Are Liberals Different from Conservatives in Terms of Morality?

I remember reading Jonathan Haidt's "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" in 2012. I thought at the time that the idea of moral foundations was an interesting explanation of the reason that people adopted a political view on moral issues. More recently, I have discovered a debate over whether the differences between liberals and conservatives on moral foundations are correct.

In 2009, Jesse Graham, Jonathan Haidt, and B.A. Nosek identified differences between liberals and conservatives on the five moral foundations that are innate in all humans. These five moral foundations are the following pairs of moral positions:
  1. The Care/Harm Foundation makes humans sensitive to suffering and needs. The result is that humans attempt to protect the vulnerable through laws that punish those who harm other humans and provide care for those who are less fortunate. 
  2. The Fairness/Cheating Foundation causes humans to seek others who want fairness in society and seek to punish those people who cheat the system to promote their own interests. To some, fairness denotes equality. For others, fairness dictates proportionality. A person should be rewarded based on their contributions, even if the result is unequal. 
  3. The Loyalty/Betrayal Foundation promotes the group to which one belongs and benefits for group members. Thus, loyalty to the "in-group" as well as hostility to the "out-group" is demanded. Members of the "out-group" are evil and need to be eliminated.
  4. The Authority/Supervision Foundation promotes social order and opposes chaos.
  5. Sanctity/Degradation Foundation promotes the preservation of whatever is holy or sacred, whether objects, ideals, or institutions. 

Source: Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and                                Religion, 1st Edition, Kindle Edition
 On the scale created and refined by Graham, Haidt, and Nosek, liberals score highest on Care and Fairness, and much lower on Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. On the other hand, Conservatives score about the same on all five Moral Foundations. Haidt maintains that everyone is in favor of the positive aspect of the Moral Foundations and opposed to the negative aspect. 

Trevin Wax notes that the addition of a sixth Moral Foundation--Liberty/Oppression builds on the Authority/Supervision Foundation to support liberty and oppose the tyranny of oppression. 

However, what's true of contemporary very conservative individuals in terms of the Moral Foundations? What has been the effect of former President Donald Trump on conservatives as well as the Republican Party? 
  


  

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