Moral Foundations Theory: An Approach to Cultural Variation

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Moral Foundations Theory: An Approach to Cultural Variation

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Next quote to analyse

‘Moral-foundations researchers have investigated the similarities and differences in morality among individuals across cultures (Haidt & Joseph, 2004). These researchers have found evidence for five fundamental domains of human morality’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 2)

aims

‘a systematic theory of morality, explaining its origins, development, and cultural variations’

(Graham et al., 2011, p. 368)

‘It would be difficult to overestimate the influence of this theory on psychological science

because it caused a dramatic broadening in conceptualization of morality beyond narrow Western notions that have focused on individualistic virtues associated with protecting one’s rights.

[...] there is significant support for the moral foundations hypothesis that predicts that conservatives tend to draw on virtues associated with binding communities more than liberals (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; Graham et al., 2011; Koleva, Graham, Iyer, Ditto, & Haidt, 2012)’

(Davis, Dooley, Hook, Choe, & McElroy, 2017, p. 128).

[nativism] ‘There is a first draft of the moral mind’

‘the human mind is organized in advance of experience so that it is prepared to learn values, norms, and behaviors related to a diverse set of recurrent adaptive social problems’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 63)

[cultural learning] ‘The first draft of the moral mind gets edited during development within a culture’

[intuitionism] ‘Intuitions come first’ --- the Social Intuitionist Model is true

3a. ‘moral evaluations generally occur rapidly and automatically, products of relatively effortless, associative, heuristic processing that psychologists now refer to as System 1 thinking’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 66) 3b. ‘moral reasoning is done primarily for socially strategic purposes’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 66)

Let me pause here to illustrate the basic idea.

[^fig-update]: I updated this figure to the version in Paxton & Greene (2010) since the recording; the previous version reproduced from Haidt & Bjorklund (2008) had some arrows pointing in the wrong direction.

Haidt & Bjorklund, 2008 figure 4.1

While there’s a lot to say about this model, I want to bracket it for now because it doesn’t bear too directly on the main issues (although it is important).

‘moral evaluations generally occur rapidly and automatically, products of relatively effortless, associative, heuristic processing that psychologists now refer to as System 1 thinking’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 66)

‘moral reasoning is done primarily for socially strategic purposes’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 66)

[nativism] ‘There is a first draft of the moral mind’

[cultural learning] ‘The first draft of the moral mind gets edited during development within a culture’

[intuitionism] ‘Intuitions come first’ --- the Social Intuitionist Model is true

[pluralism] ‘There are many psychological foundations of morality’

(Graham et al., 2019)

Graham et al, 2019

Background: ‘intuitive ethics’ (Haidt & Joseph, 2004; Haidt & Graham, 2007) claims that there are five evolutionarily ancient, psychologically basic abilities linked to: \begin{enumerate} \item harm/care \item fairness (including reciprocity) \item in-group loyalty \item respect for authority \item purity, sanctity \end{enumerate}

Individual:

harm/care

equality

proportionality

Binding:

in-group loyalty

respect for authority

[purity, sanctity]

[nativism] ‘There is a first draft of the moral mind’

[cultural learning] ‘The first draft of the moral mind gets edited during development within a culture’

[intuitionism] ‘Intuitions come first’ --- the Social Intuitionist Model is true

[pluralism] ‘There are many psychological foundations of morality’

(Graham et al., 2019)

Graham et al, 2019

But what makes something a foundation?

being a foundation is a matter of:

‘(a) being common in third-party normative judgments,

(b) automatic affective evaluations,

(d) evidence of innate preparedness, and

(e) a robust preexisting evolutionary model.’

Atari et al. (2023, p. 1158); see Graham et al. (2013, p. table 2.4 on p. 108)

‘If a putatively moral issue never shows up in gossip, even in communities that are said to endorse values related to that foundation, then that is a reason to doubt the existence of such a foundation. Gossip about fairness, for example, is ubiq- uitous. From hunter-gatherers (Wiessner, 2005) to Chaldean-Iraqui mer- chants in Michigan (Henrich & Henrich, 2007) to college roommates sharing a kitchen, people gossip frequently about members of their group who cheat, fail to repay favors, or take more than their share. In fact, Dunbar (1996) reports that one of the principle functions of gossip is to catch cheaters and free-riders within groups.’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 109)

Here Graham et al. (2013) mention two things: responses to violations should involve feelings; and they should be rapid.

‘If a moral reaction can be elicited quickly and easily, with a variety of images, bumper-stickers, or one-sentence stories, that is a point in favor of its foundationhood.’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 110)

We discussed this in the emotion case. (I’m not sure what they are saying about this.)

Here the test is whether values ‘show up widely in anthropological accounts’ and whether they seem important across hunter-gatherer societies, farming societies and industrial societies.

On innateness, the authors actually focus on whether the foundation is present in other primates. The obvious difficulty for them are is the Sancity and Purity foundation.

They also discuss evidence that the foundations may appear early in development.

being a foundation is a matter of:

‘(a) being common in third-party normative judgments,

(b) automatic affective evaluations,

(d) evidence of innate preparedness, and

(e) a robust preexisting evolutionary model.’

Atari et al. (2023, p. 1158); see Graham et al. (2013, p. table 2.4 on p. 108)

[nativism] ‘There is a first draft of the moral mind’

[cultural learning] ‘The first draft of the moral mind gets edited during development within a culture’

[intuitionism] ‘Intuitions come first’ --- the Social Intuitionist Model is true

[pluralism] ‘There are many psychological foundations of morality’

Graham et al. (2019)

It is not important to the theory that these be the only foundations, nor that these be exactly the foundations (perhaps one is wrong, and should be replaced by two different ideas). For example, the theory has some difficulties with Libertarians ... ‘Libertarians have a unique moral-psychological profile, endorsing the principle of liberty as an end and devaluing many of the moral concerns typically endorsed by liberals or conservatives’ (Iyer, Koleva, Graham, Ditto, & Haidt, 2012, p. 21). ‘Does that mean that libertarians have no morality---or, at least, less concern with moral issues than liberals or conservatives? Or might it be that their core moral value was simply not represented among the five foundations measured by the MFQ? ... MFT’s five moral foundations appeared to be inadequate in capturing libertarians’ moral concerns, but the approach that gave birth to these foundations served us well in examining this new group, and stimulated us to consider Liberty/oppression as a candidate for addition to our list of foundations’ (Graham et al., 2013, p. 87).

The individual/binding distinction is probably stable tho.

Some focus just on harm and purity. This might actually be a better approximation given methodological limits.

‘Moral-foundations researchers have investigated the similarities and differences in morality among individuals across cultures (Haidt & Josephs, 2004). These researchers have found evidence for five fundamental domains of human morality’

(Feinberg & Willer, 2013, p. 1)

Feinberg & Willer, 2013 p. 1

Very important for philosophers. They aren’t allowed just to make it up.

Big point: we have a method for identifying moral abilities that doesn’t depend on prior assumptions about what counts as ethical.

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Moral Foundations Theory: An Approach to Cultural Variation

Moral Foundations Theory: An Approach to Cultural Variation

[email protected]

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