Conservative “Morality”

[Time for change]

Though almost everyone agrees that “morality” is a good thing, there is widespread disagreement on what is moral and what isn’t. Consequently, the fact that people agree that morality is a good thing is virtually meaningless.

Conservatives have long had a political advantage on this issue because they have come to be seen as the party of “moral values” – by virtue of the fact that they talk about it incessantly. Indeed, they have gained so much advantage on this point over the years that many liberals have taken to calling themselves “progressive” rather than “liberal” in order to avoid the immorality label that conservatives have attached to the word “liberal”. Worse yet, many have adopted political positions based on the “moral values” that conservatives espouse, in order to identify themselves as “moral”.

But what is lost or misunderstood in the face of all this posturing is the fact that liberals and conservatives espouse a very different kind of “morality”. As a liberal, I believe that rather than changing what we call ourselves or adopting conservative views of morality in order to make ourselves appear more moral, we should proudly emphasize our own views of morality and why those views provide a better foundation for public policy than the views on morality espoused by conservatives.

Consider the following as an example of how differently liberals and conservatives perceive morality: In January 2004, Army Specialist Joe Darby came across the now infamous photos depicting torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. He gave a copy of the photos to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Division, thus setting off the investigation that brought U.S. Army torture of its prisoners to the attention of the world.

In my opinion, Darby’s action was not only moral, but highly courageous as well. But there were many conservatives who didn’t see it that way. Threats against Darby and his family were so severe that the U.S. Army had to assign him six bodyguards and take him into protective custody. Darby put the threats in perspective:

People there don’t look at the fact that I knew right from wrong. They look at the fact that I put an Iraqi before an American. But I don’t regret any of it. I made my peace with my decision before I turned the pictures in…. I never doubted that it was the right thing. It forced a big change in my life, but the change has been good and bad.

Clearly, Darby (and undoubtedly most liberals) felt his actions were moral, whereas many conservatives felt otherwise. Who was right? And how do we know who was right? Who decides what is moral and what isn’t?


THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONSERVATIVE AND LIBERAL MORALITY

Not surprisingly, most dictionary definitions of morality don’t shed much light on these questions. Here is one:

The term “morality” can be used either descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or, some other group, such as a religion, or accepted by an individual for her own behavior or normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.

In other words, the arbiter of morality is either society, religion, individuals themselves, “all rational persons”, or “some other group”. That pretty much covers just about everything, and explains at the same time why there is so much disagreement on the subject.

Another definition is “Concern with the distinction between good and evil or right and wrong”. But again, how do we know what is good and evil or right and wrong? That is where conservative and liberals have substantial differences.

The fundamental difference between conservative and liberal ideas of morality is the source. The source of conservative morality is some “authority”, which is supposed to have all the answers.

Liberals, on the other hand, while generally taking into account what various “authorities” have to say on the subject, also use their own minds and consciences to reach conclusions on the subject. And the ultimate source of those conclusions is empathy (more on that in a moment).

Here is an excerpt from a discussion that says much the same thing:

Most (not all) conservatives claim to derive their morality primarily from their religious background… The vast majority of conservatives will tell you the basis of morality and law is God…. Us liberals don't think we have all the answers. The difference between us and the conservatives is that we are willing to look for answers, not to fall back on the same old dogma.

EMPATHY AS THE BASIS FOR MORALITY

Empathy is the quality whereby we imagine ourselves in another’s shoes – what it is like to be that person (or animal) and experience what that person is experiencing. And it’s more than just imagining it, it’s actually feeling it – which is where the expression “I feel your pain” comes from.

Morality that is worthy of being called morality is centrally about empathy. In other words, empathy is the source of morality, and therefore morality has no meaning without empathy. The reason for this is that in order for an action to be “good” rather than “evil” it must benefit someone (other than the one who commits the action) rather than harm them. If it provides no benefit to anyone, then why call it moral? But if a person has no ability or desire to consider how an action will affect other people (i.e. if the person has no empathy) then that person has no ability or desire to act in a way that will benefit rather than harm people, and therefore that person has no basis for acting morally.

