Cultural Psychology: Morality, Religion, and Justice PDF

MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE 12 CHAPTER OUTLINE Ethnocentrism and Interpreting Cultural Variability Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development  Level 1: The Preconventional Level  Level 2: The Conventional Level  Level 3: The Postconventio...

MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE 12 CHAPTER OUTLINE Ethnocentrism and Interpreting Cultural Variability Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development  Level 1: The Preconventional Level  Level 2: The Conventional Level  Level 3: The Postconventional Level  Cross-Cultural Evidence for Kohlberg’s Model Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity  Ethic of Community  Ethic of Divinity Culture Wars The Morality of Thoughts Culture and Fairness  Distributing Resources  Economic Games and Fairness  Fairness for Individuals vs. Groups 480 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE T he first few months of 2006 were extremely volatile, as the world witnessed a widespread series of enraged demonstrations. Throughout the Muslim world in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia and among Muslim groups in North America, the South Pacific, and Europe, people were furiously, and sometimes violently, expressing their rage. The demonstrations left dozens of people killed, and a number of embassies were burned to the ground. Flags were torched on a daily basis, and there were repeated calls for the violent deaths of the offenders. What was the source of all this widespread outrage? Cartoons. A few months earlier, a Danish newspaper had published cartoons that depicted the Muslim prophet Muhammad. This publication violated a deep- ly held belief among Muslims that the prophet should never be portrayed. All the worse, many of the cartoons showed the prophet in deliberately offensive ways, such as with a bomb in his turban. Later, citing the importance of freedom of expression, newspapers from many countries around the world reprinted the cartoons, which resulted in even more anger and further fanned the flames of outrage. And 9 years later, the issue was still at the center of a violent conflict. In early 2015 the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical news magazine in Paris, was attacked and a dozen people were murdered in apparent payback for offen- sive cartoons of Muhammad that the magazine published. The political stability of much of the world has been threatened by these cartoons. The issue of whether it was inappropriate to publish caricatures of Muhammad deeply polarized the world. People on each side of the conflict were angry and rather mystified at the reactions of those on the other side. Many Westerners were puzzled over why the cartoons sparked such outrage. Many understood that the cartoons could be seen as offensive to some, but, as many Western commentators argued, such kinds of offense are the price that people pay to live in a society that treasures the value of freedom of ex- pression. The editor of the Danish newspaper justified his decision to publish the cartoons by noting that Christian images are satirized quite frequently—for example, a much-publicized Danish painting showed Jesus with an erection. So why not Muhammad? On the other hand, many Muslims view the issue of caricaturizing Muhammad in largely sacred terms. They say that some behaviors are viewed as so deeply offensive that they should never be tolerated, even if they might limit freedom of expression. Many Muslims do not believe that freedom trumps all other val- ues (Figure 12.1). Indeed, the sign of one Muslim protestor captured the angry feelings shared by many: “Freedom go to Hell!” The publication of the cartoons was viewed by many Muslims to be an attack on the Muslim faith and a gesture to further aggravate already strained relations between the cultures. Later in this chapter we’ll make sense of why some Muslims and some Christians saw the publication of the Muhammad cartoons in such different terms.  MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE 481 FIGURE 12.1Although freedom is a deeply cherished value in much of the world, there are contexts in which some think it should be subjugated by other values, such as preserving that which is sacred. The cartoon controversy, and the growing tensions in recent years between some people of Christian and Muslim faiths, underscores the central role of cul- ture in world affairs. The conflict reflects what Samuel Huntington had in mind when he argued in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations that the fundamental source of conflict in the new world would not be primarily ideological or eco- nomic but rather cultural and religious. Huntington’s thesis has been controversial, in part because a common percep- tion of many people, particularly academics, is that the world is quickly becoming secularized. That is, as the world develops and progresses, and science continues to make one discovery after another, religious explanations of phenomena are becoming supplanted by rational and scientific explanations. This view, known as secularization theory, holds that religion is on the decline and that people around the world are discovering new secular and rational ways to make sense of their lives. The 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was an early proponent of this view and famously claimed, “God is dead.” There is no doubt that science has made enormous progress since Nietzsche’s time and that many prefer scientific explanations over religious accounts. 482 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE However, this trend of exploding scientific discovery, together with a move to- ward a more educated populace across the world, is not living up to Nietzsche’s predictions. God is not dead, at least not in the minds of the majority of the world. Although religiosity has been dropping in places like Scandinavia and East Asia (Norenzayan, 2013), in much of the world it remains a significant force. In the United States, despite having the world’s largest economy and being home of the greatest number of scientific advances over the past century, religion has not been on the wane. Approximately 94% of Americans report believing in God (Greeley, 1991), and there are many signs that religiosity has increased over the past decades in the United States (e.g., Greeley & Hout, 1999). Many of the re- ligions of the world, especially Islam and Christianity, are growing at breakneck speed (Jenkins, 2002). If anything, religion may even be growing in importance across the planet (Berger, 1999). Herein lies a problem in which cultural psychology is caught right in the middle. Religiosity appears to be on the upswing in many parts of the world, and people from different cultures and religions are coming into contact with each other more than ever before. However, there has been growing hostility between the different faiths. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, forced everyone to confront the pronounced and important cross-cultural variation that exists in what is perceived to be a good way of living one’s life. Osama bin Laden and many other Islamic extremists have viewed countries with industrialized Christian cultures, particularly the United States, as lands of depraved infidels, where people have lost their way. Likewise, many fundamen- talist Christians have viewed much in Islam as inherently immoral. The Reverend Franklin Graham, for example, called Islam a “very evil and wicked religion.” How can people from different cultural and religious backgrounds view what is right and wrong in such different ways? The consequences of cultural differ- ences in perceptions of morality underlie many of the past and, surely, future conflicts around the world. This chapter explores how moral rea- soning and perceptions of justice are both similar and different across cultures. Whereas some moral violations are quite universally recognized as problematic, the perception of others varies consid- erably (e.g., Abarbanell & Hauser, 2010), addressing a central theme of this book regarding the tension between universal and culturally variable aspects of mental “You picked the wrong religion, period. “You picked the wrong religion, period. processes. Understanding another cul- I’m not going to argue about it.” I’m not going to argue about it.” ture’s basis for deciding what is right and  ETHNOCENTRISM AND INTERPRETING CULTURAL VARIABILITY 483 wrong is an inherently challenging task. Perhaps in no other domain of psycho- logical research are the challenges of conceptualizing cultural differences more daunting. How do we evaluate what is right and wrong in other cultures if our moral standards were acquired through socialization in our own culture? Are our moral standards limited to our own cultural context, or do moral principles transcend culture? Given the inherent difficulties in addressing these questions, I think this is a good occasion to take a step back and think about how we can learn to understand cultural variation more generally. In the next section I dis- cuss ethnocentrism and the challenge that it presents for considering cultural differences in morality. Ethnocentrism and Interpreting Cultural Variability As discussed in Chapter 1, ethnocentrism is a difficult barrier to overcome in trying to understand the ways of other cultures. Typically, ethnocentrism leads people to assume that their own culture’s way of life is in some ways better or more natural than that of others. Avoiding an ethnocentric perspective is extremely difficult because people are socialized to think in ways consistent with their cultural values and to evaluate practices in terms of how well they fit with a culture’s views on what is good or bad. Because of ethnocentrism bias, it is an enormous challenge to consider stan- dards for psychological phenomena that would be universally valid, rather than those favored within one’s own culture. As a demonstration of just how hard it is to step outside one’s own cultural frame- work when evaluating cultural