“Toolbox” articles delve into a new way of looking at values, with a view to using these techniques in future articles.
The first tool, moral foundations theory, is especially important for understanding future articles. Developed by Craig Joseph, Jesse Graham, and (most famously) Jonathan Haidt, moral foundations theory states that there are six fundamental values that explain our moral views. Every person holds all six values to differing degrees, and these values can broadly explain why people have moral reactions to similar situations. In fact, the authors of moral foundations theory go as far to argue that the political differences between liberals and conservatives can be explained through the analysis of the strength of each value – both absolutely and relative to each other – in each group’s moral worldview.
That’s a bold claim, so let’s look under the hood. The six values are the following, in the order of importance to the public service:
- Care;
- Fairness;
- Liberty;
- Loyalty;
- Authority; and
- Sanctity.
According to Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (which could be considered the textbook for this website), these six values are like different types of taste buds. However, instead of telling us if food is delicious or disgusting (e.g., sweet, salty, bitter), the “values taste buds” tell us if something is right or wrong. Everyone has their own preferences, but the vast majority of people experience all six, often subconsciously.
Jonathan Haidt explored values by telling people moral vignettes – little stories that seek to isolate specific values – much like eating pure sugar will show exactly where your sweetness tastebuds are most numerous. Let’s go into detail on each one, leading with an appropriate vignette or two from this article that builds upon Dr. Haidt’s work:
1) Care (i.e. causing pain is wrong, especially to the vulnerable)
You see a woman swerving her car in order to intentionally run over a squirrel.
This is the public servant’s home turf. We’re comfortable working with this value like no other. The basic principle is simple: “help people (and squirrels), don’t hurt them.” Every time we conduct a cost-benefit analysis or discuss the “impacts” of a given policy, we’re probably making reference to the Care value. Of course, the on-the-ground effects of policymaking can become obfuscated by distance. Are we really helping people when we develop a policy that wrings an extra percentage point of efficiency out of the procurement process, for example? Well, yes! The money saved would presumably go to worthy causes, like healthcare or infrastructure. Every public servant knows this, and that is how we often morally justify our pay cheques.
We’re also comfortable focusing our efforts on helping the most vulnerable, and important element of the Care value. Means-tested programs (i.e., those that tailor eligibility based on people’s ability to pay) are usually preferred, because they help ensure that money goes primarily to citizens most in need. This is an obviously efficient way of setting up programs, and it is underpinned by the Care value. More recent focus on sex, gender, race, and sexual orientation in policymaking also helps ensure that vulnerable Canadians are protected, as demanded by the Care value.
Some readers may think the Care value sums up all morality. The science disagrees, however. There are five more values that matter:
2) Fairness (i.e. people should be treated in similar ways and/or people should get what they deserve)
You see a runner taking a shortcut on the course during the marathon in order to win.
Public servants are fairly comfortable here. We respect that people should get what they deserve, circumventing rules (even when legal) is wrong, and corruption should be forcefully punished. We get it.
Now, I’d like to introduce a concept that you can see everywhere. I’ll call it “reversion to Care”. The average public servant is not going to just declare that is unfair and, therefore, the government should do something about it. That’s lazy thinking for a bunch of overeducated wonks. We have to conclude our analysis at the Care value. We’ve been trained to.
Take the moral vignette above. Any normal, well-adjusted person would immediately recognize that the runner (let’s call him Mr. Scooter) acted in a morally reprehensible way at the marathon (let’s say it happened in Ajax). However, if your boss was bored one day (and I mean bored), and they asked you to write a briefing note on marathon surveillance, I’d expect to read something like this:
Given the events at the Ajax Marathon, the government should invest more in drones to monitor Canadian races. If people like Mr. Scooter continue to cheat with impunity, young people are likely to lose interest in competitive sports, which are proven to be healthy activities. Youth will spend more of their formative years playing Fortnite, leading to health problems later in life and costing the Canadian economy $X in healthcare expenditures and $Y in lost output.
I’m only partially kidding with the example above (no self-respecting public servant would recommend drones for this vital task when trained sin-seeking falcons are the only reasonable choice). However, if you ever have time to reflect on some of the notes that cross your desks, take a look at how much the author discusses “impacts”, and how those impacts are almost always based on the Care value.
I don’t mean to suggest that public policy shouldn’t be based on the Care value, nor that the Care value should take the backseat in our analysis. But I would suggest that the overwhelming dominance of the Care value in our work can lead to sub-optimal policy, because the average Canadian can make a far broader range of value judgements than we do. In other words, sometimes Care doesn’t drive the public’s interactions with our policies.
