"I appreciate this framing greatly, as it provides a much needed counter-weight to what would otherwise start to resemble a determinism which precludes even the possibility of dialogue or discussion."
my response:
something to keep in mind regarding Biofoundationalism: it is largely deterministic, because it is a genetic, environment-driven explanation and deconstruction of how and why we act the way we do politically, economically, and societally. a moral genotype and political phenotype is a temperamental, biological manifestation. a story of how nature dominates nurture.
however, it’s critical to remember that these encoded differences are not something that precludes positive-sum interactions or productive coordination.
it’s a good thing we have structurally countervailing forces that have genetically evolved to not see eye to eye.
to not think this is a positive is to necessarily think a society of all conservatives or all liberals is optimum. or a civilization of all men or all women would be a better one. nature disagrees, and so do I.
reframe it away from the political dyad and see it from the lens of the sexual dyad: male and female.
man and woman are genetically, intractably at odds in many ways. constitutionally different priorities, beliefs, motivations, values, etc.
does this preclude even the possibility of dialogue between them? does it doom the species to have two sexes that are biologically diametrically opposed?
are they diametric adversaries though? or are they complementary symbiotic elements? is a yin yang comprised of two foes or two puzzle pieces that need each other?
the encoded genetic disparities of the sexual dyad should be understood the same as the conservative and liberal dyad. yes, the differences are hardwired. yes they will never agree on many things because the moral hierarchies are entirely different. such is the nature of moral genotypes.
yes it being neurological does mean it’s mostly deterministic. just like we have many deterministic predispositions by being male or female.
this is only toxic and corrosive when the environment is so extreme that they view one another as enemies to fight, rather than complements to work with. when the dynamic has degraded so thoroughly that tribalism is all they know, then you get the preclusion of productive dialogue. this is a dislocation, a result of imbalance. the environment dictates this expression.
the natural state of man and woman is as mutualistic elements that further human coordination, the same as the cognitive conservative and liberal. the prior that I want to recalibrate here is to not see this as a negative, nihilistic thing, but a synergistic, constructive one.
I really appreciate that. yes I make all the art with midjourney. by far the best art tool I've used, it really feels like I'm collaborating with it. my prompts are very strange and it's the only one I've used so far that seems to get what I'm going for, and then I iterate on it from there.
love this series. as someone hard-coded for the care/harm foundation, i’ve always been mystified by the priorities of my political opponents. this goes for traditional conservatives as well as the woke left, ever obsessed with the sanctity of its orthodoxy and with crushing dissenters.
Haidt’s framework helped me understand the dynamics at play, but if anything i’m now more convinced than ever that care/harm (more specifically its maximalist position of utilitarianism) is the only moral foundation with any coherence. as per your argument this is exactly what someone like me would say, but hear me out.
care/harm is the only foundation that can account for all the others. this is vital because it can prevent apples to oranges comparisons between different facets of a situation/policy. for example, high levels of immigration might erode a country’s cultural homogeneity, but also allow immigrants to live in a freer society than they otherwise would. without the care/harm filter, i don’t see how this clash between sanctity and liberty could be reconciled.
i also don’t see how you could develop a theory of maximization for any of the other foundations. degrees of pleasure and pain are more or less objective, but a quality like loyalty is inherently relational and therefore impossible to quantify.
finally, and this point is kind of out there, i feel like care/harm maximization is reinforced through encounters with the divine. psychedelic states always seem to transmit love as the transcendent value, and the same can be said of the teachings of prophets (the direct teachings, not ecclesiastic bullshit) and spiritual masters.
i did actually read the post, so i know i’m doing the exact thing that everyone does in defense of their bio-emotionally-derived view. but i seriously have no idea how, say, an authority/subversion guy could counter these points! it’s all very interesting.
also, i’d be very curious to find out if the brain architecture correlated with autism is predictive of valuing care/harm. spergs like myself certainly seem drawn to utilitarian thinking
theoretically you could quantify the harm and benefit to both groups and balance them against each other. you could even factor in downstream effects like nativist political movements. you obviously can’t literally quantify these things, but you can use heuristics to fill in the gaps
Re: the immigration example, care to who? Harm to who?
