Last time Haidt showed that emotions and intuitions rule us, our reason servers as a post hoc justifier of our emotions and intuitions. they evolved to help us survive and procreate throughout most of our species’ evolution – not to find the truth. To survive we needed to bond rightly or wrongly with our tribe. This natural instinct is still very strong in us. We are hardwired to be self-righteous and our tribal culture teaches us what to be self-righteous about. This fact about us is very easy to manipulate and can lead to the greatest atrocities and the ultimate acts of self-sacrifice. This time we will look deeper into the prewiring that culture can affect.
It turns out that there are at least six major moral categories that we seem to be hardwired to be self-righteous about. Culture can’t change these six, but it can prioritize or weigh them differently. In his studies Haidt came to the realization that moral psychology as a profession has spent an inordinate amount of time studying western educated industrialized rich and democratic (WEIRD) people. These people are not a representative sample of humanity but due to their position as the largest studied group it can seem that WEIRD moral psychology is the norm – it is not. WEIRD people are the paragons of individualistic culture. The WEIRDest people subscribe to and promote a culture that can be summed up by a quote from John Stuart Mill: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” This moral claim is one possible extreme that super emphasizes harm reduction (just one of the 6 major moral matrices) as the highest moral virtue. “The WEIRDer you are, the more you see a world full of separate objects, rather than relationships.” On the other side (or more precisely at the center) of the moral continuum you have a balance of at least six moral matrices that our gut feelings are attuned to feel. The closer you are to the center the more you feel, intuit, and emotionalize holistically in context. The further you go along a particular moral matrix’s extreme end the more you will think analytically and rationally because, as we saw last time, reason is used to justify a moral “choice” or sentiment after we feel the sentiment. But the more your culture asks you to focus on one moral matrix the more you need to justify not listening to your feelings on the other matrices.
Haidt makes an analogy: “the righteous mind is like a tongue with six taste receptors…morality is like cuisine: it’s a cultural construction, influenced by accidents of environment and history, but it’s not so flexible that anything goes. You can’t have a cuisine based on tree bark, nor can you have one based primarily on bitter tastes. Cuisines vary, but they all must please tongues equipped with the same five taste receptors. Moral matrices vary, but they all must please righteous minds equipped with the same six social receptors.”
Haidt takes the notion of modularity from cognitive anthropology. “Modules are like little switches in the brains of all animals. They are switched on by patterns that were important for survival in a particular ecological niche, and when they detect that pattern, they send out a signal that (eventually) changes the animal’s behavior in a way that is (usually) adaptive.” There are many modules in our brains that help us survive. One example is the module for detecting human faces. This is one of the most powerful modules because we see faces everywhere we look – two windows and a door can make us think of a face; people can see the face of Jesus in tree bark. Modules are prewired pattern detection mechanisms in our brains. When sense impressions produce a pattern that matches the module, the animal reacts reflexively without having to think things through. Fight or flight responses are module responses. The six moral social receptors are universal modules in the brain that trigger instinctive morally righteous emotions and behaviour. “The original triggers are the set of objects for which the module was designed. (that is, the set of all snakes is the original trigger for a snake-detector module). The current triggers are all the things in the world that happen to trigger it (including real snakes, as well as toy snakes, curved sticks, and thick ropes, any of which might give you a scare if you see them in the grass).” Culture can train people to expand or shrink the current triggers of moral modules. Moral disputes are often competing ways to link a moral module to a particular behaviour.
These modules are old and genetically encoded in our DNA. They are the product of millions of years of evolution having selected for survival fitness. They are part of our innate human nature. Innate does not mean that genes perfectly determine behaviour. The analogy Haidt uses is in drafts of a book. We are born with a first draft which we can build on but not erase. Similarly, biology, genes or “Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises … ‘Built-in’ does not mean unmalleable; it means ‘organized in advance of experience.’” The six moral matrices or modules are organized in the structure of our brain in advance of experience. We are wired to be righteous from our biology; our culture teaches us what to be righteous about.
