I was reading this article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/11/28/sci-moral-decisions-study.html
which supported the intuitively apparent thesis that we make moral judgements more quickly and often more extremely than we make pragmatic judgements. I immediately thought of Hyde park, and the state of political discourse in general. I seems like some of the confusion could be between those who see politics as mostly a moral venture, and those who see it as mostly a pragmatic one. And the drift to more entrenched and often extreme views could suggest that more people are coming to view it as a moral issue.
For that, I wonder if election campaigns are partially to blame? Let's face it, if you want to lock someone in on your side, if you can frame an argument as a moral issue (favouring your) you hopefully have quickly convinced many voters and left them fairly locked in on supporting you. But as people get more and more used to looking at politics as morals, they are probably more apt to frame other political discussions that way too.
So perhaps when looking at voter breakdowns, instead of talking about extreme and moderate voters, maybe the more accurate terms would be the moralist and pragmatist voters? The latter being more apt to be swayed by reasoned argument but also potentially locked down by being switched to the former type?
which supported the intuitively apparent thesis that we make moral judgements more quickly and often more extremely than we make pragmatic judgements. I immediately thought of Hyde park, and the state of political discourse in general. I seems like some of the confusion could be between those who see politics as mostly a moral venture, and those who see it as mostly a pragmatic one. And the drift to more entrenched and often extreme views could suggest that more people are coming to view it as a moral issue.
For that, I wonder if election campaigns are partially to blame? Let's face it, if you want to lock someone in on your side, if you can frame an argument as a moral issue (favouring your) you hopefully have quickly convinced many voters and left them fairly locked in on supporting you. But as people get more and more used to looking at politics as morals, they are probably more apt to frame other political discussions that way too.
So perhaps when looking at voter breakdowns, instead of talking about extreme and moderate voters, maybe the more accurate terms would be the moralist and pragmatist voters? The latter being more apt to be swayed by reasoned argument but also potentially locked down by being switched to the former type?
