Summer Reading: The Righteous Mind VII: Moral Foundations

Jonathan Haidt in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Pantheon, 2012), set out a Moral Foundations Theory that posits the existence of moral modules or foundations. In my last post I dealt with the fairness/proportionality foundation. Here I will deal with four of the five other foundations, and how they relate to government ethics.

Loyalty/Betrayal
Haidt cites studies that have shown that people become far more competitive when they think there is a rival group. Much of what they do is positive, in the sense that competition provides loyalty and group cohesion, something every big corporation works hard to cultivate. But big corporations are, in fact, competitive. Local governments are not.

Or are they? Yes, they do compete for businesses to stay or relocate to their community, but this sort of competition is not the basis for loyalty in local government.

Studies have shown (and we know it anyway) that men are innately tribal and that, therefore, they actually enjoy the things that lead to group cohesion. They don't need an actual competitor to be loyal and to engage in activities that bring them closer together. On the other hand, it's more fun where there is an enemy or, at least, an opposing team.

In poor ethics environments, that enemy is the public (and sometimes those who protect the public, such as auditors, prosecutors, good government groups, gadflies, and ethics commissions). It is the public from whom such a government keeps things secret. It is the public at large that officials try to keep off boards and commissions, try to limit their exposure at public meetings, refuse to answer their questions (at least straightforwardly), and talk about as if they were the government's principal obstacle rather than its principal beneficiary.

Political parties provide a certain amount of competition in local governments, even those that have nonpartisan elections. And elected officials in one-party governments are often divided into competing factions. But partisan politics is not supposed to have any effect on public administration. There is not supposed to be any competition, only accountability. Officials are supposed to work together because they are representing the same community, not because they are in competition with any community, especially their own. That's why secrecy, silence, and obstacles to citizen participation, understandable in corporations, are so out of place in local governments.

It is with betrayal – the flip side of loyalty – that one can see clearly how inappropriate loyalty is in local government. If someone reports misconduct, they are seen to betray their colleagues and superiors, even if they are reporting the misconduct to the people to whom they have a fiduciary duty, that is, the public (or those assigned to protect the public). Betrayal is seen to occur even when officials talk openly about government business that others would prefer to keep secret, sometimes so that they and their business associates can take advantage of the information. It is not an accident that most ethics codes contain a provision making it a violation to disclose information that is not available to the public, even if they are disclosing it to the public and preventing others from misusing it for personal gain. Such a provision says a great deal about where a local government stands with respect to the loyalty/betrayal foundation.

Authority/Subversion
The authority/subversion foundation, when applied to government ethics, is rather paradoxical. It is important to government operation that there be a clear hierarchy, with those elected directly by the people in charge, at least, of policy. Public administration is also hierarchical. To wield authority, it is important that higher-level officials act in ways that make that authority appear appropriate, what some would call "earned."

As Haidt says, when officials "act in ways that negate or subvert that order, we feel it instantly, even if we ourselves have not been directly harmed." Yes, when those who manage our community engage in ethical misconduct, they are acting subversive, undermining the values that we seek in hierarchical order, causing a certain amount of chaos. That is why it is so often said that, when allegations of ethical misconduct are being considered, there is a cloud over a local government. It is hard for a mayor, council members, or city or county manager to function effectively under such a cloud. The effects are often much more serious than the actual misconduct, which might be relatively minor.

And yet officials often deny allegations against them, even when they are true, seeing their authority as protecting the community, even when they have engaged in misconduct. On balance, they feel they are a great asset to the community, and that it would subvert the order to have them lose any of their authority. Resignation would lead to chaos. So they choose to act under a cloud rather than bringing about order by admitting misconduct and reaching a swift and fair resolution of the matter. They again put their self-interest (or egotism) above the public interest, and continue subverting the community's order in the name of the community. It is no surprise that the public often calls for their head.

Haidt points out that it is because authority involves protecting order that "everyone has a stake in supporting the existing order and in holding people accountable for fulfilling the obligations of their station."

This is a very old-fashioned view of society, but that does not make it less true. In fact, it means that this is something deeply important to us, which we too often tend to ignore in our individualistic culture. And it is deeply important to many officials, allowing them to act in their self-interest rather than fulfilling their obligations and letting themselves be held accountable (or, better, seeking professional advice so that they can properly fulfill their obligations in the first place).

Sanctity/Degradation
With respect to government ethics, the sanctity/degradation foundation is both helpful and harmful. It is helpful, because the disgust that accompanies an official's degradation through misconduct, denial, and cover-up is what causes people not to simply give in when an official makes a false denial or tries to attack the enforcement mechanism.

It is harmful, because sometimes the public sees its leaders as sacred, resenting anyone who tries to take them down a peg, even if it is deserved. People want their community leaders to be something more than human, something more than fallible. This is true with respect to clergy, principals and teachers, coaches, and politicians. While people often say in polls that they have little respect for politicians, they usually say that they respect their own mayor and representatives. We want father figures, or even something more. We don't want to be disappointed, and we don't want to see our leaders degraded.

I saw this happen in my own town, where the first selectman (effectively the mayor) was considered by many people to be above reproach, even after two of his department heads had been arrested. Although he was not re-elected, few people wanted him to be criticized, not to mention held accountable for such things as not bidding out contracts, even though he had sole authority over procurement. Criticism of his actions was greeted with an anger that I saw in no other context. It was as if one was criticizing a great ancestor in a culture that worships ancestors.

Liberty/Oppression
Haidt's discussion of the liberty/oppression foundation has some interesting implications for government ethics. Although humans are, he argues, innately hierarchical, like the other apes, we made a political transition that allowed us to band together to punish alpha males who overly or improperly dominated our group. Weapons helped a lot, making physical strength less important. But language helped even more. "[E]arly humans developed the ability to unite in order to shame, ostracize, or kill anyone whose behavior threatened or simply annoyed the rest of the group." Gossip was an effective way to keep people in line.

Ethics enforcement can be usefully seen as a formal, more fair and reliable form of gossip. It is one of the newer ways communities have developed to limit their oppression by leaders.

That is why, whenever there is a scandal, the first thing everyone thinks of is laws and enforcement. Training and advice are even more evolved ways of dealing with leaders who put their self-interest ahead of the public interest, but the public hasn't caught up with this new idea yet. Nor have most elected officials.

It is the evolution from hierarchy to relatively egalitarian politics that makes things so difficult and emotional when it comes to government ethics. If it was accepted that whoever fought successfully for leadership could do anything he wanted, the big gorillas in every community would hire and give contracts to their family members and supporters, and no one would complain. That is, after all, how dictatorships, and some political machines, run.

As it is, elected officials sometimes come to feel like big gorillas, but they live in a culture where gossip (now made faster by the internet and its blogs), and ethics enforcement, make reputation so important and worth fighting for, via accusations, intimidation, lies, and cover-ups. The means used to support one's reputation feed right into the righteous anger that derives from the liberty/oppression foundation, leading to what is usually regarded as partisan rancor, but is often much more than that.


Continue with the next post on this book.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics

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