In the Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Jonathan Haidt introduces the initial five foundations in Moral Foundation Theory: Care-Harm, Fairness-Cheating, Loyalty-Betrayal, Authority-Subversion, and Sanctity-Degradation. In a subsequent chapter, he writes that after additional research and discussion, he and his colleagues at YourMorals.org decided to add a provisional foundation called Liberty-Oppression to Moral Foundation Theory.
Haidt proposes this newly identified foundation, “evolved in response to the adaptive challenge of living in small groups with individuals who would, if given the chance, dominate, bully, and constrain others. The original triggers therefore include signs of attempted domination.” This foundation is a balance to the Authority-Subversion foundation. When followers perceive their leader(s) are oppressing them, the moral thing to do is to become subversive and remove the leader from their role. Haidt also writes, “the current triggers include almost anything that is perceived as imposing illegitimate restrains on one’s liberty, including government (from the perspective of the American right).”
Research shows this foundation tends to influence liberals (which are usually most strongly influenced by the Care-Harm foundation) to support those who are being oppressed and work in social justice efforts to increase equal opportunity and, for some liberals, equal outcomes. Haidt writes, “this may be why the left usually favors higher taxes on the rich, high levels of services provided to the poor, and sometimes a guaranteed minimum income for everyone.”
This foundation influences conservatives to focus on their personal liberty and the liberty of the groups they identify with. When conservatives feel their liberty is being constrained, they consider themselves being oppressed. Haidt writes, “the Liberty/oppression foundation and [conservatives’] hatred toward tyranny supports many of the tenets of economic conservativism: don’t tread on me (with your liberal nanny state and its high taxes), don’t tread on my business (with your oppressive regulations), and don’t tread on my nation (with your United Nations and your sovereignty-reducing international treaties).”
The Liberty-Oppression foundation is the foundation that most strongly influences libertarians, and it does so in the same way it does conservatives. Since the only other foundation influencing libertarians is the Proportionality foundation (split out from the Fairness-Cheating foundation after The Righteous Mind was printed), this foundation is critical to understanding libertarian morality.