practices, consider how we would investigate the highly controversial question, “Which cultures provide the highest quality of life?” We could use many different quality-of-life standards to rank cultures, and these dif- ferent standards would yield vastly different rank orderings of nations. For example, we could operationalize the quality of life as meaning the average level of positive emotional experiences among cultural members, as this would indicate people’s sub- jective satisfaction with how their lives are going. A rank ordering of cultures on this variable would yield Puerto Rico and Mexico to be the world’s developmental standard of positive emotions (Inglehart, 2004). Alternatively, we could consider longevity as a quality-of-life standard, as this would provide an objective index of the physical health of different cultural groups. This operationalization of quality of life would reveal that Singapore and Japan are the developmental standard (Central Intelligence Agency, 2006b). Or, a case could be made that per capita income is the best indicator of quality of life, in which case Norway and the United States would represent the developmen- tal standard (Central Intelligence Agency, 2006a). Another possibility is to measure 484 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE quality of life in terms of how well countries min- imize inequality among their citizens; Denmark and Japan would then represent the standard (Human Development Reports, 2005). Or we might opt for the lowest suicide rates as an in- dicator of a good life, making Egypt and Peru as the countries providing the highest quality of life for their citizens (Schmidtke et al., 1998). Evolutionary biologists discuss success in terms of an organism’s “fitness,” which reflects its number of surviving offspring. By that standard of quality of life, the Palestinian Territories and the Demo- cratic Republic of Congo would score the highest in the world (Population Reference Bureau, 2006). We might consider many other variables to re- flect quality of life (spiritual satisfaction, education, lowest crime rates, cleanliness of environment, stability of family relations, number of Nobel Prizes), and for each one we would get a different ranking of the world’s cultures and thus a different develop- mental progression. It is possible to rank cultures on any given variable; however, the problem is in choosing the variable that makes sense. People from different cultures won’t agree on the yardstick for measuring cultures because they do not agree on what each culture values most (e.g., Schwartz & Sagiv, 1995). In general, cultures tend to value more those characteristics for which their own culture is particularly accom- plished. As Malcolm Gladwell (2011) put it, “Who comes out on top, in any ranking system, is really about who is doing the ranking” (p. 75). This problem is inherent in all efforts to evaluate phenomena across cultures; however, given the tight overlap between values and morality, it is most salient when we consider how cultures differ in their ideas of what is right or wrong. The cultural variation in moral reasoning, described next, would seem to behoove one to be slow to pass judgment on other cultures (e.g., Shweder, 2000) and first consider why the various cultural differences exist as they do. Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development The most influential model of moral reasoning in psychology was created by Law- rence Kohlberg (1971; see Figure 12.2). He maintained that cognitive abilities underlie moral reasoning and that these abilities progress as individuals develop, mature, and are educated. The ways people conceive of what is right and what is wrong hinge on the stage of moral development they have reached.  Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development 485 Kohlberg proposed a three-level model that could capture the developmental progression of moral rea- soning in all cultures of the world (his model further distinguished between more fine-tuned stages, which I don’t discuss here). This model has been enormously influential in the study of moral reasoning and has sparked an immense amount of research, both support- ing it and challenging it. The levels are briefly summa- rized here. Level 1: The Preconventional Level At the lowest level, individuals understand the cultural rules and labels of what is good and bad but interpret these labels in terms of either the physical or hedonis- tic consequences of their actions. Preconventional moral reasoning suggests that people interpret morality based FIGURE 12.2 Lawrence Kohlberg. on a calculation of how much better or worse off they would be for acting in a certain way. What determines whether an action is good or bad is whether it satisfies one’s own needs, and occasionally the needs of others. Morality at this level is about trying to behave in a way that provides the best overall return. Level 2: The Conventional Level At the second level, people are able to identify themselves with a particular group and social order, and they show loyalty toward this group. The social order of the group is actively maintained, supported, and justified by individuals’ efforts to live up to the group’s standards. Conventional moral reasoning is about viewing actions as moral to the extent that they help maintain and facilitate the social order. Actions are seen as morally wrong if they involve violating any rules or laws that the social order has maintained, regardless of what those rules or laws are about. This level dictates that morality is about following the rules, and individuals should not question where those rules come from. Level 3: The Postconventional Level At the postconventional level, moral values and principles are seen to exist separately from the authority of the social groups that hold them. Postconventional moral reasoning is based on the consideration of abstract ethical principles of what is right and wrong, and moral decisions are reached based on the logical extensions of those 486 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE principles. Whether others agree with you or whether there are rules that contradict you are independent of whether the action is viewed to be moral. Good behavior is seen as that which is consistent with a set of universal ethical principles that empha- size justice and individual rights. Cross-Cultural Evidence for Kohlberg’s Model Researchers use Kohlberg’s model to determine the levels at which people or cultures make decisions to solve moral dilemmas. Participants are presented with moral dilemmas and are asked to choose the right solution to that dilemma. Researchers are more interested in the reasons participants give to justify their answers than in the an- swers themselves. Here is an example of the kind of moral dilemma that is presented to participants: In Europe, a woman was near death from a special kind of cancer. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging 10 times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000, which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying, and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s store to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have done that? Why or why not? Kohlberg maintained that the three levels in his model represent a universal pat- tern of moral development the world over. His own words best summarize this claim: “almost all individuals in all cultures use the same... moral categories, concepts, or principles, and all individuals in all cultures go through the same order or sequence of gross stage development, though they vary in rate and terminal point of development” (1971, p. 176). The model is proposed to be universal because the levels are always seen to follow sequentially. People do not reason at a conventional level before they have reasoned at a preconventional level, and this is argued to be as true of Zambians as it is of Americans. The different levels of the model reflect different abilities and motivations to attend to and conceptualize moral concerns. One aspect of the model that is not proposed to be universal is in the levels that different cultures reach. Kohlberg makes no claim that Americans and Zambians are equally likely to reason at the same level. Likewise, Kohlberg never claims that the full range of moral levels should be evident in all cultures. That is, the model presupposes cultural variation in the extent of people’s moral reasoning capacities.  Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity 487 Kohlberg’s model has been enormously influential in the study of moral psychology, but how well does this perspective explain moral reasoning across cultures? Much cross-cultural research has explored the applicability of Kohlberg’s model. One review explored the 45 studies that had been conducted up to that point, which had investigated the different levels of moral reasoning in 27 cultural areas from around the world (Snarey, 1985). The results indicated some universality in moral reasoning. In all cultural groups there were adults who reasoned at the conventional levels, and in no cultural groups did the average adult reason at the preconventional level, although many samples of children revealed evidence of preconventional reasoning. This review suggests that Kohlberg’s model might be universally applicable in explaining precon- ventional and conventional moral reasoning around the world. However, evidence of postconventional reasoning—reasoning based on justice and individual rights—was not universally found. Although every urban Western sample contained at least some individuals who showed reasoning based on justice and individual rights, not a sin- gle person from the traditional tribal and village folk populations that were studied showed such reasoning. There are two competing interpretations of these pronounced cultural differences. One is that the traditional societies do not provide the educational experiences nec- essary for their members to reason about justice and individual rights in postcon- ventional terms. Although it is possible that Westerners do show more sophisticated stages of moral reasoning than most of the world, there is the risk of an ethnocentric bias in defining the developmental standard on the basis of the kind of reasoning observed in Western cultures. A second interpretation is to note that urban Western environments are one kind of environment and tribal environments are another kind of environment, and that people develop a moral framework that best fits their en- vironment. This second interpretation would attribute the lack of reasoning about justice and individual rights among tribal and folk populations to possible other cate- gories of moral reasoning that are missing from Kohlberg’s framework. How might we test which of these two interpretations is most compelling? Some researchers have addressed this question by exploring whether there are other ethical principles aside from justice and individual rights on which people in other cultures base their moral reasoning. Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity Shweder and colleagues (1997) argue that Kohlberg’s model of moral reasoning represents just one of three codes of ethics that guide people’s moral judgments around the world. They refer to the code of ethics inherent in Kohlberg’s model as 488 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE an ethic of autonomy. This ethic views mo- rality in terms of individual freedom and rights violations. It emphasizes personal choice, the right to engage in free contracts, and individual liberty. An act is seen as im- moral under the ethic of autonomy when it directly hurts another person or infringes on another’s rights and freedoms as an individ- ual. For example, an immoral action would be to steal someone’s lunch money, because it causes harm to that person. The ethic of autonomy appears to be of critical impor- tance in all cultures, and indeed it’s hard to imagine how any culture could function if its members did not view harming each other to “Why is it we never focus on the things “Why is it we never focus on the things that be problematic. unite that us,us, unite likelike falafel?” falafel?” A second code of ethics that Shweder proposes is an ethic of community, which emphasizes that individuals have duties that conform with their roles in a community or social hierarchy. According to this code, there is an ethical principle to uphold one’s interpersonal duties and obligations toward others. Actions are seen as wrong when individuals fail to perform their duties. For example, an immoral action would be a son’s failure to attend his parents’ wedding anniversary celebration because he doesn’t feel like it. Immoral behaviors are perceived as those that involve a failure to live up to the duties and obligations associated with one’s roles. A third code of ethics that Shweder proposed is an ethic of divinity, which is concerned with sanctity and the perceived “natural order” of things. This code con- tains the ethical principle that one is obligated to preserve the standards mandated by a transcendent authority. It involves a belief that God (or gods, depending on one’s religion) has created a sacred world, and everyone’s obligation is to respect and pre- serve the sanctity of this world. In this ethic, actions are seen as immoral if they cause impurity or degradation to oneself or others, or if one shows any disrespect for God or God’s creations. For example, caricaturizing the prophet Muhammad is a blatant violation of this ethic for many Muslims. Immoral behavior in this ethic is framed in terms of sinning against the sacredness of God. These three different codes of ethics would be seen as moral codes to the extent that they reflect an understanding of right and wrong that is not based on either one’s own subjective preferences (which would indicate that the belief is viewed as a personal choice) or a community’s view of what is right and wrong (which would in- dicate that the belief is seen to be a matter of convention). Although Westerners have a tendency to view the ultimate principles of proper behavior as those that protect  Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity 489 individual rights, in much of the world the ethics of community and divinity serve as important moral principles. Because these three ethics are not equally elaborated across all cultural contexts (as we’ll see later), they lie at the root of some important cross-cultural grievances. For example, in the case of the cartoon controversy intro- duced at the beginning of this chapter, it appears that the Muslim protestors were viewing the controversy more from the perspective of the ethic of divinity, and pub- lishing cartoons that deface Muhammad are unacceptable according to this ethic. In contrast, the reasoning of the Western newspaper editors appears to have been based on the ethic of autonomy, in which censoring free speech is intolerable. It is difficult for these two conflicting groups to see eye to eye on this issue, then, because their understanding of what is right and wrong is grounded in different moral frameworks. Ethic of Community Much research has been conducted on the important role of the ethic of community in guiding moral reasoning. Carol Gilligan has made the case that interpersonal ob- ligations represent a kind of morality that is distinct from an emphasis on individual rights and that women are more likely to reason this way than men are (e.g., Gilligan, 1977). Although there has been much controversy over whether these gender differ- ences in moral reasoning really exist (e.g., Gilligan & Attanucci, 1988; Walker, 1984), there has been much development of Gilligan’s claim for an interpersonal foundation of moral reasoning, one that is more prominent in some non-Western cultures. GEMEINSCHAFT AND GESELLSCHAFT RELATIONS. The debate about whether interpersonal obligations and justice obligations vary in different cultures can be traced back to the work of the 19th-century German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies (1887/1957). Tonnies argued that there are two means by which individuals can re- late to each other in a group. Some groups are categorized as Gemeinschaft, which loosely translates from German as “community.” Gemeinschaft groups are character- istic of smaller folk organizations, and within these groups interpersonal relationships play an especially important role. Gemeinschaft relationships bind people together with the social glue of concord—that is, relationships are viewed as real, organic, and ends in themselves. People feel connected to others because they feel a unity of spirit, and these relationships tend not to be thought of in instrumental terms, nor are they often evaluated or negotiated. The relationships are central to an individual’s identity, and they reflect an understanding of the self that is consistent with an interdependent self. The integral role of interpersonal relations in Gemeinschaft groups suggests that obligations associated with one’s relationships would take on the weight of full moral obligations (Snarey & Keljo, 1991). In contrast, Tonnies argued that another kind of group can be characterized as Gesellschaft, which literally means “association” or “society.” Gesellschaft groups, 490 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE which are more characteristic of modern Western societies, treat relationships as imaginary, instrumental, and a means to an end. The primary focus within these groups is on autonomous individuals who are bound to one another through social convention. That is, groups come up with their own sets of rules, norms, and laws by which individuals need to behave, and these rules arise out of public consensus. Relations in Gesellschaft groups tend to be perceived as relatively impersonal and somewhat contractual, which leads to the necessity of justice obligations to govern disputes between individuals. In Gesellschaft groups, individuals can’t be expected always to behave in prosocial ways toward others, because they don’t have strong obligations toward them; so formalized rules are necessary to keep people in line. When interpersonal relations are reduced to serving utilitarian means among autono- mous individuals, as they largely are in Gesellschaft groups, then a morality of justice should take precedence. In Gemeinschaft groups, the interpersonal obligations that bind individuals to- gether are not objective or impartial enough to be governed by a system of justice and contracts (Snarey & Keljo, 1991). A good example of a Gemeinschaft group is the nuclear family. For the most part, it seems very unfamily-like for families to cre- ate contractual agreements regarding who will do the dishes, to govern disputes by appealing to abstract principles of justice, or to give each family member (including young children) equal rights and power over all family decisions. I realize that among some North American families there has been a growing trend in this direction (take the example of children suing their parents, or parents paying children piecemeal rates for completing various chores), which is evidence that North America has be- come such a prototype of Gesellschaft relations that even the nuclear family has been affected. Throughout most of the world, these kinds of family arrangements would be viewed as incomprehensible, as many other cultures are more firmly entrenched in a Gemeinschaft tradition. ETHIC OF COMMUNITY IN INDIA. People the world over have obligations to- ward others; however, an important question is whether they interpret these as moral obligations. When I say “moral” here, I mean something specific, and something that might differ from people’s typical understanding of the word. Moral obligations are different from other responsibilities in a couple of important ways. First, moral obligations are viewed as objective obligations. That is, people believe that they have an obligation to act in a certain way, even if there is no official rule or law that requires them to do so. If the obligation exists only when a law is present, then the obligation is perceived as a matter of convention and is