Moral Politics

moral self-development (nurturant parent model metaphor)

humans should develop themselves to be the best and happiest persons they can be. Developing the self includes experiencing a broad range of what life has to offer.

moral self-nurturance (nurturant parent model metaphor, liberal)

in order to take care of others, you need to take care of your basic needs such as food, water, housing, and making a living.

moral strength to nurture (nurturant parent model metaphor)

in the service of nurturance and care one may face hardships or dangers, but you must be strong and persevere

what is a liberal?

liberals tend to favor: - abortion rights - same-sex marriage - higher taxes on the wealthy - environmental regulation - universal healthcare - opposition to the death penalty

moral fairness (nurturant parent model metaphor)

one can act to the benefit of others equally, impartially by rules, or according to some notion of rights. According to this metaphor, moral action is fair action in a multitude of ways.

moral compassion (nurturant parent model metaphor)

to act on empathy with nurturance is compassion - "I feel your pain, let me help you".

moral authority

(strict father metaphors underpin the model) Patterned on parental authority requires those in power and authority to exert their authority over others. those under others must obey - MORAL OBEDIENCE.

moral bounds

(strict father metaphors underpin the model) Traditional modes of behavior. people who transgress appropriate bounds or deviate from the prescribed path or immoral. Action is seen as motion, and moral action is seen as motion within prescribed bounds or on a prescribed path. Immoral people are those who transgress those bounds or deviate from that path.

moral strength

(strict father metaphors underpin the model) You develop strength through reward and punishment to resist internal and external temptation

moral order

(strict father metaphors underpin the model) based on power, status, and other factors or characteristics it requires people to submit to others' authority. there are different moral order and they can be interpreted and manipulated (rearranged) - natural order: god, man, woman, child, animal, earth man must listen to god, etc etc....

moral wholeness

(strict father metaphors) moral bounds and standards must be followed or the moral values of a society could be seen as crumbling or tearing apart. wholeness entails unity and an unchanging nature of society. people who don't follow the prescribed bounds or paths of societal behavior are considered deviant because they deviate from the traditional path

moral essence

(strict father metaphors) people who develop character through reward and punishment. Future behavior is informed by past behavior. If you have made good choices you have good character, but if you have made bad choices then you have a bad character.

moral self-interest

(strict father metaphors) pursuing you self-interest benefits the wealth of all. If you pursue what benefits you then other people will benefit. But htis only goes so far and oculd impact Moral Bounds

moral defense

(strict father metaphors) the family and the metaphors in the model are understood to be true and good, so anything that suggest otherwise is an attack. therefore, traditional moral orders and bounds must be defended

What are the two principles of moral action? (In the case of reciprocation)

1) The first principle is, moral action is giving something of positive value; in moral action is giving something of negative value 2) The second principle is, there is more moral imperative to pay one's moral debts; the failure to pay one's moral debts is immoral

What are the two horns of a dilemma?

1) if you now do something equally harmful to me, you have done something with two moral interpretations. By the first principle, you have acted and morally since you did something harmful to me. Two wrongs don't make a right. By the second principle, you've acted morally, since you have paid your moral debts. 2) The second horn is: how do you do nothing to punish me for harming you, you would have acted morally by the first principle, since you would have avoided doing harm. But you would have acted immoral by the second principle: in letting me get away with it you would not have done your moral duty, which is to make me pay for what I have done So no matter what you do, you violate one of the two principles. You have to make a choice. Which principle has priority? You can either choose preferring retribution or preferring absolute goodness. A good example of this is about the death penalty. Liberals choose absolute goodness and conservatives prefer retribution: a life for a life.

How is moral strength built through self discipline and self denial? What are these two ways?

1) through sufficient self-discipline to meet one's responsibilities and face existing hardships; 2) actively through self denial and further self-discipline.

Revenge

Balmoral arithmetic, if you have taken some thing of positive value from me by harming me I take something of equal positive value back from you. That means ranch has been taken. Revenge is the moral equivalent of retribution, another way of balancing the moral books

what is a conservative?

Conservative tend to be in favor of: - lower taxes on the wealthy - private healthcare - opposite-sex marriage - anti-abortion - less environmental regulation

Deviational pathology

Deviation from an ideal model turns out to harm people that the said ideal model was supposed to help in the first place

What are external evils and what are internal evils

External evils include enemies, hardships, and Temptations Internal evils come in the form of uncontrolled desires and are as threatening as external ones.