Consider for example Joe Darby’s firm belief that he did the right (i.e. moral) thing by making the Abu Ghraib torture photos public. I don’t believe that he could feel that way unless he felt empathy for the victims (and potential future victims) of U.S. Army torture. As Darby said about those who castigated his actions, “They look at the fact that I put an Iraqi before an American”. Indeed, those who are enraged by Darby’s actions are of the belief that Americans have the right to do whatever they please with Iraqis simply because they are Americans and are therefore superior to Iraqis. In order to believe that Americans have the right or obligation to torture Iraqis, they probably must consider Iraqis to be subhuman. They have no empathy for Iraqis in particular, and people who are different from them in general. That is why their behavior lacks a moral focus.

Another excellent example comes from an article by Dana Visalli, titled “What I learned in Afghanistan… About the United States”. In that article, the author attempts to judge U.S. actions based on their effects on the people we claim to be fighting to help:

Once one understands that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan is not actually helping the Afghan people, the question of the effectiveness or goodwill of other major U.S. military interventions in recent history arises. In Vietnam, for example… The United States responded first by supporting the French in their efforts to recapture their lost colony, and when that failed, the U.S. dropped 10 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, sprayed 29 million gallons of the carcinogenic defoliant Agent Orange on the country, and dropped 400,000 pounds of napalm, killing a total of 3.4 million people.

When morality is grounded in empathy it is likely to carry beneficial effects for the recipients of the empathy. But without empathy one cannot imagine what would be beneficial for other people (or animals) because one cannot even imagine what it is like to be someone else. And if moral actions provide no value for anyone other than the person or organization performing the actions, and yet those actions are considered “moral”, then what value could possibly be attached to acting morally?

The bottom line is that without empathy, morality becomes so abstract that it ceases to have tangible meaning.


WHY MORALITY SHOULD NOT BE GROUNDED IN “AUTHORITY” AS ITS SOLE SOURCE

It should be noted that though moral codes should not be grounded in authority, legal codes must be grounded in authority. Specifically, legal codes must be grounded in written authoritative documents, including a constitution. In the absence of written authoritative legal codes, anarchy, chaos, and the “law of the jungle” prevail.

But keep in mind that things can be legal without being moral. Killing Jews based on no reason other than their identification as Jews was legal in Nazi Germany. Slavery used to be legal in the United States. Neither genocide nor slavery was ever moral, though they were legal at the time. And there continue to be many things in our country today that are legal but not moral. If everyone assumed that something is moral just because it is legal, it would be unlikely that efforts would ever be undertaken to reverse immoral but legal practices. In the absence of large numbers of people who were outraged about the immorality of slavery, slavery would likely continue to exist in the United States today.

The primary reason why morality should not be grounded in “authority” as its sole source is that that precludes empathy from playing a role. Conservatives could argue that their particular source of “authority” takes empathy into account. No doubt in some cases it does. But that shouldn’t preclude people from questioning or evaluating the so-called authority in an attempt to ascertain whether or not it is correct.

Different people rely on different authorities. People of different religions quote their respective religions as a source of morality. Other people rely on political figures, such as Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, as their authorities. But different “authorities” have different conceptions of morality, and indeed they have different answers to many of the questions that are of importance to people. So how do we determine which ones to look up to as the authorities on morality?

And worse still is the fact that many so-called “authorities” simply can’t be trusted:


The role of authoritarianism

A major problem with looking to “authorities” as the sole source of moral principles is that authorities are often authoritarian. Bob Altemeyer, a retired psychology professor who spent most of his life researching authoritarianism, discusses this issue in depth in his book, “The Authoritarians”.

Authoritarian followers
There are authoritarian leaders and authoritarian followers. The vast majority of authoritarians are followers. They are characterized by: 1) High degree of submission to authority; 2) willingness to attack other people in the name of the authority; and 3) highly conventional attitudes. Altemeyer refers to them with the acronym RWA – right wing authoritarians. He does this because in the United States, the vast majority of authoritarian followers (and leaders) are right wingers. These people make up the great bulk of the conservative, right wing movement in the United States. And they look to their authoritarian leaders as the source of morality – and information as well.

Authoritarian followers have such a deep need to submit to authority that they are willing to use any tortured logic that they can concoct in order to convince themselves that their beloved authority figures are truly great and wonderful people – despite abundant evidence to the contrary. In the service of doing that they allow themselves to be easily fooled and make themselves willfully ignorant in order to avoid confronting uncomfortable facts. Altemeyer says of them:

They are blind to themselves, ethnocentric and prejudiced, and as closed-minded as they are narrow-minded. They can be woefully uninformed about things they oppose, but they prefer ignorance and want to make others become as ignorant as they.

