Deliver Us From Evil: Morality's Ability to Divide and Conquer

Abstract

At one point there was consensus that morality was solely based on matters of harm and justice. However, with advances in cultural and anthropological research, Haidt and Joseph (2004) proposed a more expansive approach to morality, known as the Moral Foundations Theory. This theory highlights five foundations: Harm/Care and Fairness/Equality (Individualizing foundations) and Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect, and Purity/Sanctity (Binding foundations). Established links between the five foundations and political ideologies have been made, as well as broad links with religious affiliation in a US context. Considerably less research has been conducted on these foundations outside of an American context. Due to New Zealand’s particular ethnic composition, multi-party electoral politics and electoral system, and relatively secular climate, it makes for an ideal setting to investigate moral foundations in the context of political and religious ideology. I sampled 354 New Zealand participants (a mixture of general population and students: 39.5% male, 57.1% females, 3.4% other) on moral foundations, political self-identification, religious ideology, and individual-level individualism and collectivism. Political identification and religious ideologies were correlated with morality as predicted, with more conservative political and religious ideology being associated more strongly with the Binding foundations and more liberal political ideology being associated more strongly with the Individualizing. Furthermore, results raise speculation that the vertical dimension of individual-level cultural affiliation may be a strong predictor of morality endorsement alongside collectivism. This study replicates the connection between political and religious ideology, and morality but also adds additional insight into these relationships.