Morality as fairness (nurturant parent model metaphor )

Fairness is understood metaphorically in terms of the distribution of material objects. There are three basic liberal models of their distribution: equal distribution, impartial role-based distribution and rights-based distribution. Metaphorical fairness concerns or actions conceived of as objects given to the individuals. One can act to the benefit of others equally, and partially in my rule, or according to some notion of rights. According to this metaphor, moral action is fair action in one of these ways

Foundational pathology

Here, a moral system contradicts its own foundations

Altruism

If I do something good for you can buy more of accounting I have given you something of positive value. You are then in my debt. In altruism, I cancel the debt, since I don't want anything in return. I'm not in the less build up moral "credit"

Restitution

If I do something harmful to you I have taken some thing of positive value. I then Owe yousomething of equal positive value. I can therefore make restitution, which means to make up for what I have done, by paying you back with something of equal positive value. But full restitution is impossible however partial restitution may be possible

The general metaphor of moral accounting is realized in a small number of which basic moral schemes?

Reciprocation, retribution, restitution, revenge, altruism, etc. Each of these moral schemes is defined using the metaphor of moral accounting

What is the consequence of giving highest priority to the metaphor of moral strength? (Conservatives)

It rolls out any explanations in terms of social forces or social class. If it is always possible to master the discipline to just say no to drugs or sex and to support yourself in this land of opportunity, then failure to do so it's laziness and social class and social forces cannot explain your poverty or your drug habit or your illegitimate child. And if you like such disciple, then by the metaphor of moral strength, you are a moral and deserve any punishment you get just because of your social class. The metaphor of moral strength does not occur in isolation. It defines a cluster of other common metaphors for morality that important in the conservative worldview. Here's a list of the others: Moral bounds, moral authority, moral essence, moral health, moral wholeness.

Priorities of moderate liberal morality

Moral self interest, the nurturance complex, the strength complex

Priorities of moderate conservative morality

Moral self interest, the strength complex, the nurturance complex

What is the metaphor with the highest priority in the conservative moral system?

Moral strength

What is another form of immorality?

Moral weakness. Lack of self-control lack of discipline and self indulgence

Moral health

Morality is seen as a disease that can spread. Just as you have a duty to protect your children from disease, you have a duty to protect your children from the contagion of immorality by keeping them away from immoral people, just as you would by keeping them away from sick people. This kind of logic is behind segregated neighborhoods and strong sentencing guidelines for nonviolent offenders. Since purity and cleanliness promote health, morality is seen as being pure and clean

Parents can miss use of the nurturing parent model in the number of ways:

Over protection, overly self-sacrificing parent, hedonism, excessive discipline, authoritarian behavior, neglect and selfishness.

Moral growth

Seen as being possible through one's lifetime. This is different from physical growth.

Retribution

Suppose I do something to harm you. Then, by well-being is wealth, I have given you some thing of negative value. You owe me something of equal negative value. By moral arithmetic, giving something negative is equivalent to taking something positive. By harming you I've taken some thing of value to you. By harming you, I have placed you in a potential moral dilemma with respect to the first and second principles of moral accounting.

Strength complex

The cluster of metaphors for moral strength. These metaphors defines the highest priorities in conservative moral value. There's also another metaphor that serves these priorities, which is the metaphor of morals self interest.

Moral strength (conservatives love this)

The metaphor of moral strength is a set of correspondences between the moral and physical domains of: being good is being upright, being bad is being low, doing evil is failing, evil is a force (either internal or external), morality is strength. A major part of this metaphor has to do with the conception of in morality, or evil. Evil is reified As a force, either internal or external, but can make you fall, that is, commit tomorrow ask. Evil is a force either internal or external. Morality is strength. To remain upright one must be strong enough to stand up to evil. Hence, morality is conceptualized as strength as having the moral fiber or backbone to resist evil Moral strength must be built. People are not simply born with it. Just as in building physical strength, or self discipline and self denial are crucial, so moral strength is also built through self discipline and self denial in two ways

Empirical pathology

The moral system simply makes an empirical error about the helpful effects it is supposed to produce

Experiential morality

The most fundamental form of morality concerns promoting the experiential well-being of others in the avoidance and prevention of experiential harm to others. Some examples of what is meant by well-being: other things being equal, you are better off if you are: healthy rather than sick, rich rather than poor, strong rather than weak, etc. There are special cases where these may not be true. For example a wealthy child may not get the attention from its parents, someone beautiful may be the target of envy, you need to be in the dark in order to sleep, excessive freedom can sometimes be harmful, etc.

