also true. Where the intersection of characteristics is lower, the lower the authority. For example, some consider a white male superior to a white female, but a white female superior to a brown male. Others might consider wealthy males of any race superior to wealthy females of any race, but both superior to those in poverty, whether male or female.

There’s an almost infinite number of ways a community can define what is moral based on their shared beliefs of what is sacred and how people should be hierarchically arranged based on perceived differences. See my Authority page for more information.

Loyalty Foundation Influence

Once a moral community is united by intuitions from the Sanctity and Authority foundations, intuitions from the third binding foundation, Loyalty, begin to keep the group together.

Intuitions from this foundation enforce allegiance to the group, its leader(s), and its institutions and traditions (including beliefs). It causes group members to sometimes subordinate their own interests in support of the group. Members perceived to violate the group’s moral values are subject to punishment, including loss of authority and even banishment from the group.

For conservatives, belonging to one or more group(s) is an intrinsic part of their identity and self-worth. To be banished from the group means losing those and decreases the feeling of safety brought by being in the group. Those fears can be a powerful incentive to publicly support the group despite one’s personal feelings. The arising cognitive dissonance can quickly lead conservatives to deny, minimize, or rationalize their personal actions and/or their group’s actions to reduce any dissonance they feel about their group. The Loyalty foundation’s “my group, right or wrong” mindset is much stronger in conservatives than in libertarians or liberals.

Non-Binding Foundations Influence

Because of the binding foundations’ influence, conservatives are more conscious of in-group and out-group membership. For conservatives, the intuitions from the remaining foundations (Care, Liberty, Fairness) are themselves influenced by group-specific binding foundation intuitions. For example, whether someone from another group deserves to

• be cared for depends on whether a person’s group believes it’s moral to help out-group members. Some conservative groups feel it’s immoral to care for out-group members, especially when those out-group members are competing for the same resources, such as jobs or government support.
• have their freedom and other rights respected and defended depends on whether a person’s group believes it’s moral for out-group members to have those freedoms and rights. Groups that believe out-groups are inferior may even believe it’s moral to enslave and/or take away the rights of out-group members.
• be treated with some form of Equal or Proportional fairness depends on whether a person’s group believes it’s moral for members of out-groups to be treated fairly.

I mentioned above, groups can divide into factions and sub-factions. When resources are perceived to be scarce, conservative groups are much more likely to aggressively claim and defend those resources. I believe all wars — even religious wars, such as the Crusades — are really about controlling or taking control of resources. Those fighting for their religion, country, sports team, corporation, etc. are really fighting for resources to bolster their group in the competition against others.

Conservatives are often willing to sacrifice personal economic benefits to remain in their groups’ good standing. For example, working- and middle-class conservatives are often willing to support their groups’ principles and leaders even if it means suffering some personal, financial hardships. In some extremely conservative groups, members are willing to sacrifice their own lives to help in-group members and kill out-group members.

Libertarians

Per MFT research, only the Liberty moral foundation strongly influences libertarians. Libertarians acutely feel their need for personal liberty and feel oppressed when others want to limit their personal freedoms. Haidt wrote the Fairness foundation is the next strongest foundation providing intuitions to libertarians about what is moral. Now that the Fairness foundation has been divided into the Equality and Proportionality foundations, I don’t know which of the new foundations is the greater influence on libertarians.

MFT research indicates the remaining foundations influence libertarians far less than they do conservatives or liberals.

Since libertarians aren’t significantly influenced by the binding foundations (Sanctity, Authority, and Loyalty), libertarians are less likely to strongly identify with or support groups. Libertarians are more likely to join groups that support the libertarian morality of maximizing individual freedom (for example, by reducing regulation) rather than supporting a conservative group’s social morality.

When a libertarian appears uncaring toward the misfortunes of others, it’s evidence intuitions from the Care foundation aren’t influencing the libertarian. They take the view it’s everyone’s responsibility to care for themselves, rather than depend on governments — and consequently, freedom-infringing taxes — to care for them.

