Why the church opposes equality - Moral Foundation Theory

[oliver_denom]

This is something that's been on my mind a lot. Why has the church put so much energy, time, and money preaching against the cultural shift towards acceptance of homosexuality, equal gender rights (ERA / Title IX), and civil rights (priesthood ban)? The most common explanation is that the opposition is rooted in doctrine, or that God has personally commanded it through the leadership. These answers are unsatisfying for a number of reasons but my main objection, assuming that God isn't the author of this behavior, is that there is a revelatory process available to tweak the doctrine if that's what the leadership wanted to do. They did this with polygamy, and they did it after lifting the priesthood ban in 1976. If the leadership wanted to make a change, then doctrine isn't much of an obstacle. Assuming, as I do, that it is in fact personal prejudice which prevents revelatory changes to doctrine, then what is the source of that prejudice?

Previous to reading "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt, my assumption was that the prejudice was mostly cultural. Mormonism is a conservative culture, I reasoned, therefore they will be slower to change. Couple a resistance to change with doctrinal barriers, and that seemed like a good enough explanation. Haidt doesn't necessarily undo that guess, but he did provide additional insight. Morality, he argues, is not something that one reasons but something that one feels instinctively. Reason, instead of being the source of morality, is what the mind uses to rationalize what the moral subconscious has already decided. He compares the arrangement to a rider (reason) on top of an elephant (moral instinct) whose job it is to serve the elephant. The elephant leans one way, and the rider looks at the path ahead in order to figure out how to best clear the way. In other words, the reasons we ascribe to our moral decisions are largely post hoc assertions. The smarter you are, the better you are at making up reasons for and even arguing in behalf of your innate moral senses.

So what makes the elephant tick? Haidt argues that the human mind has evolved six common moral triggers, or centers within the mind, that cause moral feelings when activated. He likens these triggers to the senses or taste receptors on the tongue. When one is activated, we have a moral or gut reaction. Like the senses, this reaction is immediate and felt, not the result of reasoned analysis. These triggers evolved in order to aid human survival, for example, the Care/Harm trigger is most powerfully tripped when we see a child in distress. It's easy to see how this would be beneficial, especially when parents have to care for their own children. But this trigger can be fooled, it's also tripped when people feel a desire to protect other "cute" or babyish species. There are also triggers concerning Fairness/Cheating and Liberty/Oppression. Each of these triggers and the degree to which we feel and react to events that trip their reaction make up our moral foundation, thus it's called moral foundation theory. It's these three triggers in particular which are most important to those who identify as liberal. But there are six foundations, and liberal morality is heavily skewed towards just three. Conservatives also include these three in their moral foundation, but they differ in that they give more weight to the remaining pairs: Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation. If I were to analyze my own attitudes towards Mormonism, for example, then I'd have to admit that I do not place much emphasis on in-group loyalty or authority, and my views of sanctity are wildly different from church teaching.

The reason I found this model insightful is because it suggests that conservative religion and its adherents have a moral feel, or powerful gut reaction, to moral triggers that I don't feel to the same degree. In fact, it may be that loyalty, authority, and sanctity are the most important moral elements needed to create cohesive community. When applied to Mormonism, authority in particular is the single moral value which guides almost every aspect of life from the president of the church down to a father in each home. They feel, I want to emphasize the word feel, that authority, in-group loyalty, and sanctity (rules governing the body and sacred things) are the actual glue which bonds their community and families. The feeling is that these bonds would fly apart if authority is ignored, the in-group no longer favored its own members, and that rules of sanctity are ignored. What's crazy about that feeling is that it may be correct. A move toward liberal thinking may be directly proportional to the loosening of Mormon ties to one another and its ability to operate as wards and stakes. If people no longer do as they are told and then turn to outsiders, then Mormonism's hold on their lives greatly diminishes, and the reasons they congregate together weaken in equal measure.

So with this understanding of morality as an emotive response which triggers differently within individuals but similarly within groups, what do gay rights, gender equality, and the civil rights movement have in common? They question tradition (authority), open the community to outsiders (loyalty), and redefine sanctity. Over generations, changes like the acceptance of civil rights and the equality of races can be folded into tradition and former outsiders can be brought into the group. Given enough time, moral opposition to these movements will wane because they've been around long enough to no longer threaten these important conservative moral centers. When people like Oaks say that the church is making a moral stand, I think that's probably true, except it's not in the same sense as he means it. He means that these things are universally and eternally wrong, morally, but I think it's more of the case that they only feel wrong to people like Oaks. After the feeling of moral wrong passes for things like homosexuality or women in authority, then doctrinal change will follow shortly there after.

Anyway, I look forward to any thoughts you might have.

[achilles]

I had the same thoughts myself after I read Haidt. In applying his Moral Foundations Theory to the recent Policy (or PoX), I came up with two possible explanations for their stand against gay marriage:

1-It is a violation of sanctity--if they truly believe gay marriage to be not simply malum prohibitum but actually malum in se, they would see it as degrading a holy institution. Following this logic, gay marriage is more evil than gay sex because it mocks the holy institution of eternal man/woman marriage. It adds to the balance of evil in the cosmos, and will lead to the destruction of the world. When done by a member of the Church, it is a grave evil: in addition to degrading the sacred institution of marriage, it subverts the authority of the Brethren and is disloyal to the Church.

