Marcus Arvan
University of Tampa

 

Most of us are accustomed to thinking of morality in a positive light. Morality, we say, is a matter of “doing good” and treating ourselves and each other “rightly.” However, moral beliefs and discourse also plausibly play a role in group polarization, the tendency of social groups to divide into progressively more extreme factions, each of which regards other groups to be “wrong.”[1] Group polarization often occurs along moral lines[2], and is known to have many disturbing effects, increasing racial prejudice among the already moderately prejudiced^[3], leading group decisions to be more selfish, competitive, less trusting, and less altruistic than individual decisions^[4], eroding public trust[5], leading juries to impose more severe punishments in trials^[6], generating more extreme political decisions^[7], and contributing to war, genocide, and other violent behavior.^[8]

This paper argues that three empirically-supported theories of group polarization predict that polarization is likely caused in substantial part by a conception of morality that I call the Discovery Model—a model which holds moral truths exist to be discovered through moral intuition, moral reasoning, or some other process.

 

Target Presentation in PDF

[expand title=”Target Presentation by Marcus Arvan (Tampa)” elwraptag=”p”]

§1 of this paper clarifies the Discovery Model, showing how it is ubiquitous in everyday life and moral philosophy, cohering as well with empirical research on how people ordinarily form moral beliefs. §2 then argues that three dominant empirical theories of group polarization—Social Comparison Theory^[9], Informational Influence Theory^[10], and Self-Categorization Theory^[11]—all predict that the Discovery Model likely plays a significant role in causing polarization. Finally, §3 argues that there are converse theoretical reasons to believe that an alternative Negotiation Model of morality—one according to which most moral truths are instead created by interpersonal negotiation—would likely mitigate polarization and perhaps even foster its opposite.

As a point of clarification, this paper’s aims are modest.[12] First, it aims neither to establish that the Discovery Model causes polarization, nor that the Negotiation Model is psychologically realistic or would reduce polarization. Because these are complex issues—and different possible explanations of polarization exist—this paper instead aims to provide strong theoretical grounds for investigating these matters further in future research. Second, this paper does not aim to settle a variety of important philosophical questions, such as whether group polarization is morally undesirable, or whether the Negotiation Model should be favored over the Discovery Model on meta- or normative-ethical grounds. Although I have defended Negotiation Model elsewhere on both grounds[13], this paper cannot settle these wide-ranging issues. Instead, it once again aims to provide new theoretical reasons—grounded in the psychology of group polarization—to investigate these and other related questions in future research.

 

1 The Discovery Model of Morality

Some philosophers[14] and everyday laypeople purport to be moral skeptics, alleging that there are no moral facts. Nevertheless, just about everyone plausibly forms moral beliefs in the course of everyday life. We regularly speak of people doing “right”, “wrong”, “good”, and “bad.” We also tend to do so in accordance with a particular model of morality: a Discovery Model according to which moral truths exist to be discovered through intuition, moral reasoning, or some other cognitive or affective process. The Discovery Model, as I propose we understand it, does not hold that we come to believe moral propositions passively or unreflectively. It is instead the conjunction of the following meta-ethical and psychological claims:

• The discovery model of meta-ethics: there are preexisting truths about moral issues (e.g. truths about right, wrong, good, bad) that can in principle be ascertained by individuals “unilaterally”, via their own use of intuition, philosophical argument, or some other cognitive or affective process.
• The discovery model of moral-belief formation: individuals who tacitly or explicitly endorse the discovery model of meta-ethics will tend to form moral beliefs though intuition, argument, or other such process, typically believing in at least some cases that they have discovered moral truths that other people should believe as well.

We can see just how ubiquitous the Discovery Model is by examining everyday discourse, the history and present of moral philosophy, and finally, social-psychological research.

Consider first everyday moral practice. When it comes to applied moral issues—such as whether abortion is morally permissible—people commonly presuppose that there are moral facts to be discovered through intuition, reasoning, or some other cognitive or affective process, typically forming beliefs about their “moral discoveries.” For example, individuals who believe that abortion is morally wrong often claim to base this “discovery” on the intuition or some argument that human beings have a moral right to life—arguing that since fetuses are human beings, we should all believe that abortion is wrong.[15] Conversely, people who believe abortion is morally permissible typically base their belief on different intuitive or argumentative “discoveries”, such as that fetuses do not have a moral right to life at certain stages of development[16], or alternatively, that a fetal right to life is not a right to depend on a mother’s body.[17] Similarly, consider the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here too, both sides appear to treat moral truths as discoverable through intuition or argument. Whereas pro-Palestinian voices defend the moral “discovery” Israel has wrongly occupied Palestinian lands, pro-Israelis typically defend the opposite “discovery”—that Israelis have rightly occupied Palestine, claiming that settlers are simply “living on land that Israel has liberated.”[18] In each of these cases, we see the Discovery Model’s meta-ethical and psychological components clearly exemplified. And these are not isolated cases. Indeed, the Discovery Model appears presupposed by every major world religion—with Judaism holding that we can discover moral truths through the Ten Commandments; Christianity that we can discover moral truths via Christ; Islam that moral truth is to be discovered through the Quran and/or Shari’a Law; Buddhism that moral truth is be found in the Noble Eightfold Path; and so on.

The Discovery Model similarly pervades the history and present of moral philosophy. In contemporary meta-ethics, the notion that moral facts exist to be discovered is central to many (though not all) theories of moral semantics and moral epistemology. Indeed, although there are non-cognitivist interpretations of moral language, the dominant semantic view of moral language is cognitivist: the view that sentences of the form, “X is morally wrong”, are true just in case it is a fact that X is morally wrong.[19] In addition, many moral realists argue that cognitivism is not only true, but that moral facts are mind-independent features of the world discoverable by us.[20] Further, consider a few dominant theories of moral epistemology: moral intuitionism, reflective equilibrium, and constitutivism. Intuitionists hold that moral truths can be discovered through a kind of moral perception analogous to sense-perception.[21] In contrast, reflective equilibrium treats moral facts as things we can discover by drawing our moral beliefs into greater coherence, holding that we should form new moral beliefs as a result of reflective argumentation.[22] Finally, constitutivists argue that moral truths can be discovered—and moral beliefs formed—by reference to constitutive features of agency.[23]