not an objective obligation. Second, moral obligations are perceived as legitimately regulated. That is, people should be prevented from engaging in a moral violation, or they should be punished if they act in such a way. If people feel that someone should not be prevented from engaging in an act, they are viewing the act as a matter of personal choice and not  Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity 491 a moral obligation. Most Westerners, for example, would view pickpocketing as a violation of a moral obligation because stealing from another is perceived as wrong, regardless of what rules or laws exist, and would hold that pickpockets should be prevented from stealing. In contrast, most Westerners would view failing to attend a friend’s graduation ceremony as a matter of personal choice rather than as a viola- tion of a moral obligation. Westerners might expect people to attend their friend’s ceremonies, but they generally don’t think they should be punished for not attend- ing. As another example, most Westerners would view a 17-year-old who bought a beer from a bar as committing a conventional violation, not a moral one, as they could imagine that in some cultural contexts this action would not be breaking a law. Violations are considered to be moral ones only if they are objective obligations that can be legitimately regulated. The moral force of interpersonal obligations has been demonstrated in a number of studies (e.g., Miller, Bersoff, & Harwood, 1990). Many studies of moral reasoning provide people with dilemmas in which neither option seems ideal, but people’s moral principles can be discerned by examining the trade-offs that they are willing to make. We can gauge the strength of people’s motivations by examining the kinds of things they would give up to preserve them. Imagine, if you will, what you would do if you were in Ben’s situation: Ben was in Los Angeles on business. When his meetings were over, he went to the train station. Ben planned to travel to San Francisco in order to attend the wedding of his best friend. He needed to catch the very next train if he was to be on time for the ceremony, as he had to deliver the wedding rings. However, Ben’s wallet was stolen in the train station. He lost all of his money as well as his ticket to San Francisco. Ben approached several officials as well as passengers at the train station and asked them to lend him money to buy a new ticket. But, because he was a stranger, no one was willing to lend him the money he needed. While Ben was sitting on a bench trying to decide what to do next, a well-dressed man sitting next to him walked away for a minute. Looking over at where the man had been sitting, Ben noticed that the man had left his coat unattended. Sticking out of the man’s coat pocket was a train ticket to San Francisco. Ben knew that he could take the ticket and use it to travel to San Francisco on the next train. He also saw that the man had more than enough money in his coat pocket to buy another train ticket. What should Ben do? Should he steal the ticket so he can deliver the wedding rings to his best friend in time for the wedding, or should he not take the ticket and miss the wedding? Imagine that these are the only two possible solutions—there would be no other way for Ben to get to the wedding in time. 492 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE This is a tough call, because obviously neither of these solutions is very satisfying. The first solution would require Ben to commit a justice violation, as he would be causing harm to the other innocent passenger. On the other hand, the second solution would require Ben to violate an interpersonal obligation, as his friend is counting on him to deliver the rings on time. Without the rings, the wedding would be ruined. Either way, Ben is committing a violation. We would expect, however, that his deci- sion will indicate which violation he perceives to be more serious. Think about what you would do if you were in Ben’s shoes. Participants were presented with a number of such scenarios that pitted inter- personal and justice obligations against each other. In these scenarios, the extremity of the situation was varied: some involved minor breaches of justice, some moderate breaches, and other extreme breaches of justice obligations. In the example above, for Ben to steal the train ticket was seen as a moderate justice violation. Hindu Indian and American college students were asked to decide what the target in the scenarios should do: Should he protect the interpersonal obligation or should he protect the justice obligation? The results are shown in Figure 12.3. One thing to note about these results is that aside from the Indians in the minor justice breach scenarios, there was a great deal of variability within cultures. Within each culture, many people would choose the justice obligation and many would choose the interpersonal obligation. There is not a widely shared understanding of the best Percentage Protecting Interpersonal Obligation 100 Percentage of Participants 90 80 70 60 Indian 50 American 40 30 20 10 0 Extreme Moderate Minor Extremity of Justice Breach FIGURE 12.3 When interpersonal and justice obligations conflict, Indians tend to prefer protecting interpersonal obligations, whereas Americans tend to prefer protecting justice obligations.  Ethics of Autonomy, Community, and Divinity 493 way to resolve these kinds of conflicts. Despite this variation within cultures, there is a clear difference across cultures. Indians are more likely to resolve the conflict by fulfilling their interpersonal obligations than Americans are. Furthermore, other questions in the study revealed that whereas both Indians and Americans viewed the justice breaches in moral terms, Indians were far more likely to view the interpersonal breaches in moral terms (that is, objective obligations that could be legitimately regulated) than Americans. This demonstrates just how seriously Indians take inter- personal obligations, which were perceived as more serious than justice obligations. The ethic of community thus renders one’s social obligations as fully moral obliga- tions. In cultures where this ethic is more strongly embraced, such as in India, the de- cision of whether to act in ways consistent with one’s role obligations is not perceived as a matter of personal choice—it is a moral imperative. Interestingly, the moral basis of acting in ways consistent with one’s interpersonal obligations is also associated with different feelings towards those helping actions. Among Americans, when they feel that they have an obligation to help someone out (such as seeing a family member in need) they feel less positive about their helping than when they don’t have any spe- cific interpersonal obligations (such as seeing a stranger in need). Indeed, the words obligation and duty have somewhat negative connotations for Americans; Americans prefer seeing their helping behaviors as a matter of personal choice. In contrast, among Indians, having an interpersonal obligation is associated with more positive feelings toward helping than when there is no such obligation. Obligations and duties are more internalized among Indians, and they derive more pleasure from fulfilling them (Miller, Das, & Chakravarthy, 2013; also see Buchtel, 2009, for similar results with Chinese). Ethic of Divinity The third ethic that Shweder proposed was the ethic of divinity. The abstract ethical principle that Shweder argued to be inherent in this moral code was that one is obli- gated to respect or preserve the sanctity of the natural order of things, as dictated by a transcendent moral authority (such as God). Immoral actions according to this ethic are those that are perceived to violate the natural order of things. What does it mean to violate the natural order of things? To get an idea, consider the following scenario used in a study of violations of the ethic of divinity (Haidt, Koller, & Dias, 1993): A man goes to the supermarket once a week and buys a dead chicken. But before cooking the chicken, he has sexual intercourse with it. Then he cooks and eats it. All right, perhaps I should have warned you that that was coming. I chose that example from the study because it’s very effective at making the point. Now that 494 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE you’ve read this, I’m guessing that you’re most likely thinking this man’s behavior is repulsive, bad, and disgusting and that you might even be upset that I asked you to read it. If those are your feelings, you’re probably sensing that the natural order of things has been breached. You’re experiencing a violation of the ethic of divinity. However, moral reasoning is not just about having a gut-level reaction that some kinds of behaviors are bad. There are many kinds of actions that people perceive as bad, but not necessarily immoral. Remember that for something to be considered immoral it needs to be viewed as universally wrong and as something that should be prevented. In this particular example, let’s assume that the man’s behavior was part of a regular ritual in another culture. Would his behavior be wrong then? If you say “No,” then you are making the case that this behavior can be understood as a social convention and thus not in full moral terms. Do you think this man should be pre- vented from doing this again, or punished in any way? Should we make laws against having sex with chickens, or forbid grocers from selling the man any more chickens? If you think “No,” then you are interpreting his behavior as a matter of personal choice—a rather unsavory choice, to be sure, but a choice nonetheless. When this scenario was posed to students at the University of Pennsylvania (who, on average, can be considered to be of high socioeconomic status), only 23% said that the man’s behavior would be wrong even if this practice was part of a custom in another culture, and only 27% said that the man should be punished or prevented from doing this again (Haidt et al., 1993). That is, the majority of Penn students did not view the man’s behavior as immoral, although