In short, the 6 moral matrices are: Care-Harm, Liberty-Oppression, Fairness-Cheating, Loyalty-Betrayal, Authority-Subversion, and Sanctity-Degradation. They are in the general order of power and influence in WEIRD culture but individuals will vary. As an accident Haidt discovered the Liberty-Oppression matrix last. One thing that Haidt wanted to avoid were “just so stories” it is very easy to sit back and justify everything that is as an evolutionary adaptation – after all our reason is there to find us justifications for what we believe. To overcome this natural bias, the justification for the following six moral matrices had to come from well-established empirical theories that were developed to explain something else. but thanks to the notion of consilience, (the unity of all knowledge) these pre-existing scientific theories must also support an evolutionary biological explanation.
The Care-Harm moral foundation started with the evolutionary need to identify when your kids are suffering or in distress while also giving them opportunity to learn and grow. Haidt draws on “attachment theory, a well-supported theory that describes the system by which mothers and children regulate each other’s behavior so that the child gets good mix of protection and opportunities for independent exploration.” The original distant past trigger for care-harm module were one’s kids and culture expands your moral matrix far beyond to possibly include people on the other side of the world which you do not know. “Political parties and interest groups strive to make their concerns become current triggers for your moral modules. To get your vote, your money, or your time, they must activate at least one of your moral foundations.” A typical left leaning person is universalist and will respond well to calls to protect innocent victims world-wide even when there is no relation (for example: save Darfur). A right leaning person is not a universalist but is concerned with the local and is more likely to care and want to reduce harm to “those who have sacrificed for the group.” (for example: homes for heroes).
The Fairness-Cheating moral foundation is based on game theory and reciprocal altruism. The game tit-for-tat has been demonstrated repeatedly to be the best social strategy for group cohesion and to get the biggest pay offs for the individuals involved and the group. It involves being “nice to people when we first meet them. But after that we’re selective: we cooperate with those who have been nice to us, and we shun those who took advantage of us.” This social strategy has been observed in all social mammals from bats, to wolves, to apes and to humans. “The original triggers of the Fairness modules are acts of cooperation or selfishness that people show toward us. We feel pleasure, liking, and friendship when people show signs that they can be trusted to reciprocate. We feel anger, contempt and even sometimes disgust when people try to cheat us or take advantage of us.” On the left Fairness-Cheating manifests itself in concerns with equity and social justice. “[O]n the right it means proportionality—people should be rewarded in proportion to what they contribute”.
The Loyalty-Betrayal moral foundation is based on thousands of years of martial training theory and more recently on sports psychology. The most cohesive army units and sports teams are often the best. Tribalism and tribal war has been observed in several primate species. Tribalist “warfare has been a constant feature of human life since long before agriculture and private property. For millions of years, therefore, our ancestors faced the adaptive challenge of forming and maintaining coalitions that could fend off challenges and attacks from rival groups. We are the descendants of successful tribalists, not their more individualistic cousins.” Anything that lets you know who is a team player and who is a traitor is an original trigger for our loyalty-betrayal module. Today sports psychology studies the best ways to get brand loyalty by expanding where and when our Loyalty-Betrayal moral matrix is triggered. “The left tends towards universalism and away from nationalism, so it often has trouble connecting to voters who rely on the Loyalty foundation.” Left wing activists are often very easily branded as traitors and betrayers of local loyalties due to their universalism. The right wing is much more local and therefore can rally its base with nationalist sentiments. Nationalism is a major conservative advantage that the left wing has never been able to adequately deal with in a moral context.