Now consider normative ethical theory. Here too we see the ubiquity of the Discovery Model. Act-utilitarians hold that an action is right if and only if the act maximizes utility—facts that can in principle be discovered. Kantians hold that an action is permissible if and only if its maxim can be willed as a universal law[24], respecting the humanity of oneself and others[25]—facts that once again can be discovered.[26] Aristotelian virtue ethicists hold moral virtues are beneficial character traits which we can discover to be necessary for living well.[27] And so on. Many other influential approaches to normative ethics—contractualism, Rossian pluralism, moral particularism, etc.—similarly hold that moral truths can be discovered by intuition, argument, or some other cognitive or affective process.[28]

The same is true in applied ethics. In the applied ethical literature on abortion, some argue that abortion can be discovered to be wrong because it violates the moral rights of the fetus^[29]; others argue that abortion can be discovered to be morally permissible at certain stages of fetal development due to the fetus not being a person^[30]; others still argue that abortion is permissible because a fetal right to life is not a right to depend on a mother’s body.^[31] And so on. Once again, this is not an isolated case. The applied ethics literature is replete with works arguing that we can discover truths about applied ethical issues—about the ethics of torture, gun control, warfare, treatment of animals, etc.—through intuition, argument, or other cognitive or affective processes.

Finally, the Discovery Model’s psychological account of moral-belief formation coheres with the dominant empirical model of moral-belief formation in social psychology: the Social Intuition Model (SIM) which holds that moral beliefs are the result of sudden flashes of affectively laden intuitions, with moral reasoning largely serving a subservient role to justify one’s beliefs ex post facto.[32]

 

2 The Discovery Model and Group Polarization

Group polarization, once again, is the tendency of social groups to divide into progressively more extreme factions, each of which regards other groups to be “wrong.” There are two leading empirical theories of the causes of polarization: Social Comparison Theory and Informational Influence Theory. According to Social Comparison Theory, polarization results from people seeking to “fit in” with those around them, aiming to impress members of their group by endorsing progressively extreme views.^[33] Informational Influence Theory holds that, in addition, polarization results from people hearing new arguments and information in support of their position—processes that make group members more receptive to progressively more extreme views.^[34] Importantly, these two theories are not mutually exclusive, nor are they “mere theories.” Because both theories have significant empirical support[35], it is more correct to say that they have identified two primary causal mechanisms of polarization. Finally, a third theory, Self-Categorization Theory, also has some empirical support.[36] This theory holds that polarization results from individuals identifying with the prototypical view of their “in-group”—a group which then casts views of “out-groups” as threatening, causing the views of the in-group to shift even further away from those of the outgroup as a kind of defense mechanism.^[37] Allow me now to briefly explain each of these three theories in more detail.

According to Social Comparison Theory, individuals in groups have a psychological tendency to want to gain acceptance and be perceived favorably by other members of their group. This desire for acceptance causes individuals in the group to adopt ever-so-slightly more extreme views than those already typical in the group, so as to “impress” and “prove” themselves to other members of the group[38]—something which often takes the form of moral grandstanding.[39] Group polarization then occurs when many individuals in the group do more or less the same thing, progressively adopting more extreme views to impress each other, causing the representative beliefs of the entire group to become progressively more extreme. Finally, and importantly, studies indicate that this phenomenon is even more likely to occur with respect to “judgmental issues”, such as moral or political matters.[40] For instance, a recent study on Twitter regarding the shooting of an abortion doctor indicated that like-minded individuals on both sides of the issue tend to group together, reinforcing and progressively polarizing pro-life and pro-choice views.[41]

Informational Influence Theory supplements this account with a complementary mechanism: the tendency of people to group together with likeminded individuals to present novel arguments and information in favor of their preferred views, leading individuals in the group to become more easily convinced of even more extreme views.[42] For example, members of different political parties tend to frequent different news sources and social media networks.[43] These differential sources of information tend to provide members of each group with new information and arguments supporting their members’ preexisting views, ignoring or delegitimizing countervailing information and arguments, thereby making individuals in each groups more likely to develop more polarized views.[44] Further, research indicates this mechanism is especially strong for “intellectant” issues—or issues involving intellectual debate, including moral issues.[45] Informational Influence Theory also coheres with a well-established individual bias: confirmation bias, the tendency of people to selectively seek and privilege information confirming their preexisting beliefs, while ignoring or minimizing contrary information.[46]

Finally, Self-Categorization offers a third mechanism for polarization. When individuals are confronted with a risky or threatening outgroup, there is a pronounced human tendency to coalesce around the views of one’s self-identified in-group as a kind of protection-mechanism of solidarity against the threatening out-group.[47] This general mechanism is familiar from everyday life and history—as when Adolf Hitler used perceived threats (by Jews and others) to rally the German people behind his extreme Nazi ideology, and in polarized debates over moral issues today. For instance, anti-abortionists may be cast proponents of abortion as complicit in “genocide”[48] whereas proponents of abortion cast anti-abortionists as “waging a war on women.”[49] Finally, this mechanism appears to strengthen the more threatening the outgroup is perceived to be.[50]

We can now provide several theoretical arguments that Discovery Model likely plays a significant role in group polarization. First, the Discovery Model appears to play directly into the phenomena described by Social Comparison Theory. Once again, Social Comparison Theory shows that people tend to seek approval of those they interact with, adopting progressively more extreme views to impress those in their group. As such, Social Comparison Theory predicts that if people cluster around opposing moral “discoveries”—if, for instance, some believe they have discovered abortion is wrong, whereas others believe they have discovered abortion is permissible—there will be a progressive tendency for each group’s members to adopt more extreme positions in order to impress members of their own group. Which, of course, is basically what we do see across a wide variety of moral issues. We see people cluster together in opposing moral groups—pro-abortion and anti-abortion groups, gun-control and gun-rights groups, pro-Israel groups and pro-Palestinian groups, etc.—with members on each side often “ramping up” their moral claims to impress fellow group-members.[51] Social Comparison Theory thus not only predicts that the Discovery Model likely plays a significant causal role in polarization. Social Comparison Theory and the Discovery Model together provide a potential explanation for why polarization is so pronounced on “judgmental” issues (specifically, moral issues).^[52] Because moral beliefs involve or are related to reactive attitudes such as anger and blame[53], when members of opposing moral groups believe they have made opposing “moral discoveries” (viz. the Discovery Model), members of each group may adopt more extreme views in order to appeal to the reactive attitudes of members of their group (playing to their group’s anger, resentment, etc.).[54] Social Comparison Theory thus predicts not only that the Discovery Model likely plays a causal role in polarization, but that likely plays a prominent role.