the vast majority perceived it to be quite disgusting. The same question was also posed to high- and low-socioeconomic-status people in two cities in Brazil as well as to low-socioeconomic-status people in Philadel- phia. People responded rather differently. Among the Brazilians, about 50% of the high-status participants viewed the practice to be universally wrong, and about 56% felt that the man should be punished. That is, roughly half of the high-status Brazilian participants viewed the behavior in moral terms. For the low-status Brazilians, in contrast, about 87% viewed the behavior as universally wrong, and about 83% felt that the man should be punished. The low-status Americans responded very similarly to the low-status Brazilians, with 87% universalizing their judgments and 80% believing that the man needs to be punished. That is, the majority of the low-status people, re- gardless of whether they were from Brazil or the United States, viewed the man’s be- havior as immoral. Other research has also found that people of lower socioeconomic status show more of a concern with the ethic of divinity (Horberg, Oveis, Keltner, & Cohen, 2009). Why do we find the same behavior viewed as largely not immoral by one group of participants and largely immoral by the other? Other questions the participants were asked shed some light on this question. They were also asked whether the man’s  Culture Wars 495 behavior was causing harm to anyone or whether they would feel bothered if they saw his behavior. In general, most people did not see the man’s behavior as causing anyone much harm, but most people said they would feel bothered if they witnessed this event, and these responses did not differ across the samples. However, these questions did reveal an important cultural difference in terms of how people were concluding whether the behavior was immoral. For the high-status samples, par- ticularly the students from Penn, participants were more likely to view the man’s behavior as immoral if they felt that someone was being harmed than if they said they would feel bothered by the event. That is, whether they viewed the man’s be- havior as immoral hinged largely on whether these participants felt that the behavior caused anyone (usually the man himself, in this instance) any harm. They appeared to operate under the ethic of autonomy principle that moral violations stem from causing harm. In contrast, the low-status participants were more likely to view the man’s behavior as immoral if they said they were bothered by the event than if they felt that anyone was being harmed. That is, a moral judgment was largely predicated on whether these participants found the event to be bothersome or disgusting. The low-status participants were not relying much on an ethic of autonomy and instead seemed affected by their emotional reaction to seeing a violation of the perceived natural order. In sum, when we consider other ethical principles that can guide moral reasoning, it appears that the ethic of autonomy is not the only game in town. Furthermore, the tendency of the low-status participants to base their moral decisions on how bothered they were suggests that the task of reaching moral judgments might not always occur in cold, cognitive terms, in the way that Kohlberg described. Rather, people often come up with moral justifications to rationalize the strong emotions they have when witnessing undesirable behaviors (Haidt, 2001). Culture Wars One interesting point about the American participants in the Haidt study discussed above is that the data for the high- and low-status participants were collected just three blocks apart. The college student data were collected on the University of Pennsylvania campus, and the data from the low-socioeconomic-status people were collected from a street corner in an inner-city neighborhood that bordered the campus. Three blocks were all that separated a world of difference in reasoning about what is immoral. This difference underscores something important: There are pronounced differences of opinion on moral issues even within a country, some- thing that has been described as an ongoing “culture war” within the United States (Hunter, 1991). 496 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE FIGURE 12.4 The different moral ethics that people embrace underlie many of the ideological differences within countries. Currently, there is a highly polarized public debate regarding a number of hot-button political issues in the United States (see Figure 12.4). Some of the key topics of controversy are abortion, gay marriage, and euthanasia. These debates are often marked by angry protests and repeated arguments that go largely unheeded by the opposing groups. Why don’t people come to accept the arguments from the other side and reach a peaceful consensus on these topics? Historically, it was believed that many of the differences of opinion on political issues within the United States were drawn along the lines separating religious denominations, such as Catholics, Jews, and Protestants. Although religious denomination is one important way that cultural worldviews differ within the country (as you’ll see in the next section on the morality of thoughts), it is probably not the most relevant difference for making sense of the opposing political alliances that divide the nation today. Hunter (1991) proposed that a culture war exists in the United States and that the battle lines are drawn between  Culture Wars 497 those who have an “impulse toward orthodoxy” and those who have an “impulse to- ward progressivism” (p. 43), regardless of their religious denomination. Religious adherents who are orthodox are committed to the idea of a transcen- dent authority. This authority is viewed to have existed long before humans and as operating independently of people. Furthermore, this authority is perceived to be more knowledgeable and more powerful than all of human experience. In the or- thodox view, this transcendent authority originated a moral code and revealed it to human beings in sacred texts. This moral code is perceived to stand across all times and circumstances and should not be altered to accommodate any societal changes or individual differences. Rather, individuals and society are expected to adapt them- selves to this ordained moral code (Jensen, 1997b). On the other hand, adherents of progressive religions emphasize the importance of human agency in understanding and formulating a moral code. Progressivists re- ject the view that a transcendent authority reveals itself and its will to humans; they believe that humans play an integral role in the formulation of a moral code. Progres- sivists believe that because social circumstances change, the moral code must change along with them. In this important way, progressivists differ from the orthodox. Note, however, that this is a broad distinction, and an individual’s religious impulses and political values do not always fall so neatly into these two types. Which of Shweder’s three moral ethics are typically used by the orthodox and progressivists when they reason about moral issues? Jensen (1997b) reasoned that the ethic of divinity seems to bear a close affinity with orthodox conceptions of morality. Orthodox individuals seek to follow sacred guidelines granted by a transcendent au- thority as they attempt to come closer to moral and spiritual purity. This emphasis appears to be very much in accordance with the emphasis on striving for purity and avoidance of degradation that characterizes the ethic of divinity. Likewise, the ethic of autonomy has many similarities with progressivists’ conceptions of morality. The ethic of autonomy allows individuals to choose what is right and wrong, provided they do not encroach on the rights of others or cause harm. Hence, there are some theoretical parallels in the distinction between progressivists and the orthodox and the ethics of autonomy and divinity. The ethic of community, on the other hand, which defines moral agents in terms of their social groups and views moral obli- gations as stemming from the individual’s memberships in those groups, seems to characterize all religious orientations, regardless of whether one is more orthodox or progressivist. In sum, we might expect that the two camps of the “culture war” that Hunter refers to can be characterized by the ethics they use to make sense of what is right and wrong. Jensen (1997b) tested this hypothesis by contrasting American Baptists who be- longed to either fundamentalist (orthodox) sects or mainline (progressivist) sects. The participants were asked to explain their moral judgments on a variety of polit- ically charged issues, such as suicide and divorce. Jensen examined their responses 498 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE to see how similar their justifications were to each of the three ethics. For example, participants were asked whether they felt that abortion is wrong, and to explain their answer. Of the orthodox participants, 100% gave at least one reason that was consistent with the ethic of divinity—that is, they spoke of God’s exclusive authority to end human life or they referred to the biblical injunction against taking another person’s life. Here is a sample reply from an orthodox Baptist to the question of abortion: In the Ten Commandments, [God] said that we should not commit murder.... I believe in general when a person disobeys God that it has negative repercussions. I think that’s why God tells us the things that He does. He knows what’s good for us, and if we’d listen to Him, we’d save [ourselves] a lot of trouble. This participant’s responses indicate that people have an obligation to respect God’s com- mands and that people would be better off if they did just that. There is no questioning of what God might have meant about murder, nor whether this commandment might be interpreted differently in the context of abortion in modern, Western societies. In con- trast, when the progressivists reasoned about abortion, 90% of them offered at least one reason that was consistent with the ethic of autonomy—that is, they tended to