Authoritarian leaders
The primary characteristic of the authoritarian leaders, which Altemeyer also refers to as “Social Dominators”, is their great desire for power over other people – not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. Here is Altemeyer’s summary of the psychological characteristics of the social dominator – or authoritarian leader:

High scorers are inclined to be intimidating, ruthless, and vengeful. They scorn such noble acts as helping others, and being kind, charitable, and forgiving. Instead they would rather be feared than loved, and be viewed as mean, pitiless, and vengeful. They love power, including the power to hurt in their drive to the top….

Social dominators thus admit, anonymously, to striving to manipulate others, and to being dishonest, two-faced, treacherous, and amoral. It’s as if someone took the Scout Law (“A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, ...”) and turned it completely upside down…

This description is very similar to what psychologists refer to as the psychopathic personality. In other words, social dominators and psychopaths tend to be exceptionally devoid of empathy towards their fellow human beings. And this of course is reflected in the kind of policies and morality that they advocate:

Economically, authoritarian leaders advocate policies that tend to add to their wealth and power, with little or no regard to how those policies affect the poor, the middle class and the powerless. Many of our authoritarian leaders reap huge economic profits from war. Consequently they make up excuses for driving our country into war, and they create the impression that our patriotism (a moral value) should be judged largely or entirely on the enthusiasm we exhibit towards the wars that they attempt to drive us into.

The crookedness of the right wing movement in our country was clearly exposed in 2006 by several high profile cases of bribery (or accepting bribes), involving such men as Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, and Bob Ney. The Bush administration’s firing of their federal attorneys for either refusing to investigate non-existent election fraud by Democrats or for pursuing too aggressively cases of election fraud by Republicans is a good example of how these people manipulate our election system in their attempts to maintain their power. James Galbraith explains in his book, “The Predator State”, how the Bush administration operated more like a criminal syndicate than a government serving in a democracy:

The predator state is an economic system wherein entire sectors have been built up to feast on public systems built originally for public purposes… The corporate republic simply administers the spoils system… The business of its leadership is to deliver favors to their clients. These range from coal companies to sweatshops operators to military contractors… Everywhere you look, regulatory functions have been turned over to lobbyists. Everywhere you look, public decisions yield gains to specific private persons…. This is not an accident: it is a system. In the corporate republic that presides over the predator state, nothing is done for the common good… We are their prey. Hurricane Katrina illustrated this perfectly, as Bush gave contracts to Halliburton and at the same time tied up efforts to restore the city…

RELIGION

Religion deserves special mention in this discussion because conservatives, through well organized and vicious propaganda campaigns, have equated religion with morality, and convinced many Christians that Democrats and liberals are anti-Christian – and by extension, immoral. A good example of the kind of inflammatory and deceitful rhetoric spewed out by right wing fanatics to drive Christians into their ideological camp can be found in Hugh Hewitt’s book, “Painting the Map Red – The Fight to Create a Permanent Republican Majority”. In his chapter entitled “The Democratic Left Has Declared War on Religion”, Hewitt says “… the left is driven toward a political life that would first marginalize, then exclude, and then finally stigmatize serious religious belief.”

Given the large majority of Christians in our country, this poses a huge political problem. According to exit polls taken during the 2004 presidential election, Christians, who made up 83% of the sample, voted for Bush over Kerry by a 12 point margin, whereas voters of other religions or no religion voted for Kerry by more than a 40 point margin.

I don’t have anything against religion in general. I believe that religion has helped a great many people. And many beneficial social movements, such as the slavery abolition movement in the United States, have been strongly supported by religious organizations. But when religion lacks a focus on empathy and is contaminated with authoritarianism it ceases to be a force for good and becomes instead a source for violence and other evils.


Religious authoritarianism

For example, consider the conservative view that gay sex is immoral, so it’s ok to legally discriminate against gay people. Most liberals disagree with that because they believe that, as human beings, gay people should be entitled to the same rights and pleasures that other people are. Their empathy enables them to imagine how they would feel if, being gay, they were denied those rights. Most conservatives, on the other hand, believe that gay marriage is immoral simply because they are told so by their religious authoritarian leaders, and they believe that that is what their Bible says about it.