Now turn to Informational Influence Theory, the theory which holds that polarization occurs by people in groups providing each other novel arguments and information that confirm their pre-existing beliefs, making them more amenable to even more extreme views. Here again, the Discovery Model appears to play directly into these phenomena.  Informational Influence Theory predicts that that if people cluster around opposing moral “discoveries”—if, for instance, some believe they have discovered abortion is wrong, whereas others believe they have discovered abortion is permissible—people will tend to provide new arguments and information to members of their own favored moral group, making members of each group progressively more amenable to more extreme beliefs. Yet this too is broadly what we see in everyday life. In the abortion debate, for instance, we see many novel philosophical arguments generated on each side of the debate, with each side tending to emphasize the novel arguments for their own moral beliefs while ignoring or dismissively discounting arguments for the other side’s beliefs.[55] This is clearly not an isolated case, as people are known to cluster in political groups around different moral issues—groups which tend to expose their members to different information and arguments.[56] Further, as we saw earlier, Information Influence Theory predicts that polarization tends to be particularly pronounced for “intellectant” issues.^[57] Because people who subscribe to the Discovery Model commonly treat moral matters as issues of intellectual debate—things to debate at dinner tables, on television, in university seminars, etc.—Informational Influence Theory thus predicts that the Discovery Model likely plays a prominent role in polarization.

Finally, the Discovery Model also appears to play directly into the phenomena described by Self-Categorization Theory. Self-Categorization Theory predicts that group polarization tends to occur when an in-group is confronted by a threatening out-group. It is plain from everyday experience, however, that in-groups and “threatening outgroups” are often defined precisely in moral terms—in terms of “moral truths” people believe members of their group to have discovered. For instance, both sides of the abortion debate clearly find the other group threatening[58]—and the same is clearly true across a variety of moral issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, gun-control, and so on. Insofar as human beings often do identify as members of moral groups—people who cluster around similar moral “discoveries”, viewing opposing groups as threatening out-groups—Social Categorization Theory also predicts that the Discovery Model plays a causal role in polarization.

 

3 An Anti-Polarizing Alternative? The Negotiation Model

I have argued elsewhere[59] on meta- and normative ethical grounds that although a few moral ideals (of coercion-minimization, mutual assistance, and fair bargaining) can be discovered through rational argumentation, all other moral truths—including how the above ideals should applied to applied ethical topics—should be thought of not as discoverable through intuition, argument, or any other cognitive or affective process, but instead as created by interpersonal negotiation. Let us call this the Negotiation Model of morality.

The basic idea behind the Negotiation Model is straightforward. Consider again the issue of abortion. The Discovery Model holds that there are preexisting facts about the morality of abortion (viz. its rightness, wrongness, etc.) that we can discover through intuition, argument, or some other cognitive or affective process. In contrast, the Negotiation Model holds that the moral status of abortion is literally indeterminate unless and until a social compromise has been arrived at, after which point abortion’s moral status should be seen as defined by norms negotiated, in essence settling abortion’s moral status via negotiated compromise (as in: “We have now negotiated a compromise that abortion is permissible in conditions A, B, and C, but impermissible in conditions X, Y, and Z”). On the Negotiation Model, as such, it is a meta- and normative-ethical mistake to form moral beliefs prior to social negotiation. People should instead withhold judgment on controversial moral issues, not forming moral beliefs on those issues until after clear public norms have been negotiated, after which point they should form beliefs in line with the negotiated norms (as in: “I now believe that abortion is morally permissible in conditions A, B, and C, but impermissible in conditions X, Y, and Z, because these are the standards that have been publicly negotiated as a compromise”). Importantly, on the Negotiation Model, these publicly negotiated norms—and the moral beliefs they prescribe—are not mere “maxims” or rules to follow for some further moral aim (such as, say, utility-maximization). The norms instead express genuine moral propositions about the issue in question (viz. the moral permissibility or impermissibility of abortion) that individuals should believe.[60]

The Negotiation Model obviously raises many empirical and philosophical questions. First, is the model psychologically realistic? Can people really believe (for instance) that abortion’s moral status is indeterminate prior to public negotiation, and then come to believe that public negotiation settles its moral status? Second, is the model meta-ethically and normatively justifiable? Can negotiation truly settle the moral status of abortion? Although I have argued elsewhere that the Negotiation Model is indeed justifiable meta-ethically, normatively, and psychologically[61], these are broad issues that we cannot settle here. Instead, let us examine the Negotiation Model’s theoretical relationship to this paper’s topic: group polarization.

On my preferred version of the Negotiation Model, moral truths are created by the outcome of negotiated agreements between all agents plausibly motivated by moral ideals of coercion-minimization, mutual assistance, and equal bargaining power.[62] However, because my favored account is controversial[63], let us define the Negotiation Model here more broadly, in terms of the following meta-ethical and psychological claims:

• The negotiation model of meta-ethics: aside from perhaps some moral ideals which may be discovered by rational argument (more on this shortly), moral truths do not exist to be discovered by intuition, argument, or any other cognitive or affective process, but are instead created by interpersonal processes of moral negotiation that, at the very least, involve all those with interests in the issue in question seeking to arrive at a compromise agreement on moral norms for that issue.
• The negotiation model of moral-belief formation: individuals who endorse the negotiation model of meta-ethics should tend to seek common ground with others who share relevant moral ideals; believe that morality requires moral negotiation as such; and form moral beliefs only after negotiating compromises, in line with whatever norms have resulted from compromise agreement.

Because these claims are complex, allow me to spell out their components a bit more.[64] “Moral negotiation”, as I wish to understand it, is a term of art intended to cover any and all forms of interpersonal human behavior (such as conversation, voting, and so on) that involve those with interests in a given moral issue (abortion, etc.) obeying certain discursive rules—rules that at the very least include a commitment to (A) certain regulative moral ideals as background beliefs and motivations, (B) suspending moral judgment on the issue in question before interpersonal agreement is reached, and (C) seeking a compromise agreement on moral norms for the issue in question (e.g. abortion) with others who plausibly satisfy conditions (A) and (B). Allow me to illustrate using my preferred version of the Negotiation Model—a version which, again, I do not want to presuppose the truth of here, but merely use for illustrative purposes.

