Moral Dimensions of Political Attitudes and Behavior

People’s political attitudes often reflect their fundamental moral beliefs about right and wrong; as such, these attitudes motivate political action and shape how people engage across political divides. In this chapter, we outline the deep moral rifts between liberals and conservatives, and how these conflicts relate to their diverging political stances. We then describe how moral convictions motivate people to take political action, both in socially sanctioned ways as well as in unproductive, undemocratic, or extreme ways. In that context, we describe a paradox: Though moral convictions motivate people toward political action, they discourage pragmatically valuable engagement with political opponents. This happens because partisans’ moral differences lead them to both passively avoid and actively stifle opposing political views. To reduce the morally driven animosity that exists between the right and the left, interveners must motivate partisans to hear out other’s views, and structure opportunities for friendly, cooperative relations.