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Introduction to Part II: Do Cultural Differences in Moral Psychology Explain Political Conflict on Climate Change?

In Part II of this course we will consider how, if at all, discoveries in moral psychology can inform an understanding of political conflict and routes to their democratic resolution.

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Notes

In Part II of this course we will consider how, if at all, discoveries in moral psychology can inform an understanding of political conflict and routes to their democratic resolution.

Although Part II is related to Part I, I will present it as a fresh start. Nearly all of it should make sense independently of anything you learned in Part I.

We will focus on political conflict over climate change. This is also the part of the course where we will consider cultural differences in moral psychology. The overall question for Part II is, Do cultural differences in moral psychology explain political conflict on climate change?

Fact to Be Explained

People who identify as socially liberal rather than socially conservative are less likely to deny facts about anthropogenic climate change and more likely to express concern about the effects of climate change.

This is true in many, but not all, countries. The US is an extreme case, as the Republican Party denies anthropogenic climate change and has published a manifesto criticizing Democrats for treating it as a severe threat (Båtstrand, 2015). Although few mainstream political parties are so extreme, the split between liberal and conservative voters exists in many countries:

‘Recent research finds a notable political cleavage on climate change views within the general publics of the United States, Australia, Canada, the UK, and a range of other countries around the world, with citizens on the left reporting greater belief in, concern about, and support for action on climate change than citizens on the right do. [...] such an ideological divide on climate change views was not found among the general publics of former Communist countries, [...] the ‘post-Communist effect.’ (McCright, Dunlap, & Marquart-Pyatt, 2016, p. 351)

Simplified Preview

We will approach this topic by working through Feinberg & Willer (2013).

In outline, Feinberg and Willer argue that cultural differences in moral psychology do explain political conflict on climate change on the basis of five considerations.

These five are considerations are:

  1. ‘Moral convictions and the emotions they evoke shape political attitudes’ (see Do Ethical Attitudes Shape Political Behaviours?)
  2. Moral Foundations Theory is true (see Moral Pluralism: Beyond Harm; Moral Foundations Theory: An Approach to Cultural Variation; and Operationalising Moral Foundations Theory)
  3. ‘liberals and conservatives possess different moral profiles’ (see Liberals vs Conservatives)
  4. ‘liberals express greater levels of environmental concern than do conservatives in part because liberals are more likely to view environmental issues in moral terms’
  5. ‘exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

We will examine each consideration in turn.

Although the lectures use Feinberg & Willer (2013) as a guide, another good source for an overview of the issues is Markowitz & Shariff (2012).

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Glossary

moral conviction : ‘Moral conviction refers to a strong and absolute belief that something is right or wrong, moral or immoral’ (Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, 2005, p. 896).
Moral Foundations Theory : The theory that moral pluralism is true; moral foundations are innate but also subject to cultural learning, and the Social Intuitionist Model of Moral Judgement is correct (Graham et al., 2019). Proponents often claim, further, that cultural variation in how these innate foundations are woven into ethical abilities can be measured using the Moral Foundations Questionnare (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; Graham et al., 2011). Some empirical objections have been offered (Davis et al., 2016; Davis, Dooley, Hook, Choe, & McElroy, 2017; Doğruyol, Alper, & Yilmaz, 2019). See Moral Foundations Theory: An Approach to Cultural Variation.
Social Intuitionist Model of Moral Judgement : A model on which intuitive processes are directly responsible for moral judgements (Haidt & Bjorklund, 2008). One’s own reasoning does not typically affect one’s own moral judgements, but (outside philosophy, perhaps) is typically used only to provide post-hoc justification after moral judgements are made. Reasoning does affect others’ moral intuitions, and so provides a mechanism for cultural learning.

References

Båtstrand, S. (2015). More than Markets: A Comparative Study of Nine Conservative Parties on Climate Change. Politics & Policy, 43(4), 538–561. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12122
Davis, D., Dooley, M., Hook, J., Choe, E., & McElroy, S. (2017). The Purity/Sanctity Subscale of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire Does Not Work Similarly for Religious Versus Non-Religious Individuals. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 9(1), 124–130. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000057
Davis, D., Rice, K., Tongeren, D. V., Hook, J., DeBlaere, C., Worthington, E., & Choe, E. (2016). The Moral Foundations Hypothesis Does Not Replicate Well in Black Samples. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110(4). https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000056
Doğruyol, B., Alper, S., & Yilmaz, O. (2019). The five-factor model of the moral foundations theory is stable across WEIRD and non-WEIRD cultures. Personality and Individual Differences, 151, 109547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109547
Feinberg, M., & Willer, R. (2013). The Moral Roots of Environmental Attitudes. Psychological Science, 24(1), 56–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612449177
Graham, J., Haidt, J., Motyl, M., Meindl, P., Iskiwitch, C., & Mooijman, M. (2019). Moral Foundations Theory: On the advantages of moral pluralism over moral monism. In K. Gray & J. Graham (Eds.), Atlas of Moral Psychology. New York: Guilford Publications.
Graham, J., Haidt, J., & Nosek, B. A. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 1029–1046. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015141
Graham, J., Nosek, B. A., Haidt, J., Iyer, R., Koleva, S., & Ditto, P. H. (2011). Mapping the moral domain. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), 366–385. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021847
Haidt, J., & Bjorklund, F. (2008). Social intuitionists answer six questions about moral psychology. In W. Sinnott-Armstrong (Ed.), Moral psychology, Vol 2: The cognitive science of morality: Intuition and diversity (pp. 181–217). Cambridge, Mass: MIT press.
Markowitz, E. M., & Shariff, A. F. (2012). Climate change and moral judgement. Nature Climate Change, 2(4), 243–247. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1378
McCright, A. M., Dunlap, R. E., & Marquart-Pyatt, S. T. (2016). Political ideology and views about climate change in the European Union. Environmental Politics, 25(2), 338–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644016.2015.1090371
Rottman, J., Kelemen, D., & Young, L. (2015). Hindering Harm and Preserving Purity: How Can Moral Psychology Save the Planet? Philosophy Compass, 10(2), 134–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12195
Skitka, L. J., Bauman, C., & Sargis, E. (2005). Moral Conviction: Another Contributor to Attitude Strength or Something More? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(6), 895–917.