I’ll expand on this idea in future articles, but let’s finish up the list of six values.
3) Liberty (i.e. freedom and autonomy are moral goods)
You see a father requiring his son to become a commercial airline pilot like him.
This value is broadly understood and considered by public servants, especially in the domain of national security. References to this value usually begin with the phrase, “I don’t want to live in a society where the government can…”. Often, liberty is discussed in tension with security, but it was also put in tension with public health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That being said, I think the average public servant has a blind spot about the extent to which certain individuals align their morality with the Liberty value. In fact, it is the only value that has its own major political movement: the libertarians. When a policy violates the Liberty value, we can expect motivated opposition from this group, whether or not the policy harmonizes with other values. This dynamic has been clearly seen in the debates around lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
4) Loyalty (i.e. people have special moral responsibilities to in-group members)
You see the Canadian Ambassador joking in Great Britain about the stupidity of Canadians.
We’re getting further from the Care value, and consequently, further from our comfort zones. Loyalty is about in-grouping. At its root, the value tells us that have a higher responsibility to those on our team than those on other teams. That “team” could be a family, a sports club, a church, a nation, etc. We hold up team players as role models and ostracize traitors.
The Loyalty value, along with the next two, are often viewed as “low values” compared to the three “more enlightened” values above. Sure, we all get excited when Canada wins the gold medal in hockey (i.e., we feel value harmonization), but when we are asked to explain why, we often admit that we’re acting stupidly (it’s just a bunch of millionaires pushing around a puck, after all). We also note that nationalism – or national loyalty – has been the cause of countless atrocities throughout history. In-grouping is bad, isn’t it?
Maybe, but this isn’t a value you can just turn off. It’s important to millions of Canadians, and it can drive their reactions to policy. Moreover, everyone creates in-groups, even you. Public servants cannot stick their heads in the sand and pretend the Loyalty value doesn’t exist or isn’t important. The same is true of the final two “low values.”
5) Authority (i.e. followers should obey legitimate authorities, who should demonstrate effective leadership in turn)
You see a woman refusing to stand when the judge walks into the courtroom.
You see a boy repeatedly interrupting his teacher as she explains a new concept.
Most university students eventually find themselves in a lesson where the professor encourages the class to question all authority. This isn’t necessarily bad advice. Plenty of authority figures don’t deserve the power they hold and sometimes it’s better for society to push back against undeserved and improperly wielded authority.
But then why do people often judge those who buck authority so harshly? The teen who insults their parents is generally considered to be in the wrong, even if their parents have major faults. In the examples above, the average person’s immediate reaction is that the judge-ignoring woman and the teacher-interrupting boy are acting inappropriately, because well-adjusted people naturally respect authorities viewed by society as legitimate. Public servants should know; we operate in a huge, structured hierarchy, and every one of us has a boss.
I would also note that authority does not always equal power. People gain authority for plenty of reasons, and authority brings with it responsibility (I’m resisting the Spiderman cliché). The Authority value can also be violated by the poor stewardship of legitimate authority.
Again, you’re free to believe that it’s fine to be a rebel. That’s just not a universal view, and policymakers have to be aware of this value. Governments can use the Authority value to increase compliance with policy, but it can also undercut programming if people believe the government is butting into an area where it is not a legitimate authority (e.g., parenting decisions).
6) Sanctity (i.e. certain actions are inherently dirty and polluting)
You see an employee at a morgue eating his pepperoni pizza off of a dead body.
Yuck!
Now, public servants are fish out of water. We feel strong feelings of moral disgust when we read the example above, but it obviously doesn’t violate the Care value (no one’s getting hurt, and the corpse certainly doesn’t mind). You might retort that the man could get sick, but be honest with yourself: is that really the root of your reaction? As well, imagine that the body was recently brought in, and the individual died of a heart attack. There is no real risk of disease here. So then why do we react in this way?
You’re probably feeling the Sanctity value at work. This isn’t a popular value among the educated classes. We are taught that basing decisions on Sanctity is backwards, and it has led to terrible injustices, such as the historical persecution of sexual minorities. Referencing Sanctity seems like going back to the Middle Ages. In fact, you might even conclude that there is nothing morally wrong with the example above, and a man should be free to do whatever he wants with his dinner. Regardless of your views, however, this is a real value that guides the moral decisions of most people.
So what?
The authors of moral foundation theory don’t consider this the final list, and future research may uncover new values or find redundancies. However, it is already an extremely useful tool for policymaking. I’ll prove it here by analyzing the Government of Alberta’s recent policy responses to rising COVID-19 caseloads.
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