As mentioned earlier, I have argued elsewhere that moral ideals of coercion-minimization, mutual assistance, and equal bargaining power can be established (i.e. discovered) through rational argument.[65] However, I argue that these are only regulative ideals—ideals that people can have legitimate interests in weighing against one another. Accordingly, on my favored version of the Negotiation Model, moral truths on controversial moral issues (e.g. abortion) should be understood in terms of the outcome of a compromise agreement between all those who plausibly share the above regulative ideals (of coercion-minimization, mutual assistance, etc.), but who may have different priorities on the issue in question. The example of abortion is, I think, instructive here. On my account, a major reason why the morality of abortion remains such a divisive issue is because individuals on both sides of the debate plausibly share relevant regulative moral ideals. Anti-abortion advocates, for example, typically claim that fetuses have a “right to life”—a claim clearly intended to help fetuses, protecting them from having their lives coercively ended. Pro-abortion advocates, on the other hand, claim women have a “right to choose”—a claim clearly intended to help women, protecting their reproductive choices from being coercively reduced. Both sides are thus plausibly motivated by regulative ideals of coercion-minimization and assisting others. The primary difference between the two sides—on my version of the Negotiation Model, at least—occurs at the level of moral priorities: anti-abortion advocates currently think the rights of the fetus should “trump” (or outweigh) the rights of women, whereas pro-abortion advocates think the rights of women should take priority. On my favored version of the Negotiation Model, because both sides share relevant regulative ideals but have different priorities, they have a duty to negotiate a compromise: it is wrong for both sides to think that they can “discover” moral correctness of their own preferred view (e.g. “Abortion is wrong!”) via intuition, argument, or any other process of discovery. Instead, the Negotiation Model requires both sides to both recognize the legitimacy of the other side’s concerns (since both sides plausibly share relevant regulative ideals), and then demonstrate a willingness to forge a compromise agreement.

What kind of negotiated compromise might emerge from such a process, say in the case of abortion? One obvious possibility—but not the only possible one—is this: because prevailing scientific knowledge indicates fetuses first become sentient between 18 to 25 weeks of gestation[66], both sides of the abortion debate could  (if they were willing to conform to the Negotiation Model) arrive at a compromise agreement that (i) early abortion prior to fetal sentience is morally permissible, (ii) abortion after fetal sentience is normally impermissible, except perhaps in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life, and finally (iii) members of society share a duty to devote ample social resources to provide sexually-active women with ready access to family-planning resources (including access to affordable early-term abortion) to prevent abortion after fetal sentience.

Such a compromise would almost certainly not fully satisfy many parties to the abortion debate—in part, I think, because the Discovery Model is so deeply entrenched in how people think about moral issues (viz. “But abortion is murder!”), but also because of the very nature of compromise (which requires “give and take”). Still, as uncomfortable as compromise may be, if the Negotiation Model is correct (as I have argued elsewhere it is), we should nevertheless accept that it is what morality requires. Further, and importantly, because people might not be wholly satisfied with a given compromise, compromises following the Negotiation Model would plausibly leave many matters open to renegotiation. If, for instance, the above compromise on abortion had serious negative effects on women’s lives (e.g. by requiring single women to bear children if the father dies late in pregnancy), individuals on the “pro-choice” side of the debate could bring that new information to bear publicly in the aim of renegotiating abortion norms (as in: “I know we have currently agreed that abortion is permissible in cases X, Y, and Z. However, because this standard of permissibility is having negative effects on women, I would like us to consider a new compromise on different standards of permissibility”). In this way, the Negotiation Model entails—plausibly, I believe, albeit provocatively—that moral truths on controversial issues can literally evolve as people lobby for and negotiate new compromises.

It might seem hard to imagine many people ever accepting the Negotiation Model, as it would require us to give up many moral convictions (about abortion, etc.) that we may believe very deeply. Indeed, the Negotiation Model’s psychological model of moral-belief formation might turn out to be difficult or even impossible for people to reliably conform to, if Haidt’s Social Intuition Model (SIM) of moral-belief formation is correct.[67] Further, some may worry that the Negotiation Model would have undesirable moral consequences, such as requiring gays and lesbians to negotiate on same-sex marriage—compromises that might set back the gay liberation movement.[68] All of these are important questions worth investigating in more detail in future research. However, because we cannot settle them here, let us instead examine the Negotiation Model’s theoretical relationship to our primary topic of inquiry: group polarization.

…[Abridged for conference presentation]…

Let us begin with Social Comparison Theory: the theory which holds that group polarization results from people adopting more extreme views to impress fellow group members. The Negotiation Model promises to undercut this polarizing mechanism in at least two ways: by (A) discouraging people from adopting first-order moral beliefs (e.g. “Abortion is wrong!”) prior to negotiating, and (B) encouraging people to see answers to controversial moral questions as created through negotiated compromise. These two discursive elements of the Negotiation Model promise to defuse polarizing mechanisms of social comparison at “step 1”: it would lead people have no settled moral beliefs for groups to cluster around (e.g. “Abortion is wrong”) in the first place. On the contrary, it would plausibly give people an anti-polarizing ideal to cluster around despite their differences: the ideal of negotiating compromises with people with different priorities who share relevant moral ideals. Importantly, existing research already indicates that group organization around such a cooperative ideal does indeed mitigate polarization and promote cooperation.[69] As such, the Negotiation Model theoretically promises to harness the forces that Social Comparison Theory identifies as responsible for group polarization to produce the very opposite: progressive convergence on a cooperative norm of negotiated compromise.

Now consider Informational Influence Theory, the theory which holds that group polarization is generated precisely by people seeking out and attending selectively to information that confirms their preexisting belief. The Negotiation Model promises to undermine the social psychological forces responsible for group polarization here as well. When people have preexisting first-order moral beliefs on a given side of an issue, as on the Discovery Model—such as the preexisting belief that abortion is wrong, or alternatively, that women have a right to abortion—the phenomenon of informational influence leads each side to attend to information in support of their preexisting moral beliefs, making each side more amenable to more extreme beliefs. The Negotiation Model, on the other hand, holds that people should not have opposing first-order moral beliefs in the first place, but should instead conceive answers to moral questions (such as the morality of abortion) as created through negotiated compromise. But now if people increasingly held this kind of first-order moral belief—the belief that answers to controversial moral questions must be negotiated—then Informational Influence Theory predicts that people would become progressively more inclined to seek out and attend selectively to their belief that moral answers must be created cooperatively through negotiation. Consequently, the Negotiation Model theoretically promises to harness the phenomena described by Informational Influence Theory to prevent polarization and promote cooperation.

