The Liberal Morality Crisis

Many liberals in these heterodox communities have lamented that they haven't changed, but the Democratic party has.

The policies of political organizations inevitably drift over time. Sometimes these shifts are unavoidable, the direct result of confronting technologies that didn't exist before, like cloning or semi-automatic rifles. Other times, the reasons are unclear, leaving the party's members scratching their heads about what, exactly, just happened. As one blogger observed, it is the left who has historically criticized the “medical industrial complex” and its capitalist motives. It isn't obvious that support for vaccine mandates would have come from the left.

I'm interested in the direction liberal politics have taken, and how the temperamental differences between small-l liberals and small-c conservatives contribute to, or conflict with, these changes. In particular, I'm interested in how modern liberal politics convey—or, it would seem, often fail to convey—the moral beliefs of liberals.

Before I begin, let me be clear: I am a liberal. I'm not even one of the recent spate who's made a grand gesture of departure from the party. Third-party candidates sometimes catch my interest, but number 45 will never be an option. I want unfettered access to abortion for women and girls of every age. I want basic human rights for every kind of person. Social programs are good and necessary, even if it isn't always clear which ones work well.

Because I'm a liberal, I'm especially disenchanted with the way liberals have lost the plot. And I'm positioned to criticize the left's mistakes in a way that uncharitable outsiders can't, with love and concern.

In The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt presents the case of Armin Meiwes, a man who murdered, dismembered and ate a willing victim for sexual pleasure in 2001. In his dissertation research, Haidt found that liberal students had trouble condemning Meiwes' behavior on moral grounds, even when disturbed by it. "Just because something is disgusting,” they said, “that doesn't make it wrong.” Haidt reviews the arguments that apparently led to his students' judgment, placing each within his theory of the six “moral foundations” he believes underpins moral decisions. It's worth a read.

I have some thoughts of my own, which depart from Haidt's, on why some liberals can't judge Meiwes' actions immoral. I'm going to save those for another article. Indeed, this article, I hope, will be an introduction to a series of articles on the state of liberal morality.

For now, I would like to list some of the morally troubling positions liberals have come to adopt.

• The defense of “kinks” that amount to sexual violence, to the extent that a man killing a woman is sometimes reported as “rough sex” gone awry

• The belief that sadism is morally equivalent to masochism

• The defense of international human rights abuses in the name of meta-ethical moral relativism

• The downplaying of the harms of the sex and pornography trade

• The removal of the breasts and genitals of children suffering psychological distress

• The enabling of drug addicts

• The vicious bullying of those deemed ideological opponents

Without straying too far into the “why” at this juncture, it's safe to say that liberals see ourselves as the party of rationality and science, and that many of these positions result from analyzing with the brain at the cost of caring with the heart. It's long been noted that reason and logic can be used to determine, for example, what policies best respect individuals' rights. But reason and logic can't tell you why it's morally good to respect individuals' rights, nor what those rights should be. That has to come from intuition, which consults empathy, which comes from embodiment. That's the human part of the equation. Humanity. Humane-ness.

I'm an atheist and a freethinker who values rationality and science, but I'm not a moral relativist. One need not imply the other.

We are supposed to be the compassionate party. Let's not get so proud of our arguments that we forget to love our fellow humans.