emphasize that individuals had to interpret the scriptures and reach a conclusion for themselves that avoided harming others. Here’s a sample reply from a progressivist Baptist: There really has to be some sense of rightness and wrongness that has to transcend what God would think, or what the priest would think, or what my mother would think. It’s not up to them, it’s up to you.... I ultimately believe that every individual has to do what they have to do. Overall, there were pronounced differences in the kinds of reasons that members of the different Baptist sects gave for justifying whether a practice could be seen as morally right or wrong. Figure 12.5 shows the average number of reasons given by midlife adult participants that were consistent with the three different ethics across all the different political issues (Jensen, 1997a). Progressivists made moral decisions based primarily on the ethic of autonomy (stressing individual rights) and the ethic of community (stressing obligations toward others); the orthodox were more likely to make their judgments based on the ethic of divinity. The most pronounced differences were with respect to the ethic of divinity and the ethic of autonomy. Although the differences between sects were large, people from each sect occasionally offered justifications from each of the three different ethics. Everyone has the potential to reason in these three different ways, although most people tend to favor one ethic over the others. There is a striking moral divide in the ways that people consider political issues, even within the same religion. Subsequent research  Culture Wars 499 Justifications for Moral Judgments 1.8 1.6 Number of Justifications 1.4 1.2 1 Orthodox 0.8 Progressivist 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Ethic of Ethic of Ethic of Autonomy Community Divinity FIGURE 12.5 The justifications of orthodox Baptists tended to reflect the ethic of divinity, whereas the justifications of progressivist Baptists tended to reflect the ethics of autonomy and community. by Jensen identified this same difference in the use of the three codes of ethics among progressive and orthodox Hindu Indians (Jensen, 1998), which demonstrates that this distinction within cultures is widespread—and is possibly universal. People make judg- ments about what is right and what is wrong in importantly different ways. The idea that culture wars exist because people reason about moral issues using different ethics has further been elaborated to explain the moral reasoning of peo- ple across the political spectrum (Koleva, Graham, Iyer, Ditto, & Haidt, 2012). Haidt and Graham (2007) expanded on Shweder’s three ethics, by identifying five moral intuitions that guide people’s moral reasoning. They argued that two sepa- rate moral intuitions constituted the ethic of autonomy: specifically, people have intuitions to avoid harm and to protect fairness. That is, people are sensitive to any behaviors that cause harm to others, and they attend closely to whether re- sources or rights are distributed in a fair way. Two additional intuitions roughly map onto the ethic of community: People are motivated to be loyal to their in- groups, identifying with them, making sacrifices for them, and trusting them more than they trust outgroup members. Also, people tend to respect hierarchy, admiring their superiors and believing that subordinates need to act in accordance with the wishes of authority figures. Last, reflecting the ethic of divinity, people are motivated to achieve purity and are disgusted at behaviors ruled by the carnal passions (such as lust or gluttony) or by behaviors that suggest contamination of any kind. These five moral intuitions are perceived to be universal concerns for all 500 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE humans; however, some cultures and some people differ in terms of which of these concerns they emphasize. To get an idea of how much you are concerned with each of these intuitions, con- sider how much money you would need to be paid to act in violation of any of them. We can infer that the more money you would need to be paid to violate each of these intuitions, the more strongly you are concerned about protecting each of these values. So, for example, as an assessment of how much you have the intuition to avoid harm, how much money would you need to be paid to stick a pin into the palm of a child you don’t know? If you’d be willing to do so for free, you don’t have much of an intuition to avoid harm. Protecting fairness can be assessed by the amount you’d need to be paid to say no to a friend’s request to help him move into a new apartment, after he had helped you move the month before. Loyalty to ingroups can be assessed by your willing- ness to burn your country’s flag, in private, where no one else would see you. Respect for hierarchy is revealed by your willingness to slap your father in the face (with his permission) as part of a comedy skit. And your intuition to achieve purity could be as- sessed by your willingness to cook and eat your dog after it dies of natural causes. The more money you’d require to do any of these, the stronger your intuitions for them. People vary with regards to the strength of their intuitions, and this variation splits down political lines. Americans who identify themselves as strongly liberal tend to have strong intuitions regarding avoiding harm and protecting fairness, but not such strong intuitions for the other three. Americans who identify themselves as strongly conser- vative, in contrast, tend to have fairly strong intuitions for all five (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; Figure 12.6). Similar patterns of results have been found by contrasting liberals and conservatives in a wide range of cultures around the world (Graham et al., 2011), suggesting that there is a fairly universal distinction in the moral intuitions of political liberals and conservatives. Moreover, much research shows that Americans who are politically conservative have stronger disgust responses than those who are politically liberal, which is also evidence that more-conservative political beliefs invoke more purity concerns than liberal beliefs (Inbar, Pizarro, & Bloom, 2009). Although this same set moral foundations may undergird the moral reasoning among people from different cultures, sometimes different foundations are called upon to solve the same problem. For example, in many parts of the world people become vegetarian for moral reasons; however, those reasons can differ across cul- tures. In North America, vegetarianism is more often associated with liberal political values, which reflect primary concerns with the moral foundations of harm and fairness. In contrast, in India, vegetarianism is more associated with conservative political values, and all five of the moral foundations. Hence, whereas Indian vege- tarians embrace more strongly the moral foundations of respecting hierarchy, being loyal to ingroups, and achieving purity compared with omnivores, North American vegetarians don’t differ from omnivores on these foundations (Ruby, Heine, Kamble, Cheng, & Waddar, 2013).  The Morality of Thoughts 501 Harm Fairness Ingroup Authority Purity Average Amount Required to Violate Taboos Never (no matter how much) One million $100,000 $10,000 $1,000 $100 $10 $0 Very Liberal Slightly Neutral Slightly Conservative Very Liberal Liberal Conservative Conservative Self-Reported Political Identity FIGUE 12.6 People who are more politically liberal have stronger moral intuitions for harm avoidance and fairness when compared with their intuition to be loyal to ingroups, to respect authority, and to achieve purity. Political conservatives, in contrast, have strong moral intuitions for all of these. The Morality of Thoughts In 1976, while running for the U.S. presidency, Jimmy Carter made a public apology. He confessed that he was guilty of having looked at women with lustful thoughts and of having committed adultery in his heart many times. Carter’s confession raises an interesting moral question. Are we morally responsible for the thoughts we entertain? This question addresses the boundaries of our moral worlds—the domains in which we feel it is appropriate to make judgments about what is right and wrong versus the domains in which we feel that such judgments are not relevant. How do our cultural experiences shape where we draw this boundary? 502 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE We can contrast Carter’s guilty feelings about his lustful fantasies with the apparently unrepentant feelings that Sigmund Freud had about all of the rather nasty thoughts he entertained. Although there is no evidence that Freud engaged in much of the way of immoral behaviors (he was a highly respected citizen in Victorian-era Austria), he certainly considered some provocative thoughts. A view of the rather sordid and wanton ideas that jostled about in Freud’s mind is pro- vided by exploring his vast and highly influential writings. Many of Freud’s most memorable notions were generated, in part, as he explored his own dreams and introspections. These ideas included his views of the unconscious mind as a caul- dron of seething urges, in which boys secretly desire to kill their fathers and have sex with their mothers, girls are distraught in their envy for not having a penis, and the whole of humanity struggles to corral their degenerate motivations to de- stroy life. If having bad thoughts was a moral issue, then Freud was guilty indeed. However, it is hard to imagine that Freud could have devoted so much thought and effort to exploring his introspections on these unsavory topics if he had felt much guilt for broaching them. Indeed, there is no evidence from his writings that such thoughts bothered him; yet, by all respects, he was an upstanding citizen. Appar- ently, Freud did not share Carter’s view that one’s thoughts fall into the domain of moral governance. Carter and Freud differ from each other in many ways, and one that is relevant to their different moral reasoning is their religious backgrounds. Jimmy Carter was raised as a