Jonathan Haidt’s fascinating work on moral psychology has gotten a lot of buzz in the blogosphere….even from me. Here’s the crux of Haidt’s work in his own words:

From a review of the anthropological and evolutionary literatures, Craig Joseph (at Northwestern University) and I concluded that there were three best candidates for being additional psychological foundations of morality, beyond harm/care and fairness/justice. These three we label as ingroup/loyalty (which may have evolved from the long history of cross-group or sub-group competition, related to what Joe Henrich calls “coalitional psychology”); authority/respect (which may have evolved from the long history of primate hierarchy, modified by cultural limitations on power and bullying, as documented by Christopher Boehm), and purity/sanctity, which may be a much more recent system, growing out of the uniquely human emotion of disgust, which seems to give people feelings that some ways of living and acting are higher, more noble, and less carnal than others. …

My UVA colleagues Jesse Graham, Brian Nosek, and I have collected data from about 7,000 people so far on a survey designed to measure people’s endorsement of these five foundations. In every sample we’ve looked at, in the United States and in other Western countries, we find that people who self-identify as liberals endorse moral values and statements related to the two individualizing foundations primarily, whereas self-described conservatives endorse values and statements related to all five foundations. It seems that the moral domain encompasses more for conservatives—it’s not just about Gilligan’s care and Kohlberg’s justice. It’s also about Durkheim’s issues of loyalty to the group, respect for authority, and sacredness.

Controversial work to say the least. I think this says something about why culture and national security issues seem to work better in turning out conservative voters in the US. Issues like Iran, Gay Rights and Mosque building work better with a group that has more “moral buttons” that can be pushed. It’s an interesting way of reframing the whole “What’s the Matter with Kansas” trope.

If you want to find out where you sit on the moral specturm, go to Haidt’s et. al’s site, yourmorals.org.