Finally, consider Social-Categorization Theory, the theory which holds that group polarization results from the development of in-groups which then treat out-groups as threatening. As we have seen, in-groups and out-groups often form around divisive moral “discoveries.” For example, whereas anti-abortionists often cast defenders of abortion as a threatening out-group (“They are baby-killers!”), defenders of abortion often cast anti-abortionists the very same way (“They want to take away women’s rights!”). The Negotiation Model once again promises to halt this polarizing force at “step 1.” Insofar as it (A) holds that people should not have settled moral beliefs on issues prior negotiation, and (B) should be willing to negotiate compromises with those with different priorities, the Negotiation Model would theoretically prevent the formation of divisive in-groups and out-groups, instead promoting the development of a cooperative in-group: people who have different priorities on controversial moral issues (abortion, gun control, etc.), but who are nevertheless unified around anti-polarizing ideals of negotiation and compromise (something which, again, has indeed been found to promote cooperation[70]). Finally, Social-Categorization Theory does plausibly predicts that the Negotiation Model would generate certain types of polarization—namely, polarization between those who accept the Negotiation Model and those who accept the Discovery Model (who might indeed regard each other as threatening “enemies”), as well as polarization with those who reject relevant regulative ideals (e.g. racists, sexists, etc.). However, while Social-Categorization Theory plausibly predicts that there would be polarization between these groups—with each potentially treating the others as threatening out-groups—these would not obviously be bad forms of polarization according to the Negotiation Model, as the model itself suggests that we should not tolerate the Discovery Model or false regulative ideals.

In sum, all three empirical theories of group polarization predict that the Negotiation Model is likely to substantially reduce polarization relative to the Discovery Model, and perhaps even harness social-psychological forces to generate the opposite: a progressive willingness to cooperate and compromise.

 

Conclusion

Laypeople and philosophers tend to treat moral truths as discoverable through intuition, argument, or other cognitive or affective process. However, we have seen that there are strong theoretical reasons—based on three empirically-supported theories of group polarization—to believe this Discovery Model of morality is a likely cause of polarization: a social-psychological phenomenon known to have a wide variety of disturbing social effects. We then saw that there are complementary theoretical reasons to believe that an alternative, Negotiation Model of morality might not only mitigate polarization but actually foster its opposite: an increasing willingness for to work together to arrive at compromises on moral controversies. While this paper does not prove the existence of the hypothesized relationships between the Discovery Model, Negotiation Model, and polarization, it demonstrates that there are ample theoretical reasons to believe that such relationships are likely and worthy of further empirical and philosophical research.

 

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Joyce, R. (2015). ‘Moral Anti-Realism’, in E.N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2015 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/moral-anti-realism/.

—– (2007). The Myth of Morality (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).

Kant, I. (1797). The Metaphysics of Morals, in M.J. Gregor (ed.), The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996): 363-603.

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Kaplan, M.F. (1977). ‘Discussion Polarization Effects in a Modified Jury Decision Paradigm: Informational Influences’, Sociometry 3 40(3): 262–271.

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Korsgaard, C.M. (2009). Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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Luhan, Wolfgang J.; Martin G. Kocher; Matthias Sutter (2009). ‘Group Polarization in the Team Dictator Game Reconsidered’, Experimental Economics 12 (1): 26–41

Mackie, D.M. (1986). ‘Social Identification Effects in Group Polarization’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 50: 720–728.

Mackie, J.L. (1977). Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (London: Penguin UK).

Marquis, D. (2007). ‘An Argument Abortion is Wrong’, in Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Ethical Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell Publishing): 439-50.

McGarty, Craig; John C. Turner, Michael A., Barbara David; et al. (1992). ‘Group polarization as conformity to the prototypical group member’, British Journal of Social Psychology 31: 1–19

Morris, J.S. (2007). ‘Slanted Objectivity? Perceived Media Bias, Cable News Exposure, and Political Attitudes’, Social Science Quarterly 88(3): 707-28.

Myers, D.G.; S.J. Arenson (1972). ‘Enhancement of dominant risk tendencies in group discussion’, Psychological Reports 30: 615–623.

Myers, David G.; G.D. Bishop (1970). ‘Discussion effects on racial attitude’, Science 169 (3947): 778–779

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Parfit, D. (2011). On What Matters, Vols. 1&2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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Plous, Scott (1993). The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making (McGraw Hill).

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Pojman, L.P. (1998). ‘Abortion: A Defense of the Personhood Argument’, The Abortion Controversy 25 Years After Roe v. Wade: A Reader (Cenage).

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Pruitt, D. (1971).’’Choice shifts in group discussion: An introductory review’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 20 (3): 339–360.

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Ross, W.D. (1930). The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Rostenberg, G. (2014). ‘Why Abortion is Genocide’, Live Action News, https://www.liveaction.org/news/why-abortion-is-genocide/, accessed 6/2/2017.

Scanlon, T.M. (1998). What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Shafer-Landau, R. (2003). Moral Realism: A Defense (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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Stoner, J.A. (1961). ‘A comparison of individual and group decision involving risk’, Unpublished master’s thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Stratton-Lake, P. (2014). ‘Intuitionism in Ethics’, in E.N. Zalta (ed), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/intuitionism-ethics/, accessed 6/16/2016.

Strawson, P.F. (1962). ‘Freedom and resentment’, Proceedings of the British Academy 48:1-25.

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Thomson, J.J. (1976). ‘A Defense of Abortion’, in Biomedical Ethics and the Law (Springer).

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Warren, M.A. (1973). ‘On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion’, The Monist: 43-61.

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Notes

[1] See Isenberg (1986) and Pruit (1971).

[2] See Haidt (2012).

[3] Myers and Bishop (1970).

[4] Luhan, Kocher, and Sutter (2009).

[5] Rapp (2016).

[6] Bray and Noble (1978)

[7] Walker and Main (1973)

[8] Newman (2002), Sunstein (2002).

[9] Bray and Noble (1978), Mackie (1986).

[10] Stoner (1961); Myers and Arenson (1972); Hinsz and Davis (1984).

[11] Abrams et al (1990).

[12] I thank two anonymous reviewers for inviting me to rethink and foreground my argument’s scope.

[13] In [book title redacted], I argue that seven meta-ethical principles of theory-selection support a new normative ethical theory in line with the Negotiation Model.

[14] See e.g. Joyce (2007, 2015) and Mackie (1977).

[15] See e.g. NRLC (2016), Pro-Life Perspective (2016).

[16] See e.g. Arthur (2001).

[17] See e.g. Liberty Women’s Health (2016)

[18] See Black, Wedeman, and Mullen (2015) for a brief overview.

[19] See van Roojen (2015) for an overview.

[20] See e.g. Shafer-Landau (2003), Brink (1989), Dancy (1986), Finlay (2007).

[21] See e.g. Audi (2015) as well as Stratton-Lake (2014): introduction, for an overview of intuitionism’s resurgence.

