Mapping the Moral Maps

Abstract

The Model of Moral Motives will be of great value to moral psychology, both for its conceptualization of the provide/protect distinction at different levels of analysis (intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, intergroup) and for its usefulness in integrating multiple theoretical perspectives on morality. To the latter end, this commentary makes three suggestions for improvements to the model and its integration with Moral Foundations Theory: (a) clarify what the columns of the model represent, (b) modify the one-to-one mapping of moral foundations onto the cells of the model, and (c) specify testable predictions uniquely generated by the model. Possibilities for future empirical tests of competing predictions are discussed, with the long-term aim of adjudicating between different theoretical accounts of ideological differences and the moral domain.

Keywords

morality political psychology motivation/goals

The preceding article by Janoff-Bulman and Carnes (IN PRESS) initiates something that we need more of in moral psychology—namely, integrating theories and delving into the complexities of their convergent and discrepant claims and predictions. As the authors’ work has shown, regulatory focus theory (RFT; Higgins, 1998; Janoff-Bulman, Sheikh, & Hepp, 2009) is an extremely valuable lens through which to view morality, and expanding this work to examine the provide/protect distinction at different levels (intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, intergroup) will be productive in generating novel hypotheses for future research. It will also be useful for integrating RFT with Moral Foundations Theory (MFT) and other accounts of the moral domain. In this commentary, I hope to provide constructive criticism via three suggestions for how to improve the Model of Moral Motives (MMM), clarify its critiques of MFT, and highlight ways to begin testing competing claims.

Clarify what the columns of the model represent.

Although the protect/provide distinction represented by the rows of Figures 1 to 3 is clear, there is an ambiguity about how the self/other/group distinction is made. Are these the targets of moral judgment (whoever/whatever did something morally proscribed or prescribed), or do they represent locus of moral concern (the thing one is motivated to protect or provide for)? These two possibilities are conflated in the description of “focus of moral concern” (e.g., “The self-focus involves the impact of individuals’ behavior on themselves,” p. X), but they can often be different. For instance, if I chide myself for being a bad family member, or a bad American, what cell of the model am I in? The target of my judgment is me (self-protect) but the locus of moral concern here may be the group itself (group-protect).

This is not just splitting hairs—the two possibilities for how the columns are to be interpreted have drastically different implications. For instance, if they are to represent locus of moral concern, then much of what falls within the Self cells is just self-interest, and may not involve specifically moral motivations at all. And the conflation of the two possibilities leads to several problematic assumptions, for example, that all moral judgments about one’s own actions must derive from motivations to protect or provide for the self, or—most crucially for the central arguments of the paper—that all moral judgments about group-level issues (e.g., the proper distribution of resources in a society) must derive from motives to protect or provide for the group itself, rather than the individuals in that group (more on this below).

Whichever way the columns are meant to be interpreted, it would improve the model to fully include the intergroup context as well as intrapersonal, interpersonal, and intragroup. Intergroup is not simply a consequence of intragroup (as depicted in Figure 3), just as interpersonal is not simply a consequence of intrapersonal. Adding these cells can also help highlight moral concerns MFT has not paid sufficient attention to (e.g., fairness concerns in desires for group-level retribution; see below).

2. Modify the one-to-one mapping of moral foundations onto the cells of the model.

In my not-exactly-unbiased view, the major problems with the presentation of the MMM involve mischaracterizations of the moral foundations as they are applied to cells in the model. As the name implies, these are posited as the intuitive foundations on which virtues, vices, and moral judgments are built (see Graham et al., 2013, for review), so it is strange to assume at the outset that each should apply to just one particular context and one motivational focus.