Caring for immigrants harms locals. Can’t let infinity migrants into your well kept local community (won’t be for long)
Caring for locals harms migrants. Look at these starving refugees that want a better life!
I think this is a personal example of logically rationalizing your morals. I’m less care/harm centric, and I don’t even understand how this belief system fits into the migration debate.
Great series, but I think you’re missing a key component which is social pressure and herd-mentality. Most of the nation lives in either a very blue, or very red area. Most very blue people are born to very blue parents (and vice versa). So unless you’re prepared to argue that these moral foundations are extremely heritable, then this is a key factor. Also, I’m sure there are some “identical twin studies” where kids are split up to households of different political affiliations and themselves have very different affiliations.
Also, there is the contrarian disposition, where you feel the need to counter the dominant political belief of whatever group or community you’re in. I’m unfortunately afflicted with this…
ty for reading. core political beliefs (morality) are highly heritable, which means the moral foundations are too, as they are synonymous with each other.
the heritable component applies to core ideological tendencies (e.g. authoritarianism vs. libertarianism, egalitarian vs. hierarchical values) rather than strict party affiliation. studies find that issue attitudes and ideological self-placement are heritable, but party identification (e.g. identifying as Democrat or Republican) tends to come more from family environment or social learning.
I am not focusing on "political party" since that's an amorphous, evolving designation, but rather the core tendencies.
this is touched on in Biofoundationalism II, and here's some research related directly to it:
a comment made on this essay elsewhere:
"I appreciate this framing greatly, as it provides a much needed counter-weight to what would otherwise start to resemble a determinism which precludes even the possibility of dialogue or discussion."
my response:
something to keep in mind regarding Biofoundationalism: it is largely deterministic, because it is a genetic, environment-driven explanation and deconstruction of how and why we act the way we do politically, economically, and societally. a moral genotype and political phenotype is a temperamental, biological manifestation. a story of how nature dominates nurture.
however, it’s critical to remember that these encoded differences are not something that precludes positive-sum interactions or productive coordination.
it’s a good thing we have structurally countervailing forces that have genetically evolved to not see eye to eye.
to not think this is a positive is to necessarily think a society of all conservatives or all liberals is optimum. or a civilization of all men or all women would be a better one. nature disagrees, and so do I.
reframe it away from the political dyad and see it from the lens of the sexual dyad: male and female.
man and woman are genetically, intractably at odds in many ways. constitutionally different priorities, beliefs, motivations, values, etc.
does this preclude even the possibility of dialogue between them? does it doom the species to have two sexes that are biologically diametrically opposed?
are they diametric adversaries though? or are they complementary symbiotic elements? is a yin yang comprised of two foes or two puzzle pieces that need each other?
the encoded genetic disparities of the sexual dyad should be understood the same as the conservative and liberal dyad. yes, the differences are hardwired. yes they will never agree on many things because the moral hierarchies are entirely different. such is the nature of moral genotypes.
yes it being neurological does mean it’s mostly deterministic. just like we have many deterministic predispositions by being male or female.
this is only toxic and corrosive when the environment is so extreme that they view one another as enemies to fight, rather than complements to work with. when the dynamic has degraded so thoroughly that tribalism is all they know, then you get the preclusion of productive dialogue. this is a dislocation, a result of imbalance. the environment dictates this expression.
the natural state of man and woman is as mutualistic elements that further human coordination, the same as the cognitive conservative and liberal. the prior that I want to recalibrate here is to not see this as a negative, nihilistic thing, but a synergistic, constructive one.