[22] See Daniels (2013), Timmons (2007): 27-31, Vaughn (2009): 46-7, and Barcalow (2007): 14-5 for brief summaries of how pervasively reflective equilibrium is used to evaluate moral theories and arguments.

[23] See e.g. Kant (1785, 1797), Korsgaard (2008, 2009), and Katsafanas (2011).

[24] Kant (1785): 4:421.

[25] Ibid: 4:429.

[26] Ibid: 4:422-3, 4:429-31.

[27] See Nichomachean Ethics. Also see Hursthouse (1999): ch. 1.

[28] See e.g. Scanlon (1998): 4, 191; Ross (1930); Dancy (2013); and Parfit (2011): §49.

[29] See e.g. Pojman (1998) and Marquis (2007).

[30] See e.g. Warren (1973).

[31] Thomson (1976).

[32] Haidt (2001).

[33] Bray and Noble (1978), Mackie (1986).

[34] Stoner (1961); Myers and Arenson (1972); Hinsz and Davis (1984).

[35] For major confirming evidence of Social Comparison Theory, see Bray and Noble (1978), Myers and Bishop (1970), and Luhan et al (2009). For major confirming evidence of Informational Influence Theory, see Stoner (1961), Myers and Arenson (1972), Kaplan (1977), and Hinsz and Davis (1984).

[36] See Hogg et al (1990) and McGarty et al (1992).

[37] Abrams et al (1990).

[38] Bray and Noble (1978), Myers and Bishop (1970), and Luhan et al (2009).

[39] See Tosi & Warnke (2016).

[40] Isenberg (1986).

[41] Yardi and Boyd (2010).

[42] See Vinokur and Burnstein (1974)

[43] See e.g. Iyengar & Hahn (2009).

[44] See e.g. Morris (2007).

[45] Isenberg (1986).

[46] Plous (1993):  233.

[47] Hogg et al (1990).

[48] Cunningham (2009).

[49] Andrews et al. (2017).

[50] McGarty (1992).

[51] Tosi & Warmke (2016).

[52] See e.g. Haidt (2012) and Isenberg (1986).

[53] Strawson (1963).

[54] See Tosi & Warmke (2016): §2. For examples, see e.g. Cunningham (2009), Rostenberg (2014), and PoliticsUSA (2017).

[55] For instance, whereas anti-abortion websites such as Arthur (2001) and Pro-Life Perspective (2016) tend to emphasize philosophical arguments defending the moral status of human fetuses (viz. Marquis 2007 and Pojman 1998), pro-choice websites such as NLRC (2016) tend to emphasize arguments defending women’s rights to their bodies (viz. Thomson 1976).

[56] See e.g. Iyengar & Hahn (2009).

[57] Isenberg (1986).

[58] Again, see Andrews et al. (2017) and Cunningham (2009).

[59] [Reference redacted to preserve anonymized review].

[60] I thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this clarification.

[61] [Reference redacted for anonymized review].

[62] [Reference redacted for anonymized review].

[63] [Reference redacted for anonymized review].

[64] I thank an anonymous reviewer for inviting me to explicate the nature of negotiation and the model’s discursive rules in more detail.

[65] [Reference redacted for anonymized review].

[66] See Tawia (1992) and Koch (2009).

[67] See Haidt (2012). It is important to note here that empirical data supporting the SIM model have been collected under prevailing social conditions—in which most people appear to tacitly or explicitly accept the Discovery Model. Consequently, it is an open question whether a “paradigm shift” in the direction of the Negotiation Model might substantially change how individuals form moral beliefs.

[68] I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising these concerns.

[69] Brewer (1996).

[70] Brewer (1996).

[/expand]

[expand title=”Invited Comments from Michael Bishop (Florida State)” elwraptag=”p”]

Comments on Marcus Arvan’s “The Dark Side of Morality: Group Polarization and Moral Belief Formation”

Michael Bishop
Florida State University

 

Marcus Arvan’s interesting and ambitious paper argues that the mechanisms responsible for group polarization would be undone – or at least seriously weakened – by the negotiation model of morality. Let’s start with three basic ideas.

• Group polarization: The tendency of social groups to adopt ever more extreme attitudes or positions (typically toward moral or value-laden propositions).
• Discovery Model of Morality: Individuals can and sometimes do discover moral truths without essential appeal to other people (e.g., via reasoning or intuition).
• Negotiation Model of Morality: The truths of morality are the products of a fair negotiation.

We can understand the Negotiation Model in a number of different ways. Here are two.

• Idealized Negotiation Model: The truths of morality are the products of an idealized (and hence non-actual) fair negotiation. At any particular time, there’s a fact of the matter about how this idealized negotiation would go – even if that fact is epistemically remote or inaccessible. And so there’s always a fact of the matter about (say) the morality of abortion – even if it’s epistemically remote or inaccessible.
• Actual Negotiation Model: The truths of morality are the products of real, fair negotiations. Prior to such negotiations, there’s no fact of the matter about a moral issue. Moral facts are the products (creations, constructions) of such negotiations. One ought, therefore, to withhold judgment about non-negotiated moral propositions.

There are various bells and whistles one might add to the Actual Negotiation Model. But essential to it is that there’s no truth of the matter about not-yet-negotiated issues; and so one ought to withhold judgment about them.

Here’s the core of Arvan’s argument: The mechanisms of polarization work by amplifying disagreement. They turn small disagreements into big ones. Remove small disagreements and the mechanisms of polarization would stall. That’s what the Actual Negotiation Model, if fully implemented, would do. Take any potentially polarized issue. Prior to negotiations, there wouldn’t be any disagreement, since everyone would “withhold judgment” (13). And after fair negotiations, everyone would congeal around the view that was produced by those negotiations – not merely as an imperfect compromise, but as the truth about the issue. So again, with unanimity, there would be no disagreements for the mechanisms of polarization to amplify.

 

1. A Preliminary Worry: How Does the Actual Negotiation Model Work?

The Actual Negotiation Model creates consensus on potentially polarized issues. But then what’s to negotiate? People who don’t disagree don’t need to negotiate. In fact, it’s not clear that a substantive negotiation (as opposed to a “negotiation” that ends in immediate agreement) is even possible among people who don’t disagree.

Arvan describes a situation in which negotiators start with agreement about what counts as a fair negotiation but have “different priorities on the issue in question” (16). For example, on abortion, negotiators would start by placing different priorities on the value of protecting life and protecting autonomy. And then they’d negotiate by withholding judgment on the concrete issue (abortion) and negotiating over the more general issue (weighing the relevant values against each other). But this more general issue is a moral issue. Apply the Actual Negotiation Model to this general issue, and it would eliminate diversity by making everyone withhold judgment on it prior to a fair negotiation. So here’s the worry: Apply the model to every contested moral issue and it’s not clear how negotiations ever get started.

