Are Moral Foundations Meaningful?

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I don’t really know, but they show up in the Book of Mormon of all places.

[Oh and I guess Epistemic Status: Proceed with caution; see content warning if needed]

Mosiah 29

For context the person speaking is Mosiah, an aging king whose son has refused to take up the throne, and he is proposing that a system of elected judges replace the monarchy.

The highlights correspond to Jonathan Haidt’s six moral foundations, as popularized in The Righteous Mind:

• Care/Harm (Yellow)

• Fairness/Cheating (Red)

• Loyalty/Betrayal (Blue)

• Authority/Subversion (Green)

• Sanctity/Degradation (Silver)

• Liberty/Oppression (Purple)

One of the analogies Haidt uses is that moral foundations are like taste buds and moral persuasion is like preparing a meal to please them. That seems to be what Mosiah is doing here as he lays out his reasons for recommending a change in government.

But circumstances place him in a difficult spot.

By the lights of the community, the king’s son has authority to rule and his refusing the throne subverts a central custom.¹ This leaves Mosiah to choose between installing a new king from outside the royal line or else abolish kings — and their vestigial claim to authority — altogether.

To advocate the latter course without upsetting the people’s moral intuitions to an intolerable degree, he will have to be very tactful indeed.

II.

Mosiah continues,

Already we’ve seen all six of Haidt’s moral foundations invoked.

In order:

1. “To whom the kingdom doth rightly belong has refused” (Authority/Subversion)

2. “Should turn… and draw away a part of this people after him” (Loyalty/Betrayal)

3. “Which would be the cause of shedding much blood” (Care/Harm)

4. “And perverting the way of the Lord” (Sanctity/Degradation)

5. “We have no right to destroy my son” (Liberty/Oppression)²

6. “Neither should we have any right to destroy another” (Fairness/Cheating)

These assessments are not foolproof of course and elide substantial nuance in the way Mosiah blends moral ingredients together. The “treacherous son hypothetical” is contrived not just to evoke Haidtian intuitions, but to subtly diminish the people’s desired successor and to make far-off and probabilistic consequences seem tangible and immediate.³

Much more could be written to debate whether Mosiah and his people perceive fairness in terms of equality or proportionality,⁴ how much their new polity resembles the American Way,⁵ and if it’s even imaginable that such a large change could be effected (in a proximal sense) by little more than the written word.⁶

But that’s a bit overwhelming to put in a blog post.

III.

Possibly, I’m reading too much into this seeming connection; Haidt himself tried to warn me against writing this post.

page 135

Or it could be that’s mainly a matter of taste.

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1. Which, whether they are directly and fully aware of this function or not, serves to facilitate peaceful transfer of power.

2. Either by compelling him to take up the kingdom against his will or by embroiling him in a potential power struggle.

3. While it is not impossible that Mosiah’s son could act as described literally in the passage, it seems doubtful that the scenario was borne out of a genuine fear on Mosiah’s part given what we know from surrounding chapters regarding Aaron’s miraculous conversion. Instead what troubles him is the virtual certainty with which an unjust king will eventually come to take the throne over the long stretch of history.

4.

5.

6. Mosiah’s appeal is sent among the people in writing (Verse 4), faintly reminiscent of one of Haidt’s findings (RM pg. 81):

People who were forced to reflect on the good argument for two minutes actually did become substantially more tolerant [i.e. persuaded].

And, apropos of nothing, Tyler Cowen as well:

Written exchange, with lags and third-party verification and evaluation, is often best...  Don’t let the other side claim the mantle of “those who are willing to debate.”  In fact they are very often not willing to engage in the most appropriate kinds of debate.

7. Perhaps even Jon Haidt would find this interesting?

My favorite cover (buy here)