George Lakoff, Professor of cognitive science and linguistics, takes conservatives to task for their failure to consider how the “morality” they advocate affects ordinary people, in his book, Whose Freedom – The Battle over America’s Most Important Ideal”. With regard to the so-called “culture of life”, which so many right wingers boast about, consider the cornerstone of their morality, and try to impose upon their fellow citizens, Lakoff says:

So-called pro-life conservatives are typically in favor of the death penalty… They favor conservative policies that result in America having the highest infant mortality rate in the industrialized world… These deaths are a result of conservative policies against prenatal and postnatal care, universal child health insurance…, Medicaid…

If they were really pro-life… they would support programs for pre- and postnatal care, health care for all children, programs to feed and house the hungry and homeless, antipollution programs, and safe food programs. Instead, they let strict father morality dominate over issues of life – that the poor are responsible for their own poverty and that they and their innocent children should suffer for it, and that government should not interfere with corporate profits through public health regulations for clean air and water.

Similarly, Lakoff takes conservatives to task for their interpretation of another moral value, freedom:

The focus of (George Bush’s) presidency is defending and spreading freedom. Yet, progressives see in Bush’s policies not freedom but outrages against freedom. They are indeed outrages against the traditional American ideal of freedom… It is not the American ideal of freedom to invade countries that don’t threaten us, to torture people and defend the practice, to jail people indefinitely without due process, and to spy on our own citizens without warrant…

It applies to just about every issue. Take the 2005 bankruptcy bill, which had the effect of keeping poor people (though not wealthy corporations) from declaring bankruptcy in the face of overwhelming debt – in most cases debt from emergency medical care. This will keep tens of thousands of families enslaved to debt, often at the cost of their homes! It was sponsored and passed by conservatives. It was an anti-freedom bill…

Freedom and liberty are progressive ideas that are precious to Americans. When the right wing uses them, it sounds as if aliens had inhabited, and were trying to take possession of, the soul of America. It is time for an exorcism.

Liberal, empathy based religion

But religion doesn’t have to be authoritarian. The Christian Evangelical minister Gary Vance notes that Jesus was a liberal, and that empathy was central to his teachings. He says:

Jesus was the ultimate liberal progressive revolutionary of all history. The conservative religious and social structure that He defied hated and crucified Him. They examined His life and did not like what they saw. He aligned Himself with the poor and the oppressed. He challenged the religious orthodoxy of His day. He advocated pacifism and loving our enemies. He liberated women and minorities from oppression.… Jesus was the original Liberal. He was a progressive, and He was judged and hated for it.

And Vance explains how liberal/progressive movements of the past were aligned with Christianity:

The labor movement of the early twentieth century was aided significantly when major Christian denominations got behind it. No average American would have a fair wage today if it weren’t for liberal Christians and labor activists. Liberal Christians and civil rights activists fought and still fight against conservative America for racial equality. Child labor laws were enacted because liberals fought for them. Medicare and Social Security exist today because of Liberalism. “Bleeding heart liberals” have long advocated for the homeless, the hungry, the less fortunate, and the disenfranchised. The women of America owe liberals a big thank you for their almost equal rights. “Tree hugging liberals” fight for clean air and water standards instead of favoring industrial polluters and short term profiteering that destroy God’s green earth.

IN CONCLUSION

Members of the conservative movement in the United States today don’t even know what empathy is, let alone practice it. When President Obama announced that empathy was a trait he was looking for in the appointment of a new justice to the U.S. Supreme Court, they jumped all over him: Orin Hatch said “What does that (empathy) mean? Usually that’s a code word for an activist judge”; Lindsey Graham said, “Well, you know, I don't want a judge to take his robe and become a politician, an empathetic politician wearing a robe. I want a judge to decide cases fairly”. The conservative website, Diggers Realm, said “This goes against the principles of the Constitution wherein empathy has no place”.

As a substitute for empathy, the conservative authoritarian idea of morality is based on a combination of two related personality traits: their disinclination to think for themselves, and their consequent predilection to follow the dictates of those whom they see as “strong” authoritarian figures. These personality characteristics provide fertile ground for nationalistic authoritarian leaders who wish to increase their wealth and power and drive us into war, to the severe detriment of our country and its people.