I’m going to assume there’s a straightforward way to dodge this worry. I can think of a few. They’re in the following parenthetical remark. But if I were you, I’d skip it so we can press on to more substantive concerns.

(Here are two potential solutions: (a) Negotiators start by withholding belief about (say) abortion but they have different hypotheses about the right way the issue should be resolved. And so they negotiate about that. (b) The Actual Negotiation Model might allow a small class of moral beliefs to conflict, such as perhaps general ones, e.g., how to weigh different values against each other.)

 

2. Is the Actual Negotiation Model Too Conservative?

On the Actual Negotiation Model, before fair negotiations everyone withholds judgment; after fair negotiations everyone takes the outcome of those negotiations to be not merely an imperfect compromise but the truth of the matter. The model undercuts mechanisms that amplify moral diversity (mechanisms of polarization) by eliminating moral diversity. But by eliminating moral diversity, the model also seems to undercut some pretty important mechanisms of moral change and progress.

I should hasten to note that the Actual Negotiation Model allows for certain types of moral progress. If a negotiation were only apparently fair and not genuinely fair, this would be grounds for changing a culture’s moral norms and practices. Or if a fair negotiation were based on descriptive, empirical falsehoods, this would also be grounds for changing a culture’s moral norms and practices. But the Actual Negotiation Model doesn’t allow for moral progress that’s driven by the knowledge that there are deep injustices in a culture’s norms and practices.

Here’s a way to appreciate this point: Would a culture where everyone embraced the Actual Negotiation Model allow for the existence of a Frederick Douglass, a Mary Wollstonecraft, or a Stonewall uprising? It seems that essential to being a moral beacon is being fired by conviction in the rightness of your cause. You can’t be a Douglass, a Wollstonecraft, or a person who resisted at Stonewall if you withhold judgment about the rightness of your cause or if you embrace as true compromised principles negotiated with your opponents, no matter how fairly arrived at.

A culture where everyone embraced the Actual Negotiation Model would be a profoundly conservative, change-averse culture. Take a culture that has (from our perspective) misguided norms and practices with respect to a group of people. Prior to fair negotiations, no one would have any beliefs about whether their norms are good ones or whether they can be improved. So it’s not clear what grounds anyone would have for demanding change. And after fair negotiations, once the norms and practices agreed to in those negotiations have been implemented, everyone would agree that these are the morally best norms and practices. Again, it’s not clear what grounds anyone would have for demanding change. The Actual Negotiation Model would produce a culture that lacked the potential for value-driven moral change.

The Actual Negotiation Model faces a dilemma. Does it make room for moral beacons, people who take strong action on principles that contradict a culture’s norms and practices? If not, that’s a problem that calls on us to consider alternative ways to handle polarization. If the Actual Negotiation Model does allow for the existence of moral beacons, then it must allow for the existence of moral diversity. And once you have moral diversity, what’s to prevent the mechanisms of polarization from doing their (often dirty) work?

 

3. Is There A Better Way to Handle Group Polarization?

The problem with group polarization isn’t the mere fact of disagreement. Some ways of achieving agreement are unwelcome. Political polarization in the US would disappear if everyone just agreed with the President’s tweets (were they consistent). And some disagreement is to be welcomed, such as when it helps enact needed social change. Group polarization tends to be harmful when people are seriously overconfident in their beliefs: when their level of justification doesn’t approach their level of confidence. So perhaps a better way to reduce harmful polarization is to eliminate the most egregious sources of overconfidence, such as:

• Poor critical thinking about empirical claims: For example, people often oppose changing norms of practices on the basis of poor reasoning about consequences (e.g., permitting gay marriage will lead to bestiality).
• Failing to think rationally about costs and benefits: For example, many people supported the war in Iraq because they thought it had net expected benefits. Even if this were the right conclusion to draw at the time (and I doubt it), just because something has a net expected benefit doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. There might be other obvious options with far better net expected benefits.
• Poor moral reasoning: Deriving an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’ is always (or typically, depending on your philosophical predilections) a mistake.
• Failures of epistemic virtue: The failure to be open-minded, curious, intellectually honest and courageous, etc.

I’m sure the reader can identify other sources of unjustified confidence (e.g., information bubbles). The suggestion here is that you can undo damaging group polarization by going after sources of overconfidence. The Overconfidence Model has three advantages over the Actual Negotiation Model.

1. More Unified: Polarization arises for normative and descriptive claims (e.g., climate change, heliocentrism, evolution). The Overconfidence Model can explain both types of polarization in the same way: They’re the result of unjustified confidence. Reduce overconfidence and you’ll reduce unhealthy polarization. Unless we’re to adopt a form of the Actual Negotiation Model for descriptive claims (e.g., there’s no truth of the matter about climate change until after a fair negotiation about the issue), the Overconfidence Model provides a more unified and powerful explanation for unhealthy polarization.
2. Healthy Diversity: If there is more than one way to reason rationally (and I think there is), then the Overconfidence Model can reduce harmful polarization while retaining some healthy diversity of opinion. But (for the reasons specified above) it seems that the Actual Negotiation Model, if fully implemented, can’t retain healthy moral diversity.
3. More Feasible: It’s really difficult to convince someone who’s confident that abortion is morally wrong (or morally permissible) to withhold judgment on purely metaethical grounds. For example, I’m more confident that my views on abortion are roughly true than I am that my own metaethical views are roughly true. Getting me to be more confident in the Actual Negotiation Model than in my views about abortion seems a really difficult task. (And matters get even tougher if you replace abortion with the racial views at issue recently in Charlottesville.) There’s more hope for the Optimism Model. It’s not difficult to convince someone about sources of overconfidence: Just show them how those sources work on people they disagree with. The trick is to convince them that they’ve been influenced by those same sources of overconfidence. That’s a big job, to be sure. But it’s a job many of us have had some success with. It’s part of what we do when we teach philosophy.