Southern Baptist, one of the most fundamentalist sects in Protestantism (although he abandoned the sect at the age of 76, interestingly, over a disagreement in moral worldviews). Freud was raised Jewish. Can we see differences in people’s views on the morality of thoughts between these two cultural traditions? Jewish and Christian dogma differ in terms of their holy scriptures. Jewish doc- trine is based on the Hebrew Bible and the debates on this doctrine that are included in the Talmud. In contrast, Christian doctrine is based in part on the Hebrew Bible (known to Christians as the Old Testament) but is primarily oriented toward the New Testament, which includes the teachings of Jesus. Exploring these texts reveals some differences relevant to the morality of thoughts. The first place in the Christian Bible that we see clear evidence that thoughts were to be moralized is in the New Testament, where Jesus made the point later echoed by Jimmy Carter, “You have heard that it was said ‘you shall not commit adultery’: but I say to you, that everyone who looks on a woman to lust for her has committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5: 27–28). In contrast, the Old Testament contains the foundation of the Judeo-Christian moral code in the Ten Commandments. It is interesting that eight of the ten com- mandments specifically refer to behaviors (e.g., killing is wrong, stealing is wrong), and only two refer to thoughts (e.g., it is wrong to not honor one’s parents, it is wrong to covet anything belonging to your neighbor). Even with these last two, however,  The Morality of Thoughts 503 there is debate as to whether they refer to thoughts or behaviors. Cohen and Rozin (2001) showed that whereas Protestants were more likely to view the commandment to honor one’s parents in terms of having respectful thoughts toward them, Jews were more likely to view it in terms of behaviors (e.g., honoring one’s parents by taking care of them when they’re old). In sum, there is evidence of a transition from a general emphasis on being a good person by behaving in moral ways that characterized the Jewish half of the Bible (the Old Testament) to an emphasis on being a good person by thinking in moral ways, as stressed in the Christian half of the Bible (the New Testament). There is also a greater emphasis on faith in Christianity (especially Protestant- ism) than in Judaism. For example, membership in Judaism is defined by descent; traditionally, one becomes Jewish by being born to a Jewish biological mother. In contrast, membership in Protestant sects is primarily defined by beliefs. For exam- ple, one does not become a member of the Baptist church until one publicly accepts the Christian faith and is baptized. The New Testament states “that whosoever believeth in [Jesus] should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:15). In contrast to this emphasis on beliefs in Christianity, much of traditional Judaism emphasizes particular practices, such as keeping kosher by avoiding certain foods, such as pork. Jewish faith does not state that it is wrong to desire nonkosher foods; what is important is that one does not eat them. In contrast, compared with Judaism, Christianity has fewer practices and instead places more emphasis on one’s private communications with God. Reflecting this differential emphasis in practices and beliefs, a survey asked Jewish and Protestant participants how important practices and beliefs were for being reli- gious; the results revealed that Jewish participants rated practices as more important than beliefs for being religious, whereas Protestants put greater emphasis on beliefs than practices (Cohen, Siegel, & Rozin, 2003). Would Christians and Jews differ in their views on whether it is wrong for people to have bad thoughts, even if they never act upon the thoughts? In one study, partic- ipants read some vignettes that described people who were thinking about immoral behaviors (Cohen & Rozin, 2001). Here is a sample vignette from the study: Mr. B. is a 1992 graduate of the University. Since graduation, Mr. B. has worked at an entry-level job in a marketing firm. Mr. B. married his University sweetheart six months after they both had their graduation from University. Mr. B. and his wife do not have any children. One of Mr. B.’s colleagues at work is a very attractive wom- an. This woman sometimes flirts with Mr. B. and they both know that she would be willing to have a sexual affair with him. For an average of about 20 minutes a day, Mr. B. consciously entertains thoughts about having a sexual affair with his colleague by thinking about where they would have an affair and what it would be like to have an affair with her. 504 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE After reading the vignette, participants were asked some questions about Mr. B. One question was what they thought of Mr. B. The Protestant participants reported viewing Mr. B. in significantly more negative terms than the Jewish participants did. Having adulterous thoughts is viewed as more immoral by Protestants than Jews. A second question asked how bad it would be if Mr. B. actually had the sexual affair. Importantly, Jewish participants viewed sexual affairs in at least as negative terms as the Protestant participants did. There was no difference between the religions in how they viewed immoral behaviors. Even though there were no religious differences in terms of the perceived immorality of the behaviors, there was a pronounced religious difference in people’s reactions to someone thinking about engaging in such behav- iors. Apparently, Protestants view one’s thoughts to be governed by moral concerns, whereas Jews do not. The moral domain for Jews is focused on what people do, and not what they think about doing. This religious difference suggests that Protestants and Jews might have different theories about how the mind works. If you can be held morally responsible for your thoughts, it would seem that you must believe these thoughts to be somewhat under your control. It hardly makes sense to morally condemn something that is beyond an individual’s control. Not surprisingly, research reveals that Protestants believe people have more control of their thoughts than Jews do (Cohen & Rozin, 2001). Further- more, one reason to be concerned about someone engaging in immoral thoughts is the possibility that these thoughts might increase the likelihood that the person will engage in the immoral behavior. Indeed, Protestants, more than Jews, have been shown to believe that thoughts lead to behaviors (Cohen & Rozin, 2001). Protestants tend to see thoughts as greasing the path toward behaviors. Not only do the religions differ in their beliefs in the morality of thoughts; they differ in their beliefs about what thoughts do and whether one can control them. Culture and Fairness Our discussion on moral intuitions demonstrates that although liberals and conserva- tives differ somewhat in the kinds of moral intuitions that are of the greatest concern to them, there is relatively little difference between them in the strength of their con- cerns with the moral intuition of protecting fairness. Treating people fairly seems like a common, if not universal, concern. However, as we’ll see, the ways that people judge things to be fair can vary considerably across cultures. Distributing Resources One way that we can see how people decide what is fair is by considering the ways that they distribute resources. We can go about assigning rewards (or punishments)  Culture and Fairness 505 to individuals in a number of ways, and these ways speak to people’s beliefs about what is fair. For ex- ample, your instructor can give out a limited number of good grades to the class. What is the fairest way to distribute them? One way would be to distribute them by the prin- ciple of need, which dictates that resources are directed toward those who need them the most. If your instructor operated on the principle of need, he or she would give the best grades to those students who were most in need of them. A stu- dent, say, who was planning to go to law school as a means to earn the money to support his sick mother “O.K., “O.K., ifif you you can’t can't see see your way to your way to giving giving me me aa pay pay raise, raise, how how about aboutgiving givingParkerson Parkerson aa pay pay cut?” cut?” would receive a higher grade than a student who was going to be- come a professional athlete. A second way that grades could be distributed is by the principle of equality. This principle dictates that resources should be shared equally among the members of a group. In this case, your instructor could assign everyone in the class the exact same grade, regardless of what each one did in the course. Or your instructor could distribute grades based on the principle of equity. This principle states that resources are distributed based on an individual’s contributions. The more an individual produces, the more resources he or she receives. The ratio between individuals’ inputs (their efforts and abilities in the course) and their outputs (the grades they receive) are held constant. Instructors following this principle would distribute grades based on how many questions the students answered correctly on the exam. Grades are an unusual resource because they serve the function of indicating how much one has learned, rather than of being a reward in their own right. Because of this, it is likely that instructors everywhere operate exclusively on the principle of equity. However, in the distribution of other kinds of resources, such as salary, the principle of equity is not so universal. The principle of equity does appear to be the dominant form of resource distribution in the West. Most companies in the West compensate their employees by basing their salary largely on what the indi- vidual achieves. A pure example of the principle of equity can be seen in companies where salespeople are paid exclusively by commission. The more one sells, the more one earns, and the ratio between one’s inputs and outputs is held constant. A social 506 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE