Covid: what the hell happened, and why?
In my search for answers, nothing has been more helpful than Moral Foundations Theory.
This article features in Issue XXVII, which you may purchase here. Subscribe here to receive future print issues by post. For online versions of future issues, subscribe here).
As the Covid pandemic settles into its post-vaccine phase and – one hopes – begins to loosen its grip on the planet, we have ample opportunity to ask ourselves: what the hell happened, and why?
Why did some people embrace lockdowns so eagerly? Why did others recoil from the very idea? Why was everyone so bloody angry at each other? In my search for answers, nothing has been more helpful than Moral Foundations Theory.
Conceived by the American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the theory places our moral inclinations along six separate axes: care/harm, liberty/oppression, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Just as we all vary in our aptitudes for maths or music, each one of us has a different mix of affinities to these moral spheres. It's Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory transposed to the moral realm.
As Haidt sees it, our moral judgments arise from quick intuitions, rather than logical reflection; the reasoning gets tacked on later, as a post-hoc justification. Because our moral impulses spring from the core of our personalities, they tend to resist change, much as an adult is unlikely to walk back a distaste for cilantro or Muenster cheese.
The American physician Zubin Damania, who goes by Zdogg on social media, uses the tastebud analogy to explain the intense reactions – whether pro or con – to lockdowns and restrictions such as masks. As he explains in a video called Masks and the Moral Matrix, people with an especially active "caring tastebud" feel baffled and outraged that others would oppose such simple measures as masks or social distancing. People with active freedom tastebuds, on the other hand, see the demands to stay home and cover the face as an assault on the most fundamental of human rights. Every bit as baffled as the care-driven people, they wonder how others can place so little value on liberty, a moral nexus they hold as dear as life itself.
Unlike so many other observers of the Covid scene, Zdogg resists the temptation to rank the different flavours. He simply describes the moral foundations as interesting and idiosyncratic human features, like a long nose or wide hips. Just as there is nothing 'better' about white meat than dark meat, there is nothing intrinsically superior about valuing, say, fairness above loyalty. They're just flavours.
Watching the video, and then rereading Jonathan Haidt's book The Righteous Mind, gave me a new way to interpret the near-militant eagerness with which many people embraced lockdowns. Early in the pandemic, support for lockdowns became branded as the caring choice, and many people define themselves as caring above all else. In Moral Foundations lingo, they have dominant 'caring tastebuds'. Questioning lockdowns would have threatened their very identity, so they had no choice but to cheer for the restrictions. Nothing wrong with caring, of course, except when an overpowering taste for caring desensitises you to other moral flavours.
People with strong freedom tastebuds took an especially hard beating during the pandemic, having to dodge mud slings like "selfish idiot" and "freedumb lover" from both the press and online social justice warriors. But seen through the lens of moral foundations, freedom carries no less value than any other moral inclinations. It's just one of several moral aptitudes. It's like a craving for the open sea or for craggy mountain peaks: only those who share it can fully understand its appeal.
The salience of freedom on my own moral palate took me by surprise. Like UK journalist Laura Dodsworth, author of the Covid-themed book A State of Fear, I discovered that "I was more frightened of authoritarianism than death". I recoiled against the moral universe that pervaded the lockdowns, a universe that reduced freedom to getting a haircut or a sandwich at Arby's. I also saw my passion for freedom as a form of caring – namely, caring about preserving the liberal democratic values that the human family took so many centuries to cultivate.
People whose moral palate responds most strongly to fairness went in one of two directions when the world shut down: some invoked the fairness principle to support lockdowns – "we're all in this together" – while others bristled at the unfairness of lockdowns to the young and the poor. I know two such people, both of them on the far left of the political spectrum. Pandemic or no pandemic, they cannot countenance a mitigation strategy that threatens to widen the inequality gap and mortgage young people's futures.
The loyalty foundation also cuts both ways. An outgrowth of our long history as tribal creatures, this foundation underpins the sense of patriotism and other forms of group identity. It gets activated during times that require group mobilisation. When the pandemic hit, an active loyalty tastebud led people to merge with a larger collective – what Mattias Desmet, a Professor of Psychiatry at the university of Ghent in Belgium, calls 'mass formation' – and assume the position of their chosen group: either for or against restrictions.
The authority foundation, which stems from our hierarchical social interactions, drives the impulse to respect traditions and defer to people in positions of authority. The exhortation to "listen to the experts" – a constant refrain throughout the pandemic – reflects this world view. While historians, philosophers, or simply shrewd observers may have important things to say about the Covid mitigation policies, people who feel most comfortable within hierarchies believe the world functions better when everyone stays in their lane.
The sanctity foundation, meanwhile, can shine a light on the psychology of vaccine hesitancy. Often associated with religion, this foundation inspires people to live in a more elevated, less carnal manner. It gives special status to the body, which it views as a temple that can be desecrated by contamination or pollution. A few of my friends fit this profile. They view their bodies as sacred and self-healing, the embodiment of nature's wisdom, and the vaccine as an unwanted intruder. The logical way to deal with intruders is to slam the door, and the massive coercion campaign mounted by governments only reinforces this stance. Are they misguided? Quite possibly. But they're not what the rest of the world calls them: selfish and evil.
Most people aren't. Most of us want what's best for us, our loved ones, and our communities – we just don't all agree on what 'best' looks like.
What feels obviously right to one person may feel just as wrong to her neighbour down the street. Thinking of moral responses as flavours or reflexes can remove some of the judgment from our gaze. It can help us look upon other people's moral inclinations with less opprobrium and more understanding. As we process the psychological impact of the pandemic and the mitigation policies, it would serve us well to keep the idea of a moral palate in mind.
If we love oregano, we have every right to sprinkle it on every dish and spend most of our time with other oregano lovers. But there's no need to demonize the cilantro crowd. It's just a flavour, after all.