To begin with, all foundations except Care/harm are depicted in Figure 2 as exclusively proscriptive or prescriptive. Theoretical writings (e.g., Graham & Haidt, 2010; Haidt, 2012; Haidt & Graham, 2009; Haidt, Graham, & Joseph, 2009; Haidt & Joseph, 2007) and empirical operationalizations of the foundations (e.g., Cannon, Schnall, & White, 2011; Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; Graham et al., 2011) indicate that the types of moral concerns covered by the foundations do involve motivations to inhibit the bad and activate the good. The preceding paper contains no evidence or detailed argument that they do not. For instance, are ALL of the virtue/vice words used to capture binding foundations (Graham et al., 2009, Study 4) avoidance-based rather than approach-based? Sanctity seems to me the most likely to be exclusively avoidance-based, given its links to inhibitory disgust responses. Yet, even here the way it has been characterized and measured in MFT work contains not only efforts to constrain the bad (avoid sin and degradation), but also efforts to activate the good (actively promote cleansing rituals, approach sanctity and holiness as a goal in themselves, not just as the absence of impurity), with moral attention to both “shoulds” and “should nots.” In the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale (Graham & Haidt, 2012), responses to violations of each foundation are evoked, and participants have to weigh those “should nots” against hypothetical paydays. Is this capturing not the proscriptive side of each foundation? How then is Fairness purely prescriptive?

Although I agree with the authors that social order versus social justice is a fundamental liberal/conservative disagreement, the authors seem to claim that at base, this and the ideological differences in foundation endorsement are both attributable to differences in regulatory focus. But this too mischaracterizes the foundations as exclusively promotion-based or prevention-based. In fact, I think social order and social justice motives also involve both promotion and prevention, shoulds and should nots, both within and between groups.

In the case of social justice, these shoulds and should nots seem to me well covered by Care/harm and Fairness/cheating. Yet Janoff-Bulman and Carnes (2013) suggest that by defining morality in terms of constraining selfishness, MFT is overly Glauconian, maybe even Hobbesian in its negative view of human nature, and that this is why we must have missed the social justice cell. This assumes that “constraining selfishness” is purely proscriptive—but doesn’t one need to constrain selfishness to altruistically save someone in a dangerous situation, or to fight for justice on behalf of others? It also implies that MFT’s entire approach to morality is one-sided, focusing on the proscriptive and missing the prescriptive (suggesting that all five foundations should be on the top row of Figure 2). The authors note, “In our own model we don’t deny the selfish side of human nature, but instead acknowledge the altruistic side as well; the former is regulated via proscriptive morality, the latter via prescriptive morality” (p. 226). But MFT was developed to capture this side of morality as well, as reflected in our use in recent years of the promote/prevent labels Care/harm, Fairness/cheating, Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion, and Sanctity/degradation. For example,

I do believe that you can understand most of moral psychology by viewing it as a form of enlightened self-interest, and if it’s self-interest, then it’s easily explained by Darwinian natural selection working at the level of the individual . . . But in Part III of this book I’m going to show why that portrait is incomplete. Yes, people are often selfish, and a great deal of our moral, political, and religious behavior can be understood as thinly veiled ways of pursuing self-interest. (Just look at the awful hypocrisy of so many politicians and religious leaders). But it’s also true that people are groupish. We love to join teams, clubs, leagues, and fraternities. We take on group identities and work shoulder to shoulder with strangers toward common goals so enthusiastically that it seems as if our minds were designed for teamwork. I don’t think we can understand morality, politics, or religion until we have a good picture of human groupishness and its origins. We certainly cannot understand conservative morality and the Durkheimian societies I described in the last chapter, but neither can we understand socialism, communism, and the communalism of the left. (Haidt, 2012, p. 190, emphases added)

There are also problems with how the foundations are distributed across columns of the MMM. Here again this is done in a one-to-one fashion, with each foundation applied to one and only one column. In this case, I think the authors make a valid critique of my work, in that Haidt and I have explicitly called Care and Fairness the “individualizing” foundations, and the other three the “binding” foundations. The suggestion here is that Care and Fairness concerns are primarily focused on individuals, and the other three are primarily focused on the group, but the labels can give the impression that Care–Fairness concerns can never be focused on the group as locus of moral concern, and that Loyalty–Authority–Sanctity can never be focused on the individual as locus of moral concern. The authors are right to take us to task for this, and competing predictions (and empirical tests) of what can be “individualizing” or “binding” will be of value to the field. But here again, two things seem to be conflated in the critique—namely, the immediate target of the moral judgment and the ultimate locus of moral concern motivating the judgment.