[/expand]

[expand title=”Invited Comments from Hrishikesh Joshi (Michigan, Ann Arbor)” elwraptag=”p”]

Comments on Marcus Arvan’s “The Dark Side of Morality: Group Polarization and Moral-Belief Formation”

Hrishikesh Joshi
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor

 

Marcus Arvan’s novel paper draws a connection between the way we think of moral truths and our tendency towards group polarization. Arvan argues that how we ordinarily think of morality – as consisting of facts to be discovered – could explain the tendency of groups to polarize around moral issues. Arvan contrasts this Discovery Model of morality with his preferred view, the Negotiation Model. On the Negotiation Model, moral facts consist of a compromise among parties who accept certain regulative ideals. That is, ordinary moral truths obtain in virtue of a compromise among people who are committed to, on Arvan’s substantive view, the ideals of coercion minimization, mutual assistance, and assuring equal bargaining power.

Arvan offers some reasons to think that the Negotiation Model, if adopted generally, would reduce the tendency towards group polarization. His strategy is to consider the three main drivers of polarization discussed in the politics and moral psychology literatures, and then argue both that i) the Discovery Model plausibly exacerbates polarization with all three frameworks, and ii) the Negotiation Model reduces polarization within the frameworks. Arvan doesn’t aim to produce a knockdown argument for this, nor a detailed empirical case – his goal is to rather make i) and ii) plausible, thus creating a stepping-stone for future research. While I think there is much to be said for the Negotiation Model in this regard, I want to offer two main points in response within these comments.

First, it would be interesting to see how this strategy maps on to group polarization with regards to non-moral, empirical claims. The example Arvan considers most closely is that of the morality of abortion. In this case, while there is little broad disagreement on the empirical facts of the matter – i.e. the various properties of the fetus, the economic and other costs of bearing children, etc. – there is strong disagreement on what morality demands. (Even this requires caveats; some of the parties in question might disagree on whether an unborn fetus has a soul, for instance. This disagreement would then be a non-moral one, though not quite empirical.)

However, not all issues on which there is polarized disagreement are like this. Consider the question of climate change, one of the most polarizing issues in modern politics (see PEW, 2016). While the issue of climate change does raise moral questions of intergenerational justice and population ethics, the chief disagreement in the modern context, I take it, is empirical. The disagreement is about the extent to which human activities contribute to global warming, and about the extent to which global warming will have severe consequences on humans. Both these points of disagreement are empirical. Some of the most well studied cases of social influence on individual judgments also involve empirical propositions. The famous Solomon Asch experiments (see Sunstein, 2002) revealed subjects’ tendencies to conform to group opinion; but the task at hand was to determine lengths of different lines – an empirical matter.

Now, the Discovery Model seems to be the only game in town in the case of such empirical facts – the facts about global warming themselves are not determined by negotiation (except in an indirect, causal way). This highlights the fact that Arvan’s strategy is limited to scenarios where there’s widespread agreement on non-moral facts, while there is disagreement on the moral import of those facts. However, it seems, a large portion of the issues on which there is partisan disagreement, involve parties not agreeing on the non-moral facts in question. As an additional example, consider the issue of minimum wage. Fiscal conservatives tend to believe that raising minimum wage will increase unemployment and thus will be bad for the poor. Fiscal liberals tend to disagree. This is, at heart, an empirical disagreement.

This raises a question for Arvan – when the different parties are negotiating as to whether some policy is the right thing to do – say the policy of setting a $15/hour minimum wage – are they supposed to agree on the empirical facts first? If so, the Negotiation Model will have very limited applicability in the context of modern political polarization. Even on an issue like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it will turn out that people on different sides of the issue consume different news sources, and thus are working from a different stock of empirical assumptions. It’s not obvious then whether negotiation in the purely moral domain can proceed. Further, it may turn out that there is no fundamental moral disagreement at all – the parties rather disagree on first order moral claims because they disagree on the empirical (historical, sociological, economic, etc.) facts of the matter.

Another issue that the defender of the Negotiation Model, qua way to decrease polarization, has to grapple with is that of determining how much of the polarizing tendencies are driven by deep features of our moral psychology – deep enough that the tendencies would survive attempts to move away from the Discovery Model. In the paper, Arvan lays out some of the research suggesting that polarization can be driven by people’s desires to impress their social group by, inter alia, “moral grandstanding,” (see Tosi and Warmke, 2016). Another driver of polarization is the tendency to disparage the out-group. Insofar as these propensities reflect deep psychological features, they can arise even if the Negotiation Model is accepted. For, in order to begin negotiation, one must think of the other party as being a reasonable interlocutor, committed to certain regulative ideals – for example: coercion minimization, mutual assistance, and equal bargaining power. However, claiming that the relevant out-group lacks these regulative ideals can be a way to impress one’s in-group, and to demonize the out-group. A proponent of the $15/hour minimum wage could thus claim that the opposing side does not care about the poor, and that a desire to have low (or zero) minimum wages reveals the lack of a commitment to assuring equal bargaining power. I want to remain neutral as to whether this is true, but want to flag that this kind of strategy will be available on almost any polarizing issue. That is, some of the group polarization dynamics can be maintained under the Negotiation Model by narrowing the group of parties who are considered to be reasonable interlocutors, having the appropriate regulative ideals. This is especially plausible against a backdrop of increasingly strong cross-partisan hostility in the U.S. and Europe (see Westwood et. al., 2017).

A different way to put the worry is this. Suppose that Haidt (2001) is actually correct in describing our moral psychology. That is, our moral judgments are formed through quick, intuitive processes, and then we rationalize our judgments through reason and argumentation. If this really is a feature of our psychology, produced as a result of millions of years of evolution, it seems that adopting the Negotiation Model just pushes the bump in the rug. Someone who believes in moral proposition P and accepts the Discovery Model will be disposed to give first-order reasons without referencing claims about social agreement (of the sort Arvan thinks are central) when challenged about P or asked to justify P. Someone who accepts the Negotiation Model, on the other hand, might defend P with different strategies – for example, by arguing that those who do not accept P lack the appropriate regulative ideals. In the end, a person’s accepting the Negotiation Model might just end up getting them to offer different sorts of reasons while making similar moral judgments.

The above considerations support some skepticism about whether the adoption of a meta- and normative ethical theory, such as the Negotiation Model, can in fact temper group polarization. That is, in the end there may be no way around the hard work required to generate institutional mechanisms for polarization reduction – such as promoting ideological diversity – and individual attempts at epistemic betterment – such as diversifying one’s information gathering processes, exposing oneself to the best counterarguments to one’s moral and political views, and so on.

 

References

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: why good people are divided by politics and religion (New York: Vintage Books).

—- (2001). ‘The emotional dog and its rational tail: a social intuitionist approach to moral judgment’, Psychological review, 108(4), 814.

PEW Research. (2016). “The Politics of Climate.” http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/10/04/public-views-on-climate-change-and-climate-scientists/ accessed 09/01/2017.

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