Priorities of nurturing parent morality (Basic liberal morality):

The nurturance complex, moral self interest, the strength complex Between the two, it's very clear to see the opposition in their moral priorities

Priorities of Strict father morality (Basic conservative morality):

The strength complex, moral self interest, the nurturance complex

What is courage?

The strength to stand up to external evils and overcome fear and hardship. Internal evil refers to things like self-control

What is financial reasoning used as a metaphor for morality? (Reciprocation)

This is partly because financial words like owe, debt, and are used to speak of morality as well, not just financially

What is another word for well-being in terms of using that as a metaphor

Well-being is another term for wealth. It's used as a metaphor. Finance and morality are used to create metaphors. Metaphors are how we make sense of things like politics Morality is also conceptualized as strength Our pool of metaphors for morality is widely shared across the globe in many different cultures in many different countries

metaphor

a thing regarded as a representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract. A concept from the concrete realm used to comprehend another different concept

strict-father model (conservatives)

a traditional nuclear family with a father having primary responsibility for the well-being of the household. The mother has day-to-day responsibility to take care of home and the details of raising the children. both have strict moral standards. the mother must carry out and promote the views and requirements of the father

moral bounds (nurturant parent model metaphor)

actions that produce non-nurturant effects

moral nurturance (nurturant parent model metaphor) / morality as nurturance

children and humans require love and care. Moral agents must provide care and nurturance to others Nurturance presupposes empathy. A child is helpless and to care for a child, you have to care about that child, which requires seeing the world through the child's eyes as much as possible. The metaphor of morality has nurturance can be stated as follows: the community is a family, moral agents are nurturing parents, people needing help or children needing care, moral action is nurturance. This metaphor entails moral action requires empathy, sacrifices, and that helping people who need help is a moral responsibility

examples of fairness (nurturant parent model metaphor)

equality of distribution - 1 child, 1 cookie rights-based - you get what you have the right to procedural fairness - playing by the rules determines what you get scalar distribution of responsibility - the greater your abilities the greater you responsibilities political equality - 1 person, 1 vote needs-based - the more you need the more you get

moral self-interest (nurturant parent model metaphor)

pursuing what benefits you is appropriate while serving the otehr metaphors

moral empathy (nurturant parent model metaphor) / morality as empathy

putting yourself in someone else's shoes and feeling what they feel. Empathy itself is understood metaphorically as feeling what another person feels.

examples of moral order:

status - citizens, green-card holders, non-citizens wealth - rich class, middle, poor class sexuality - straight, bi, gay religion - protestant, catholic, jewish, muslim, buddhist, atheist, etc. regional - us, canada, europe, asia, africa, etc. race - white, asian, black, native american, etc.

moral social nurturance (nurturant parent model metaphor)

the community needs love, care, and respect Social ties must be constantly attended to, that maintaining that require sacrifices, and that one has a moral responsibility to maintain them.

nurturant parent model - liberals

the family includes one or two parents, and household duties are shared based upon ability the primal experience behind this model is one of being cared for and being cared about. Having one's desires for loving interactions met, living as happily as possible, and deriving meaning from one's community through caring for and about others children become responsible and self-disciplined and caring for others this family has open 2-way mutually-respected communication

nation-as-family metaphor

the government represents the parents and the children are citizens Lackoff argues that American politics can be understood through a metaphor for the family. ex) the term uncle sam to refer to the US government or founding fathers because they gave metaphorical birth to the US

how to we understand/ make sense of the world?

through metaphor

moral happiness (nurturant parent model metaphor)

to promote your capacity to be more nurturing, you should make yourself as happy as possible, provided you don't harm others This is based on the assumption that unhappy people are less likely to be empathetic and nurturant, since they will not want others to be happier than they are. Therefore, to promote your own capacity for empathy and nurturance, you should make yourself as happy as possible, provide if you don't hurt others in the process