system that rewards individuals on the basis of the equity principle is known as a meritocracy, and meritocracies tend to be more common in individualistic soci­ eties. Meritocracies have their benefits and costs. They can lead workers to be highly motivated to work hard, because their earnings depend on their efforts, which tends to increase productivity. However, because there usually is only a finite amount of resources that can be distributed among employees, when one worker does especially well, this means that the others are doing relatively worse and will be paid less. Mer- itocratic systems tend to breed competition among workers, thereby potentially dis- rupting harmonious relations among them. In much of the rest of the world (and in industries in the West that have a more collectivistic base through the power of labor unions), the principle of equality is adhered to more. In practical terms, the principle of equality is rarely applied in its strongest form, which would be that every individual receives the exact same level of compensation. Rather, equality tends to be preserved within a certain range of constraints, such as one’s age or official credentials. So, for example, all individu- als might get the same size raise each year; however, those who have been at the company longer have received more raises and hence are being compensated more. This latter system is known as a seniority system, in which time with the company or age is being rewarded. Seniority systems reflect the principle of equality because there is no competition among individuals for compensation. It is determined by the same calculus for everyone. Seniority systems weaken the link between one’s inputs and outputs so that individuals might not be motivated to work as hard, although they do promote harmonious relations by decreasing intragroup competition. Inter- estingly, although it is often assumed that merit-based pay is the way to ensure the greatest amount of effort from one’s employees, Japanese workers have traditionally been among the hardest working in the world (e.g., there is a great deal of voluntary overtime and many never take their vacations), and Japanese companies tend to have more seniority-based pay than American organizations (e.g., Ouchi & Jaeger, 1978). The relation between efforts and the principle of equity or equality appears to depend considerably on the cultural context. The principle of need is manifested in most modern industrialized societies through institutions such as universal health insurance, which gives the sick more benefits than the healthy, or a welfare system, in which those who are needy receive more benefits than those who are not. However, the principle of need also governs people’s beliefs in distributing resources in many less formal situations, such as con- tributing to charities or giving money to beggars. Which of these three principles of distributing resources do you think is the most fair? Your answer to this reflects your underlying values—values that have likely been shaped by the norms that you have been exposed to in your culture. Consider the following study that explored how these different principles of resource distribution were embraced across cultures (Berman, Murphy-Berman, & Singh, 1985). The researchers presented Indian and American participants with  Culture and Fairness 507 Allocation Strategies FIGURE 12.7 60 Percentage Choosing Strategy In deciding how to allocate a bonus in 50 a particular scenario, the most popular principle among Americans was to 40 distribute the bonus according to the Need principle of equity. In contrast, among 30 Equality Indians this was the least popular Equity principle. Rather, Indians favored the 20 principle of need. 10 0 USA India a scenario describing how a company had to make a decision about distributing a bonus between two employees. One of the employees was described as having excellent work performance and an adequate economic situation. The other em- ployee had only average work performance but was in a poor financial situation with an illness in the family. The participants needed to decide how to divide up the bonus money. They could choose to give most of the money to the excellent worker, give most of the money to the needy worker, or split the money evenly down the middle. Figure 12.7 shows the results. The most popular solution for the Americans was to favor the excellent employee (the equity principle), and the least popular one was to favor the needy employee. In stark contrast, the favorite solu- tion of Indians was to give the majority of the money to the needy employee, and the least favorite solution was to reward the excellent employee. A similar study contrasted Japanese and Australian workers and found that Australians preferred an equitable distribution of rewards more positively than did Japanese (Kashima, Siegal, Tanaka, & Isaka, 1988). What is perceived as a fair and just way of dis- tributing resources, then, can vary around the world. Westerners are more likely than those from other cultures to view the equity principle to be the most fair. Indians are most impressed by allocations that take into account the need of the parties involved. Economic Games and Fairness The ways that cultures shape what people perceive as a fair way to distribute resources can be seen in another way. Imagine that you’re put in the following situation: You 508 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE have just been given some money, say $100. You’re told that you can do anything that you want with the money. But you’re also told that there’s another person, whom you’ll never meet, who has been paired with you. It was randomly determined with a coin flip which one of you would receive the money, and you luckily won the flip. You’re told that, if you want, you can give some of your $100 to the other person, but they will never know your identity. What do you do? Do you give the other person any money? And, if so, how much? According to economic theory, if you’re a rational person, you wouldn’t give the other person a penny. After all, you don’t stand to gain anything by giving your money to an anonymous stranger who doesn’t know who you are. But, curiously, this almost never happens. People around the world feel that keeping all the money for themselves is not right, and it just seems fair to give the other person some money. In fact, the most common decision that people make is to split the money 50-50. But, as we’ll see, the likelihood that people make this kind of decision varies considerably around the world. This situation is an economic game called the dictator game. The dictator game, as well as some other related and more complex economic games, has been played in more than a dozen different societies around the world. When economists first learned that Western university students played these economic games in apparently “nonrational” ways, giving away money that would not lead to any benefits to them, they came up with an explanation: Humans must have an internalized motivation for fairness that guides their decisions, and it operates even under the unusual situations created when playing economic games that keep their behavior anonymous. Further- more, economic models were proposed to argue that the reason large-scale societies and markets were possible was that people had these internalized motivations for fairness (e.g., Nowak, Page, & Sigmund, 2000). Their innate desire for fairness allowed people to behave in a trustworthy manner with strangers, which facilitated trade and the development of markets and made it possible for large groups of strangers to live together in relative harmony. Joe Henrich and colleagues found these ideas interesting but were disturbed by the fact that the models were built on findings based solely on Western university students. As discussed earlier, the psychological tendencies of these WEIRD sam- ples appear unusual, in many ways, and it was possible that people in other cultural contexts might play these economic games differently. To test the generalizability of their findings, Henrich and colleagues launched a series of large-scale international projects involving a network of interdisciplinary researchers to study a number of societies around the world (Henrich et al., 2005; Henrich et al., 2006; Henrich et al., 2010). Most of the societies they selected were small-scale subsistence societies, because people living in these societies have lifestyles that are more similar to the ways that our human ancestors used to live thousands of years ago compared with the lifestyles of people living in modern industrialized societies. Hence, the findings  Culture and Fairness 509 FIGURE 12.8 Joe Henrich and a Fijian assistant explain how to play an economic game on Yasawa Island in Fiji. speak to questions regarding the evolution of norms regarding fairness. The research- ers taught people in these societies the rules of these economic games, gave them the chance to practice until they demonstrated that they fully understood the games, and then provided people with money equivalent to one day’s wage and allowed them to play the games (Figure 12.8). Figure 12.9 shows the offers that were made by people in the different societies for the dictator game (Henrich et al., 2010). The first thing to note is that the dictator game offers made by the American sample were at the tail end of the distribution (a similar pattern was found for other kinds of economic games). The average American response was not representative of how people elsewhere made offers; rather it represents an extreme response, which suggests that it is not a good sample to use for building a model that generalizes to all of humanity. The motivations for fairness were considerably weaker in most of the other societies. How can we understand the cultural variability in people’s offers in the dictator game? 510 CHAPTER 12 MORALITY, RELIGION, AND JUSTICE 50 45 Dictator Game Offers as Percentage of Stake 40 35 30 25 20 na la a a ia a a a ria a a a or S ji ni ny ny ny ne ne ny ni Fi ue liv U ad ha be za za