Moral foundations
A model that sorts moral intuition into several foundations: care/harm, fairness (now split into equality and proportionality), loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation and liberty/oppression. People and groups weigh them differently, and moral judgement usually comes first as a gut reaction, with reasons supplied afterwards.
What drives it
It explains why sincere people talk past each other in moral arguments: each is defending a different foundation. For identification it is useful for hearing which moral note someone is playing and appealing to it.
How it shows
Work
A pay dispute in which one camp argues equality ('everyone should get the same rise') and another proportionality ('reward the top performers'). A founder who sees a departing senior hire as a betrayal (loyalty) while the hire sees it as a fair career move. Pushback on a 'flat' structure from people who value authority and clear roles. Reactions of disgust or purity language ('toxic', 'unclean money') around ethical questions.
Relationships
Family rifts over politics that are really about loyalty versus care: one sibling won't criticise the family in public, the other thinks speaking out protects the vulnerable. Partners who clash over whether rules or feelings should decide.
Self
You react to someone's position with instant disgust or anger and only then look for a reason. You find it hard to see an opponent's view as moral at all, rather than as a different weighting of things you also care about.
What tells it apart
Naive realism: Naive realism is the belief that you see things as they are and others are biased; moral foundations explain the content of the disagreement. Naive realism is present when the person cannot state the other side's moral concern.
Moralisation: Moralisation is a defence that turns a personal grievance into a moral issue; moral foundations describe stable value priorities that show up across many unrelated topics.
Social identity: Group identity shapes which side someone takes on an issue; foundations show in the kind of argument they make. Two members of the same party can lean on different foundations.
A test
Ask what would make the other side's position morally right; the foundation the person can or cannot name reveals their own weighting.
Questions to carry
- What would make the other side's position morally right, and which value goes unnamed in the answer?
- Which moral note do I hear loudest, care, fairness, loyalty or liberty, and whose do I miss?
How strong the research is
moderate. Differences in which foundations liberals and conservatives emphasise replicate fairly well, but the proposed factor structure fits poorly in many cultures and the questionnaire has been revised (MFQ-2, 2023, splitting fairness into equality and proportionality).
Where it comes from
Jonathan Haidt and Craig Joseph, 2004; Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt and Brian Nosek, 2009; Haidt, 2012 (The Righteous Mind)
Sources
- Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012)