Keyboard Shortcuts?

×
  • Next step
  • Previous step
  • Skip this slide
  • Previous slide
  • mShow slide thumbnails
  • nShow notes
  • hShow handout latex source
  • NShow talk notes latex source

Click here and press the right key for the next slide.

(This may not work on mobile or ipad. You can try using chrome or firefox, but even that may fail. Sorry.)

also ...

Press the left key to go backwards (or swipe right)

Press n to toggle whether notes are shown (or add '?notes' to the url before the #)

Press m or double tap to slide thumbnails (menu)

Press ? at any time to show the keyboard shortcuts

 

The Argument and Some Objections

[email protected]

the argument

1. ‘Moral convictions and the emotions they evoke shape political attitudes’

2. There are at least two fundamental domains of human morality, including harm and purity.

3. ‘liberals and conservatives possess different moral profiles’

4. ‘liberals express greater levels of environmental concern than do conservatives in part because liberals are more likely to view environmental issues in moral terms.’

5. ‘exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

First discussion: is it entirely clear? (Not interested in whether it is correct. Clarification only!)

1. ‘Moral convictions and the emotions they evoke shape political attitudes’

2. There are at least two fundamental domains of human morality, including harm and purity.

3. ‘liberals and conservatives possess different moral profiles’

4. ‘liberals express greater levels of environmental concern than do conservatives in part because liberals are more likely to view environmental issues in moral terms.’

5. ‘exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

Do cultural differences in moral psychology explain political conflict on climate change?

objection 1

Social Intuitionist Model is wrong. Affects whether something like MFQ is likely to get at cultural patterns. (Related to objection about scalar invariance because it hacks away at the basis for believing MFQ foundations. But I’m not quite there yet in formulating this objection.)

1. ‘Moral convictions and the emotions they evoke shape political attitudes’

2. There are at least two fundamental domains of human morality, including harm and purity.

3. ‘liberals and conservatives possess different moral profiles’

4. ‘liberals express greater levels of environmental concern than do conservatives in part because liberals are more likely to view environmental issues in moral terms.’

5. ‘exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

We have seen an objection to this in previous section.

What does the Moral Foundations Questionnaire measure?

Social Intuitionist Model

Unreflective ethical judgements are primarily consequences of moral foundations plus cultural learning.

If Moral Disengagement Is Real

Unreflective ethical judgements are consequences of moral foundations, cultural learning and reasoning from known principles.

(Your answers need not reflect your culture.)

1. ‘Moral convictions and the emotions they evoke shape political attitudes’

2. There are at least two fundamental domains of human morality, including harm and purity.

3. ‘liberals and conservatives possess different moral profiles’

4. ‘liberals express greater levels of environmental concern than do conservatives in part because liberals are more likely to view environmental issues in moral terms.’

5. ‘exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

But this is a weak objection. After all, we should go with the evidence.

objection 2

1. ‘Moral convictions and the emotions they evoke shape political attitudes’

2. There are at least two fundamental domains of human morality, including harm and purity.

3. ‘liberals and conservatives possess different moral profiles’

4. ‘liberals express greater levels of environmental concern than do conservatives in part because liberals are more likely to view environmental issues in moral terms.’

5. ‘exposing conservatives to proenvironmental appeals based on moral concerns that uniquely resonate with them will lead them to view the environment in moral terms and be more supportive of proenvironmental efforts.’

We have seen an objection to this in previous section.

Does Moral Foundations Theory provide a model that is invariant?

Davies et al, 2014 : metric invariance for gender groups

(scalar invariance not tested)

Davis et al, 2014 : metric but not scalar invariance for Black people vs White people

(Davis et al., 2016) found metric but not scalar invariance

Dogruyol et al, 2019 : metric non-invariance for WEIRD/non-WEIRD samples

Iurino and Saucier, 2020 : five-factor model not supported

‘the five-factor model of MFQ revealed a good fit to the data on both WEIRD and non-WEIRD samples. Besides, the five-factor model yielded a better fit to the data as compared to the two-factor model of MFQ. Measurement invariance test across samples validated factor structure for the five-factor model, yet a comparison of samples provided metric non-invariance implying that item loadings are different across groups [...] although the same statements tap into the same moral foundations in each case, the strength of the link between the statements and the foundations were different in WEIRD and non-WEIRD cultures’ (Doğruyol, Alper, & Yilmaz, 2019).

Graham et al, 2009 figure 1 p.notes.handout.show: :t

‘across subscales, there were problems with scalar invariance, which suggests that researchers may need to carefully consider whether this scale is working similarly across groups before conducting mean comparisons(Davis et al., 2016, p. e27)

objection 3

Graham et al, 2009 figure 1

The Joan-Lars-Joseph objection

The evidence on cultural variation says socially conservative participants tend to regard all five foundations as roughly equally morally relevant.

This does not generate the prediction that socially conservative participants will be more likely to view climate issues as ethical issues when linked on one foundation (e.g. purity) than when linked to another foundation (e.g. harm).

Link this to (Kivikangas, Fernández-Castilla, Järvelä, Ravaja, & Lönnqvist, 2021)’s results ‘suggesting a broad agreement across the political divide on moral questions about harming and caring about others‘ (p.~78).

puzzle

Given that the evidence for cultural variation in moral psychology is at best weak,
and given that the theoretical argument for moral reframing is flawed,
why does moral reframing seem to work?

The scalar invariance and Lars-et-al puzzles are nicely complementary: if the first fails and the evidence *is* correct, then the second objection gets you.