This is fabulous. Important side note: tell us about the artwork. Don’t care if it’s AI, I love it
I really appreciate that. yes I make all the art with midjourney. by far the best art tool I've used, it really feels like I'm collaborating with it. my prompts are very strange and it's the only one I've used so far that seems to get what I'm going for, and then I iterate on it from there.
Your process here would be a good topic for a post!
I did one complaining about chat gpt last year:
https://open.substack.com/pub/undergrounddesigns/p/why-cant-chatgpt-draw-a-centaur
love this series. as someone hard-coded for the care/harm foundation, i’ve always been mystified by the priorities of my political opponents. this goes for traditional conservatives as well as the woke left, ever obsessed with the sanctity of its orthodoxy and with crushing dissenters.
Haidt’s framework helped me understand the dynamics at play, but if anything i’m now more convinced than ever that care/harm (more specifically its maximalist position of utilitarianism) is the only moral foundation with any coherence. as per your argument this is exactly what someone like me would say, but hear me out.
care/harm is the only foundation that can account for all the others. this is vital because it can prevent apples to oranges comparisons between different facets of a situation/policy. for example, high levels of immigration might erode a country’s cultural homogeneity, but also allow immigrants to live in a freer society than they otherwise would. without the care/harm filter, i don’t see how this clash between sanctity and liberty could be reconciled.
i also don’t see how you could develop a theory of maximization for any of the other foundations. degrees of pleasure and pain are more or less objective, but a quality like loyalty is inherently relational and therefore impossible to quantify.
finally, and this point is kind of out there, i feel like care/harm maximization is reinforced through encounters with the divine. psychedelic states always seem to transmit love as the transcendent value, and the same can be said of the teachings of prophets (the direct teachings, not ecclesiastic bullshit) and spiritual masters.
i did actually read the post, so i know i’m doing the exact thing that everyone does in defense of their bio-emotionally-derived view. but i seriously have no idea how, say, an authority/subversion guy could counter these points! it’s all very interesting.
also, i’d be very curious to find out if the brain architecture correlated with autism is predictive of valuing care/harm. spergs like myself certainly seem drawn to utilitarian thinking
theoretically you could quantify the harm and benefit to both groups and balance them against each other. you could even factor in downstream effects like nativist political movements. you obviously can’t literally quantify these things, but you can use heuristics to fill in the gaps
edit: hit post too early lmao
Re: the immigration example, care to who? Harm to who?
Caring for immigrants harms locals. Can’t let infinity migrants into your well kept local community (won’t be for long)
Caring for locals harms migrants. Look at these starving refugees that want a better life!
I think this is a personal example of logically rationalizing your morals. I’m less care/harm centric, and I don’t even understand how this belief system fits into the migration debate.
After reading your article I have the question of; do you think there is any such thing as truth? Is everything just opinion at the end of the day?
Great series, but I think you’re missing a key component which is social pressure and herd-mentality. Most of the nation lives in either a very blue, or very red area. Most very blue people are born to very blue parents (and vice versa). So unless you’re prepared to argue that these moral foundations are extremely heritable, then this is a key factor. Also, I’m sure there are some “identical twin studies” where kids are split up to households of different political affiliations and themselves have very different affiliations.
Also, there is the contrarian disposition, where you feel the need to counter the dominant political belief of whatever group or community you’re in. I’m unfortunately afflicted with this…
ty for reading. core political beliefs (morality) are highly heritable, which means the moral foundations are too, as they are synonymous with each other.
the heritable component applies to core ideological tendencies (e.g. authoritarianism vs. libertarianism, egalitarian vs. hierarchical values) rather than strict party affiliation. studies find that issue attitudes and ideological self-placement are heritable, but party identification (e.g. identifying as Democrat or Republican) tends to come more from family environment or social learning.
I am not focusing on "political party" since that's an amorphous, evolving designation, but rather the core tendencies.
this is touched on in Biofoundationalism II, and here's some research related directly to it:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4038932/#:~:text=sample%20of%20over%2012%2C000%20twins,No%20polymorphisms%20reached