The Authority-Subversion moral foundation is one of the more complex and is based on history, anthropology, and primatology. All social animals have hierarchies or pecking orders and when they break down social cohesion breaks down too. From primatology we know that the alpha male maintains a beneficial control that resolves some conflicts and reduces violence in the group. When the alpha male is deposed or killed, violence in the primate community spikes until there is a new alpha male. The troop is often smaller and weaker because of battles of succession within the troop. Prehistoric hunter-gather human bands were much more egalitarian but as can be observed in modern hunter gatherer societies there is still a pecking order – a very subtle hierarchy. With the advent of agriculture pecking orders expanded into formal and informal hierarchies. As history shows, an increased spike in violence and conflict also happens at every level of human society when the alpha person, tribe, country, civilization, loses its alpha status. “Without agreement on rank and a certain respect for authority there can be no great sensitivity to social rules”. Authorities at every level must take on the job of maintaining order and justice. At an individual level our moral “modules must look in two directions—up toward superiors and down toward subordinates… We are the descendants of the individuals who were best able to play the game—to rise in status while cultivating the protection of superiors and the allegiance of subordinates.” Authority comes with expectations of order and justice paid for in respect. The original trigger for this moral module “include[s] patterns of appearance and behavior that indicate higher versus lower rank.” Current triggers “include anything that is construed as an act of obedience, disobedience, respect, disrespect, submission, rebellion, with regard to authorities perceived to be legitimate. Current triggers also include acts that are seen to subvert the traditions, institutions, or values that are perceived to provide stability.” Today the left (with its hierarchy = power = exploitation = bad, narrative) pretty much defines itself against this moral matrix and the right simply points this out to delegitimate the left’s message.
The Sanctity-Degradation moral foundation is based on the psychology of disgust in particular the work of Paul Rozin and the psychology of sacredness. Humans are omnivores. It is a biological fact that helped us move into any environment and find food. “the ‘omnivore’s dilemma’ … is that omnivores must seek out and explore new potential foods while remaining wary of them until they are proven safe. Omnivores therefore go through life with two competing motives: neophilia (an attraction to new things) and neophobia (a fear of new things)… Liberals score higher on measures of neophilia … not just for new foods but also for new people, music, and ideas. Conservatives are higher on neophobia; they prefer to stick with what is tried and true, and they care a lot more about guarding borders, boundaries, and traditions.” Disgust is a “set of cognitive modules that are triggered by signs of infection or disease in other people and that make you want to get away from those people. It is a lot more effective to prevent infection by washing your food, casting out lepers, or simply avoiding dirty people than it is to let the microbes into your body and then hope that your biological immune system can kill every last one of them.” Disgust is a behavioural extension of our immune system. The original triggers would be “smells, sights, or other sensory patterns that predict the presence of dangerous pathogens in objects or people. (Examples include human corpses, excrement, scavengers such as vultures, and people with visible lesions or sores.)” Disgust probably evolved first but sacredness soon thereafter. As a distinction was made with what could hurt us from a disease perspective through disgust going in the opposite direction “the psychology of sacredness helps bind individuals into moral communities.” This is why “people so readily treat objects (flags, crosses), places (Mecca, a battlefield related to the birth of your nation), People (saints, heroes), and principles (liberty, fraternity, equality) as though they were of infinite value”. We can all feel, even if we cannot explain it that “some things, actions, and people are noble, pure, and elevated; others are base, polluted, and degraded.” The left rarely uses this moral matrix (often only in terms of healthy eating) leaving them open to charges of sacrilege. The right especially the religious right speaks a lot about the “sanctity of life” and the “sanctity of marriage” and it appears in the limits of biomedical issues.
The Liberty-Oppression moral foundation was discovered due to libertarian streaks both in the left and the right wing that could not be adequately explained with the first 5 moral matrices. Taking the anthropological theories of Christopher Boehm and the primatology of Jane Goodall, Haidt explains that hunter gather egalitarianism is an aberration in our recent prehistory. As a species we and our societies are more like ape societies than more egalitarian monkey societies. Primate male and females can differ along a continuum between no difference to huge difference. Humans are about the middle of the spectrum. The higher differences the more power structures develop based on physical strength. For millions of years our hominid ancestors lived in dominance hierarchies, then about 500K years ago the fossil record indicates that we started using tools for hunting and killing each other. At this point when individuals are armed physical strength counted for less as alpha males were easier to kill. Our survival demanded that we adapt politically. “People armed with weapons and gossip created…‘reverse dominance hierarchies’… the result was a process sometimes called ‘self-domestication’”. The Liberty-Oppression matrix was the adaptation. Any attempts at domination are original triggers. You feel this when someone tells you you cannot do something, and you want to do it more – any illegitimate restraint on your freedom. On the left it is triggered by an abuse of power against the marginalized and is often directed at excessive power, wealth, and influence – positive freedom. On the right it has a more local flavor as protection against undue government intervention in their freedom – negative freedom.