Moral Universes

[drcuriosity]

elissa_carey found this interesting article, looking at the essential differences in moral priority between U.S. liberals and conservatives:

Conservatives Live in a Different Moral Universe — And Here's Why It Matters [motherjones.com]

It's an interesting read for people who want to look a bit deeper at why people with different political leanings disagree with and often misunderstand or mischaracterise each other. However, I'm going to be geeky (quelle surprise!) and apply it to world building for games and stories. One of the major points in the article is a taxonomy of moral impulses, outlined below:

• Harm/care. It is wrong to hurt people; it is good to relieve suffering.
  
• Fairness/reciprocity. Justice and fairness are good; people have certain rights that need to be upheld in social interactions.
  
• In-group loyalty. People should be true to their group and be wary of threats from the outside. Allegiance, loyalty and patriotism are virtues; betrayal is bad.
  
• Authority/respect. People should respect social hierarchy; social order is necessary for human life.
  
• Purity/sanctity. The body and certain aspects of life are sacred. Cleanliness and health, as well as their derivatives of chastity and piety, are all good. Pollution, contamination and the associated character traits of lust and greed are all bad.

I can see this being used in a descriptive way to explore reasons why certain groups in a game/story world may come into conflict or work with other groups: if they differ greatly on some of their core moral priorities, then there's a reasonable likelihood of tension even if their worldviews are otherwise similar. It may also be a nice way of getting away from the old Dungeons and Dragons-style Law-Chaos/Good-Evil alignment compass, while still having a workable framework for characterising societies' moral values. In this frame of reference it's still possible for people to commit good or evil acts, but what count

Note that similar priorities wouldn't necessarily mean that groups would be firm friends, however: two groups who care strongly about purity may have different ideas of what constitutes "pure", and people who're greatly concerned about fairness may have different ideas about what rights should be upheld and how justice should be applied.

It's definitely more a design lens than a golden hammer, mind, but something to ponder perhaps.

[Current music courtesy of skonen_blades and the Unknown Origins podcast team. Nice tunes, guys, and you crack me up regularly.]