Planet of the Durkheimians: Where Community, Authority, and Sacredness Are Foundations of Morality

Most academic efforts to understand morality and ideology come from theorists who limit the domain of morality to issues related to harm and fairness. For such theorists, conservative beliefs are puzzles requiring non-moral explanations. In contrast, we present moral foundations theory, which broadens the moral domain to match the anthropological literature on morality. We extend the theory by integrating it with a review of the sociological constructs of community, authority, and sacredness, as formulated by Emile Durkheim and others. We present data supporting the theory, which also shows that liberals misunderstand the explicit moral concerns of conservatives more than conservatives misunderstand liberals. We suggest that what liberals see as a non-moral motivation for system justifi cation may be better described as a moral motivation to protect society, groups, and the structures and constraints that are often (although not always) benefi cial for individuals. Finally, we outline the possible benefi ts of a moral foundations perspective for system justifi cation theory (SJT), including better understandings of (a) why the system justifying motive is palliative despite some harmful effects, (b) possible evolutionary origins of the motive, and (c) the values and worldviews of conservatives in general. It has not yet been revealed to the public, but we have it on good authority that intelligent life was recently discovered on a planet several light years away. The planet has been given an unpronounceable technical name, but scientists refer to the planet informally as “Planet Durkheim.” Judging by the television signals received, Durkheimians look rather like human beings, although their behavior is quite different. Durkheimians crave, above all else, being tightly integrated into strong groups that cooperatively pursue common goals. They have little desire for self-expression or individual development, and when the requirements of certain jobs force individuals to spend much time alone, or when the needs of daily life force individuals to make their own decisions or express their own preferences, Durkheimians feel drained and unhappy. In extreme cases of enforced individualism, they 3070-161-1pass-015-r02.indd 371 9/15/2008 1:37:51 PM 372 PERSPECTIVES ON JUSTICE AND MORALITY sometimes commit suicide. Durkheimians have a biological need to belong to tight groups with clear and widely shared norms for behavior. Given this need, it is not surprising that Durkheimian ethics revolves around groups. For any action, they ask: Does it undermine or strengthen the group? Anyone whose actions weaken social cohesion is evil and ostracized. For fi rst offenders, the ostracism is brief, but for the most serious offenses the offender is tattooed with the word “Individualist” and is expelled from the group. Durkheimian societies are hierarchically organized by hereditary occupational castes, and most of the ostracism cases involve individuals who fail to perform their caste duties. These individuals seem to prefer their own comfort or own projects to the needs of their highly interdependent groups. Within a few weeks of the discovery of Planet Durkheim, Google found a way to translate and index all Durkheimian academic journals. We used Google Durkheim to examine the state of social psychology research, and we found a fascinating debate taking place over the puzzle of “The Dissenters.” The Dissenters are a social movement that disagrees with the frequent use of permanent ostracism. The Dissenters point out that the penalty is applied overwhelmingly to members of the lower castes, for whom work is often dull or dangerous. They argue that these individuals are not traitors, they are innocent victims who should be given compassion, more societal resources, and better work. The Dissenters even suggest that society should be changed, so that each individual rotates through all the high and low caste positions. The Dissenters acknowledge that such rotations would be less effi cient than the current system of lifelong specializations assigned at birth, but they say it would be somehow right or good to do it anyway. The Dissenters are a puzzle because most of them come from the upper castes. Why would an upper-caste Durkheimian press for a change to society that would harm not just himself (through loss of privileges) but also society as a whole (through loss of effi ciency)? There is no justifi cation for such a position within Durkheimian morality, so Durkheimian social psychologists recently proposed a theory—called “victim justifi cation theory”—to explain the unconscious motives that impel Dissenters to defend traitors and challenge the legitimacy of the social system. Of course, Planet Durkheim does not really exist, but our reactions to it can be illustrative. It seems obvious to terrestrial readers that the Dissenters are trying to act in accordance with moral concepts such as fairness, rights, and justice, which the rest of their hive-like, group-oriented society does not include as part of the moral domain. In this paper, we suggest that an analogous situation holds here on Earth: many people who justify the political/ economic system even when it seems to work to their detriment are trying to act in accordance with moral concepts such as loyalty, tradition, hierarchy, 3070-161-1pass-015-r02.indd 372 9/15/2008 1:37:51 PM Planet of the Durkheimians 373 order, respect for one’s superiors, and sacredness. The politically homogeneous discipline of psychology, however, does not at present consider such traditional concepts to be a part of the moral domain. For example, the most widely used defi nition in moral psychology says that “the moral domain refers to prescriptive judgments of justice, rights, and welfare pertaining to how people ought to relate to each other” (Turiel, 1983, p. 3). Rules and practices related to sexual purity, patriotism, and respect for authority are often dismissed as social conventions. To develop this analogy into an argument, we will fi rst discuss three of the most important ideas from classical sociology—community, authority, and sacredness—as described by Emile Durkheim, Ferdinand Tönnies, and Max Weber. We believe these sociologists offer to psychology analytical tools that are essential for understanding the moral concerns of American social conservatives in moral terms, rather than (or in addition to) being expressions of non-moral processes. Next, we will present our own theory of how and why the moral domain varies across cultures, which we call moral foundations theory (MFT; Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004, 2007). In the third section of this chapter, we will present evidence in support of MFT, evidence that shows an unexpected but explainable result: that political conservatives are more accurate than political liberals in characterizing the explicit moral beliefs of the other side. And fi nally, we will suggest a reinterpretation of system justifi cation theory (SJT; Jost & Banaji, 1994) that integrates it with MFT to provide a more complete account of the motives and motivated reasoning of partisans on both sides of the political spectrum.