Table 1 of this article presents my alternate view of how MFT’s constructs map onto the MMM. The MMM raises the interesting question of whether one could potentially have foundation-related concerns at each of the cells (is it a full 5 × 2 × 4 model), or whether some foundational concerns simply do not apply at some levels, and whether some do apply but have not adequately been considered by MFT theorists. The first thing to notice is that the mapping looks quite different depending on whether the columns represent target of moral judgment or locus of moral concern (see Point 1 above). The second thing to notice is that the empty cells of Janoff-Bulman and Carnes’ (2013) Figure 2 are no longer empty. For instance, previous theoretical writings (e.g., Graham & Haidt, 2010, p. 144) and recent empirical work (Dungan, Chakroff, & Young, 2013) have highlighted the motivational relevance of the self in Sanctity/degradation concerns (as the authors acknowledge).

Table 1.

An Alternate Mapping of Moral Foundations Onto the Model of Moral Motives.

	Self (intrapersonal)	Other (interpersonal)	Ingroup (intragroup)	Outgroup (intergroup)
If columns represent locus of moral concern (what is to be protected or provided for):
Protect/Inhibition (proscriptive regulation)	[Self-interest]	Harm	Harm	Harm
	Degradation	Cheating	Cheating	Cheating
		Subversion	Betrayal
		Degradation	Subversion
			Degradation
Provide/Activation (prescriptive regulation)	[Self-interest]	Care	Care	Care
	Sanctity	Fairness	Fairness	Fairness
		Authority	Loyalty
		Sanctity	Authority
			Sanctity
If columns represent target of moral judgment (what did something morally proscribed or prescribed):
Protect/Inhibition (proscriptive regulation)	Harm	Harm	Harm	Harm
	Cheating	Cheating	Cheating	Cheating
	Betrayal	Betrayal	Subversion	Subversion
	Subversion	Subversion	Degradation	Degradation
	Degradation	Degradation
Provide/Activation (prescriptive regulation)	Care	Care	Care	Care
	Fairness	Fairness	Fairness	Fairness
	Loyalty	Loyalty	Authority	Authority
	Authority	Authority	Sanctity	Sanctity
	Sanctity	Sanctity

My alternate mapping is not, however, just an attempt to cover MFT’s theoretical behind. In fact, fully considering which moral concerns could apply in each cell helps highlight areas where MFT has not done sufficient work. For instance, I include Care/harm and Fairness/cheating concerns that have the ingroup as motivational locus of moral concern. This represents aspects of these concerns we have not included in previous operationalizations of the foundations, such as group-focused fairness concerns motivating revenge and retribution for out-group attacks, and equity concerns about free riders not doing their fair share and holding the group back.

How can we determine whose mapping of the moral maps is correct? And how do these mappings help us better understand individual, cultural, and ideological disagreements about morality? Are these all just tassels on clouds? Ultimately, the value of these competing maps will come from the testable hypotheses they can generate.

3. Specify testable predictions uniquely generated by the model.

Janoff-Bulman and Carnes devote much of their paper to questions of moral groupishness and ideological differences. In my view, these areas are fertile ground for productive disagreement and empirical progress. In this section I will try to tease out contrasting hypotheses between our two views, with the goal of progressing from theoretical discrepancies to empirical tests of competing predictions.

The core discrepancy entails whether liberals’ concerns about social justice are built on the Care/harm and Fairness/cheating foundations, and whether they are motivated primarily by concern for the ingroup as a whole or concern for individuals in the group (ingroup members). With the individualizing/binding labels, MFT papers by me and others have suggested that Care and Fairness concerns are primarily focused on individuals, while Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity are primarily focused on the group itself as locus of moral concern. I would hypothesize a trade-off (much like the “group/member mind tradeoff” described by Waytz & Young [2012]) in locus of moral concern between the group itself and individuals within the group. So the claim that social order concerns about allegiance and loyalty “are in the service of protecting group members” is in my view incorrect, because they are primarily in the service of protecting (and providing for) the group itself—even at the expense of individuals within the group.

