Let’s imagine that tonight, somewhere in the country, a future Prime Minister buys a chicken from a supermarket, takes it home, and does something unspeakable to it before cooking it and eating it for dinner. Or, after failing to sing the national anthem, Jeremy Corbyn cuts up a Union Jack and uses the rags to clean his bathroom floor. Are either of these things wrong? And if so, why?

These and similar examples are drawn from a branch of psychology informed by ‘social intuitionism’, which aims to understand what we mean when we say that something is wrong. Or, more to the point, why we feel that such things are wrong, but we can’t give a rational account as to why. This is called the ‘moral dumbfounding’ effect. When we’re ‘dumbfounded’, we tend just to find different ways of restating the feeling that something is bad – why is ripping up a Union Jack wrong? Well, it’s unpatriotic. What’s so bad with being unpatriotic? Well, you should love your country. Why? And so on.

This kind of research caused quite a stir a few years ago with the release of a book by Jonathan Haidt (pictured) -The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. It’s been quickly forgotten – the way with such things – but it is well worth a look (we reviewed it here).

Haidt argues that there are six moral foundations – moral taste-buds, if you like. These are care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, sanctity/degradation, and authority/subversion. The moral and political judgements of liberals, according to Haidt, rely on the care, fairness and liberty foundations – or should we say those whose judgements have those foundations could be described as liberals? The moral and political judgements of conservatives, on the other hand, have all six foundations – or, again, perhaps vice versa. Liberals think conservatives are weird, but actually liberals really do tend to be WEIRD (western, educated, industrialised, rich, and democratic), suggesting that living in particular social and cultural contexts tends to shape judgements, rather than the other way round.

His main point is this: when it comes to politics and morality most people feel first and think second. We don’t arrive at our moral ideas through reasoning, we feel our morality and then try to reason it out. I don’t think that necessarily means that there’s no objective moral reality, just that people have different levels of sensitivity to it. One of the things compelling me to eat bacon sandwiches is the smell, but that’s not so motivating when I have a cold.

Thought-provoking stuff – here’s what I get from it.

First, we need to get out of the habit of assuming our own moral positions are fully thought out, rational and just, and those of our political opponents are venal and self-serving. To accept this should provide the ground for a more humble and civil politics.

Second, there is such a thing as a ‘conservative advantage’ – or at least a political advantage for those who can speak in all six moral dialects, to jump to another metaphor. The liberals will rail against the conservatives – “Why all the belly-aching about the national anthem? What jingoism!” – forever, to no great effect, because singing the national anthem is to speak to peoples’ sense of sanctity. Not to wear a poppy is to offend it. Be warned, Mr Corbyn. 

Third: #piggate. Unsubstantiated, scurrilous rumour and nasty gossip that it is, it says more about the morality of politics than the politics of morality. It may be hypocritical for Cameron to smoke cannabis and maintain a hard line on such a policy issue, but no more than it is for liberals who really don’t care about Cameron’s youthful indiscretions – except to the extent that it discomforts him – to make such prurient fun out of it. Then there are the conservative Conservatives who are genuinely offended by such alleged antics yet feign that we should concentrate on some ‘real’ political issues. No-one comes out of this pig-sty smelling very good, least of all the authors of Call Me Dave, the book now being serialised in the Daily Mail.

The social media reaction has been one of amusement, rather than a sense ‘degradation’ or ‘subversion’ – perhaps for many, low expectations when it comes to politicians already 'price in' the effect of such stories. There are loads of people who just won’t care. But that’s not the same of as it having no effect whatsoever. As per ‘the back to basics’ hypocrisy in the 1990s, the ‘conservative advantage’ can’t guarantee a Conservative advantage.

Paul Bickley is Director of Political Programme at Theos. Follow him on Twitter @mrbickley

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Image from the Miller Centre under Creative Commons 2.0