Liberals

The Care, Liberty, and Equality foundations, generally in that order, influence liberals. The binding foundations (Sanctity, Authority, and Loyalty) don’t influence liberals nearly as much as they do conservatives.

When liberals are religious, they tend to emphasize their religion’s teachings from the Care foundation’s focus on caring for others, while downplaying the need to strictly follow their religion’s non-Care-related Sanctity tenets.

Liberals often distrust the hierarchical arrangements intrinsic in the Authority foundation. Basing a person’s value on characteristics, such as gender, religion, race, wealth, ages, etc. are anathema to liberals. Consequently, liberals tend to question authority and believe everyone has the same rights.

Liberals betray the Loyalty foundation’s emphasis on conformity by being more open to disagreeing with others. They are more open to opposing ideas and less likely to eject someone out of their group because they have different perspectives. Liberals value free expression of thought and behavior, relatively unrestricted by religious or authority.

Since liberals are less influenced by intuitions from the binding foundations, intuitions arising from those foundations tend to baffle liberals. To liberals, all of humanity is in their in-group. Some liberals also include all or subsets of animals as part of their in-group.

Each Group’s Moral Perspectives Is Insane From Other Groups’ Perspectives

Given the above, it’s not surprising the members in each moral group think the other groups’ members are morally insane. Since they’re all influenced by different arrangements of moral foundations, they all break what’s considered “normal, rational conduct or judgment” from another the other groups’ perspective.

Because conservatives are influenced by all six foundations, they can understand liberals desire to care for others and libertarians desire for freedom. But the binding foundations’ influences on conservatives cause conservatives to automatically create in-group and out-group arrangements and hierarchies and generally restrict caring to in-group members only. Conservatives are confounded by libertarian independence and disregard (i.e., betrayal) of the conservative group(s)’s values. Conservatives feel the liberal concept of all humans — let alone all animals — as being equal within one group is at best ignorant, perhaps immoral, and sometimes heretical.

The libertarian value of “live and let live” leads them to not care much about what others think or do. When others talk or act in ways perceived to limit the libertarian’s freedom, however, watch out! That’s when libertarians suddenly see an out-group comprised of those seeking to oppress them. From a libertarian perspective, those out-group members are ignorant, perhaps fanatical, and always threatening to the libertarian way of life.

Liberals want to save the world — especially those least advantaged (most oppressed) in the world. Liberals believe it’s moral for everyone to sacrifice a little for the prosperity of all. They think those who oppose that goal are unenlightened, ignorant, perhaps even callous to the point of being evil. Conservatives believe the inclusiveness of John Lennon’s “Imagine” song is naive and dangerously ignores the dangers inherent from out-groups. Libertarians, meanwhile, support the song’s vision — so long as their own freedom to do what they want isn’t restricted, and they aren’t forced to personally sacrifice for those perceived to be unmotivated to take care of themselves.

My Perspective

As in addict in recovery, I can now see that when my addiction was active, I was mentally insane by Webster’s definition. To recover from that insanity, I had to break through my denial and rationalizations. I had to look at my often-conflicting values and beliefs and separate truth from fictions I’d created to support my irrational behavior. Some addicts in 12-Step programs use the backronym DENIAL (Don’t Even Notice I Am Lying) to remind themselves to double-check their own thinking with others. I know before recovery, I often thought and acted in ways I thought were rational but were clearly irrational, insane even, by Webster’s definition.

I wrote this article to share my belief that all humans are insane to varying degrees. We’re all in varying degrees of DENIAL about reality. We cannot be otherwise. The reason people draw different meanings from the same scene is because we’re each experiencing moral intuitions arising from our personal arrangement of moral foundations. Those intuitions are also influencing how we understand what we perceive from others.

We need to accept that much in the world is as subjective as Rorschach inkblots. We need to remember it helps to be curious about what others believe and why. In reality, aren’t we all — at least a little — sane and insane when we try to identify what is “normal, rational conduct or judgment”?

What do you think?