The authors’ discussions of social justice are repeatedly focused on the well-being and equal treatment of group members, not the group itself. Social order and social justice are said to protect or provide “for group members.” This is echoed in the last words of the paper, suggesting that the individuals in the group are assumed to be the locus of moral concern, not the group itself (to the possible detriment of some of its members). Nevertheless, the authors assert as already-established fact that “[social justice] is a group-level rather than individually-oriented moral concern. The focus is the well-being and integrity of the group” (p. 225). This is an empirical claim, but where is the evidence for it? The fact that unequal societies have lower average quality of life (while I personally think this is another powerful reason to normatively oppose inequality) does not mean the moral impulse to oppose inequality is primarily motivated by concerns about the group itself, rather than the individual group members whose quality of life make up the average. The relations between ideology and horizontal versus vertical collectivism presented are helpful and important (as an aside, data collected at YourMorals.org support the authors’ findings here exactly), but this also does not support the assertion that the locus of moral concern for liberals is the group rather than group members. In fact, the items of the horizontal-collectivism subscale (1. If a coworker gets a prize, I would feel proud; 2. The well-being of my coworkers is important to me; 3. To me, pleasure is spending time with others; 4. I feel good when I cooperate with others) seem to me more focused on the well-being of group members rather than the well-being of the group itself. Far from a question already answered, this is rather a fruitful area for future work (possibly even one where adversarial collaborations would be most useful, given competing predictions; see Van Lange, 2013). It will of course be difficult to empirically establish what the locus of moral concern is for different groups on different issues, but it will not be impossible, and as the competing claims of MFT and the MMM are further articulated, specific operationalizations and designs can be converged upon.

Similar to the group/group member issue, the assertion that social justice falls outside the realm of MFT’s Care/harm and Fairness/cheating concerns is also unsupported thus far. “Welfare” is used repeatedly—how is this not part of a Care/harm concern, whether the locus of moral concern is the group or group members? The social justice versus social order contrast could be characterized as one of equality versus equity, or as equality of outcomes versus equality of opportunities. I think this contrast does exist, and explains conflicts about things like affirmative action very well. But the way the Fairness foundation has been measured (e.g., Graham & Haidt, 2012; Graham et al., 2011) has actually skewed toward equality, and insufficiently (in my view) covered equity. Our fairness items look very much like social justice items to me. As mentioned above, there is a need for explicit and implicit measures of group-focused fairness and equity concerns. And I predict that scores on such measures will correlate with political conservatism, not liberalism.

Finally, rather than explaining foundational differences as regulatory focus differences, I hypothesize liberal-conservative differences in promotion/prevention within each of the foundations. For instance, a liberal might focus on what a great value it is to love one’s country, but not get that offended if someone chooses not to, while a conservative gives no moral credits for love of country because it is assumed and expected, and failures to love one’s country are met with harsh punishments. Although I agree that the foundational differences and regulatory focus differences between liberals and conservatives likely interact in complicated ways, I think these are best treated as two main effects that interact, not the same effect.

In the case of MFT, critiques of the theory (including those of the MMM) have been extraordinarily valuable in pushing my colleagues and I to consider alternate conceptualizations, spell out falsifiable criteria for our constructs, and develop new tests of competing claims (see Graham et al., 2013, section 4). My hope is that the preceding three critiques can begin to do the same for the MMM, and that discrepancies between the two models can lead to new findings as well as productive exchanges.

Conclusion

This is an exciting time for moral psychology, with multiple theories attempting to describe and explain the range of moral concerns, judgments, and intuitions people experience, and why these can vary so dramatically across individuals and societies. Given this healthy competition in the marketplace of ideas, theorists are now being pushed to spell out how their theories can be falsified, what unique testable predictions their theories make, and what specific empirical tests can adjudicate between the different theories. Despite my critiques of the model outlined above, I am confident that the MMM will be particularly valuable in this process of sorting out theoretical divergences, generating new avenues of empirical work, and improving the scientific understanding of human morality.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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