Moral Foundation

There's a web site organized by researchers tracking trends in morals among politically liberal and conservative people and what motivates them. Interesting stuff. This is just one of many surveys you can participate in on the site.


YourMorals.org

Apparently, I consider fairness, loyalty, and authority less important than most liberals AND most conservatives. I'm not sure that's true on the "fairness": I mean, people don't act equally, so they needn't be treated as if they do, but I do firmly believe in treating all individuals respectfully and in making sure the law applies evenly to all citizens. I think I just read into the questions a bit much. As far as loyalty and authority go, it's true: I don't put much stock in them. Loyalty must be earned, and even then, my principles and belief in what's right far outweigh any sense of obligation to toe a party line (whether political, family, employment, etc) if the party line conflicts with my own principles. And authority is only as meaningful as the wisdom of those in authority. Truth is the authority, not people.

I also do have a sort of inexplicable sense of "purity" that I believe in, so that's no surprise there. And while I believe people "suffer" by their own reactions, I do believe it's my personal responsibility to do what I reasonably can to minimize the negative impact of my decisions on others, so being higher on the "Harm" scale is also no surprise.

I also find it interesting that conservatives seem to have very evenly-balanced moral priorities. There's no single one that stands way out over the others. Very interesting indeed...