2-It is a cancer on the body of the Church. Members must not be allowed to rub elbows with successful gay families because it will tempt them to allow compassion and reason to overcome their will to defend the principle of eternal man/woman marriage. These families must be excised at all costs--even if it harms innocents (the children of gay couples). Harming a small number of innocents is much more desirable than the potential harm that would be inflicted upon the body of the Church by the inclusion of gay families. This is especially concerning to the Brethren because they know they are losing the hearts of the youth in this fight.

Being liberal I disagree with these worries because I value care, fairness, and liberty over sanctity, loyalty, and authority.

Here are some links for folks:

http://moralfoundations.org/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malum_prohibitum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malum_in_se

[Linked]

Interesting write up Oliver. Can you do these daily?

Personally my Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating and Liberty/Oppression triggers are very powerful. I was the one who got in trouble fighting for the rights of a lizard that was being tortured at Scout camp. And my Loyalty/Betrayel, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation triggers are almost non-existent. I've don't typically accept something to be true because an authority said so, I need proof or at least a strong argument. In many cases it seems like loyalty is a one way street, so why would someone be loyal in that situation? And as long as someone has their liberty what could degrade them?

[oliver_denom]

1-It is a violation of sanctity--if they truly believe gay marriage to be not simply malum prohibitum but actually malum in se, they would see it as degrading a holy institution. Following this logic, gay marriage is more evil than gay sex because it mocks the holy institution of eternal man/woman marriage. It adds to the balance of evil in the cosmos, and will lead to the destruction of the world. When done by a member of the Church, it is a grave evil: in addition to degrading the sacred institution of marriage, it subverts the authority of the Brethren and is disloyal to the Church.

This lines up to my thoughts while reading Haidt. Mormonism has a powerful affinity for viewing the human body as a sacred object, especially when it comes to sex. Emile Durkheim, in "The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life", pointed out that what separates a sacred object from something profane is the way in which it is treated. Mormonism fetishizes the body, because it's preserved in the Celestial kingdom after the spirit conquers the flesh, and since the body must become holy it needs rules governing how it's treated. Mormonism makes the body sacred by making it adhere to a diet regiment (WofW), prescribing how it is to be covered or displayed, and the ways in which it can be used sexually. Any violation of these rules represents a sacrilege, again, something that is felt more than reasoned.

In the beginning of his book Haidt describes several situations meant to confound people's rational sense in order to uncover the nature of their moral triggers. One of them involved the story of a man who weekly goes to the store to buy a chicken. Once he brings it home, he has sex with it before cooking and then eating it for dinner. People who are told this story are asked whether or not the man did anything morally wrong. The questioner was instructed to answer any questions the respondent may have in order to convince them that no harm was being done to any person or animal. For example, the chicken was already dead, no one witnessed the act, no one ate the left overs, and precautions were taken to ensure there was no disease transmittal. Those who's moral triggers were mostly centered on the Care/Harm foundation were left without any justification for calling this act morally wrong. They may have been disgusted by it, but they had a hard time pin pointing why it might be wrong if no one was being hurt. But those who were triggered by the moral sense that the body is sacred, or that God would not approve (divinity), were more likely to say that the act was obviously wrong regardless of whether or not anyone was injured.

There's an obvious difference between two human beings having sex and a man having sex with a raw chicken, but the underlying trigger may be the same for those who have an instinctive reaction to same sex relationships. The body is sacred, and somehow, the sacredness trigger is fired when people consider two men or two women having sex. They may not understand why they feel this way, and they may immediately adopt the church's rationale, but the important thing to understand is that the feeling is a knee jerk instinct for them. It's not that way for everyone, but it seems to be that way for those who already identify as conservative or traditionalist. This, more than anything, may provide an explanation for why people are more accepting of homosexuality after people who are openly gay enter their social sphere. At that point feelings of loyalty, care, and harm trump any initial feelings they may have felt over the possible sacrilege of forbidden sex.

[2bizE]

I always thought the reason was related to ethnocentrism. Our leaders have always believed the entire world evolved around them. They made all decisions and expect all to follow their rules. How dare outside pressure for [enter topic here] try to influence their people and take away their control.

[moksha]

An alternative idea, that the opposition to equality is based on reasons that are wholly amoral, might also be considered. To slave owners, slaves are a means of labor for both the convenience of their owner and economic profit. The patriarchy benefits from the subservience of women in somewhat the same way.

The concept of Schadenfreude, the pleasure derived from the misfortune of others, might be a play more than any moral constructs in regards to the Church stance on homosexuality. If that is the case, abnormal psychology may be the root cause.

[fh451]

Very interesting analysis, Oliver. Haidt's book is very helpful in understanding different points of view on morality and does a reasonable job of explaining why people can hold what seem to be opposing views on certain subjects and still consider themselves "moral." Two thoughts come to mind: (1) while our morality may be an "elephant" on which we are just along for the ride, the elephant can also be controlled over time by gentle persuasion and careful training. It won't be done by brute force, because the elephant is a lot bigger than us and in many ways does have a mind of its own - our subconscious is not easily subdued. As an example in my own case, I think as a TBM I found homosexuality repugnant, whether that was by cultural inculcation or innate feeling. But over time I've done my best to overcome that phobia by rational thinking, and I no longer feel the same revulsion I once did. Sure, I'm still straight, but I embrace equal rights for the LGBTQ community and try to think about gay couples the same way I would any straight couple, which is as just a normal part of life.

(2) The church's conservative emphasis on loyalty/betrayal probably plays a significant role in how many members react to finding out about the sordid history and significant moral failings of the church's founder and other leaders. It sets us up to have a strong negative reaction and eventually leave over the feelings of betrayal. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

fh451