Today’s “conservative” movement could just as well be termed an “authoritarian” movement. It is a movement of insatiable greed, selfishness, and corruption. It’s pretty difficult to generate political appeal on a platform like that. Consequently, they’ve adopted the bold strategy of turning logic upside down and pretending to be the exact opposite of what they truly are. They claim to be strict followers of a great moral religion. And to prove it, they adopt a bunch of strict moral codes that cost them nothing, and at the same time which appear to have some resemblance to that religion. By so doing, they hope to turn attention away from the fact that the true “moral code” of their party, as measured by their actions, is actually empty of morals. And unfortunately, they’ve been quite successful in perpetuating this fraud in recent decades.

It’s hard to know how to combat this deceit and hypocrisy, given the energy, organization, and viciousness with which the right wing propaganda machines, assisted by the corporate news media, perpetuate the myth that Republicans are the party of morals and religion, while Democrats are anti-religion and immoral. But the effort has to be made. The myth that the Republican Party is the party of moral values is so far from reality that a vigorous effort to combat that myth surely should have some substantial effect.

[rtassi]

1. TFC ... Great piece ... though I wish I could feel with more certainty a distinct

difference between either sides morality ...
rt

[Time for change]

3. Thank you -- This is a difficult subject to talk about

Like all labels, "conservative" and "liberal" don't fully describe people because people are way too complex to be stereotyped by a single word or phrase. Yet, labels also have legitimate uses -- It's hard to imagine talking about politics without using the terms "liberal" (or progressive) and "conservative".

I'm sure that there are many conservatives who have plenty of empathy. Some of those that have lots of empathy simply don't bring it into play when talking or thinking about morality. I think that's a big mistake, but relying on authoritarian figures for one's views on morality doesn't necessarily mean that a person isn't empathetic. It's a shame, though, when they take those ideas into the voting booth.

Anyhow, Bob Altemeyer's book on Authoritarianism is very interesting and informative, and includes a lot of very good research. My link to the his book in the OP provides the whole book.

[Angry Dragon]

2. A very good piece

It gives me much to ponder. You are correct, it is hard to figure out a way to combat blind followers of authority.

[Time for change]

5. Thank you -- Altemeyer proposed some ways in his book

Somehow get them to see that blind following of authority is not normal

Studies show they will moderate their attitudes and beliefs just from finding out that they’re different from most people. They don’t usually realize how extreme they are because they stick so closely with their own kind. They need to get out more.

Education

Higher education can have a significant beneficial impact upon authoritarian followers that lasts a lifetime. It doesn’t usually turn them into anti-matter versions of their former selves. But four years of undergraduate experience knocks their RWA scale scores down about 15-20%. That’s a lot when you’re talking about very dogmatic people.

Legislation

Anti-discrimination laws, designed to make sure everyone has the rights she is entitled to, can lead many prejudiced people to equal-footing contact with minorities. It’s vital that the authoritarians believe the law will be enforced, but if they think it will be, that contact can help break down stereotypes.

Speak out against the RWA mindset

You don’t have to form a majority to have an effect. Two or three people speaking out can sometimes get a school board, a church board, a board of aldermen to reconsider authoritarian actions. Lack of any opposition teaches bullies simply to go for more. But it takes one person, an individual, to start the opposition.

[SecularMotion]

4. K & R

:kick:

[Adsos Letter]

6. Excellent writing! There is much here that reminds me of

arguments over the means to maintaining a republic that have engaged our national discourse since the Early National period, and became especially strong in politics with the rise of the Second Party system (Whigs vs. Democrats) in the antebellum period.

Since the nation's outset there has continued some form of running debate over the best means of retarding the degradation of republican liberty into tyranny, based on evolving interpretations of republicanism and virtue (and competing claims for the real meaning of the American Revolution).

As the Second Party system developed, the rhetoric of politics drew on common symbols whose significance was not commonly held; historians and political scientists have posited that this rhetorical function of forming truly national political parties helped characterize the material actions the federal government took (or didn't take) on any single issue.

Again, you've written an excellent piece, and stimulated my thinking on American intellectual history I am currently doing a significant amount of reading on.

[Time for change]

7. Thank you -- What are you reading on this subject?