Political Conservatives and Political Liberals Have Similar Views about the Goodness of Human Nature

Political Conservatives and Political Liberals Have Similar Views about the Goodness of Human Nature. Eric Schwitzgebel with Nika Chegenizadeh. Monday, July 04, 2022. schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2022/07/political-conservatives-and-political.html

Back in 2007, I hypothesized that political liberals would tend to have more positive views about the goodness of human nature than political conservatives. My thinking was grounded in a particular conception of what it is to say that "human nature is good". Drawing on Mengzi and Rousseau (and informed especially by P.J. Ivanhoe's reading of Mengzi), I argued that those who say human nature is good have a different conception of moral development than do those who say it is bad.

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Those who say human nature is bad have, in contrast, an outward-in model of moral development. On this view, what is universal to humans is self-interest. Morality is an artificial social construction. Any quiet voice of conscience we might have is the result of cultural learning. People regularly commit evil and feel perfectly fine about it. Moral development proceeds by being instructed to follow norms that at first feel alien and unpleasant -- being required to share your toys, for example. Eventually you can learn to conform whole-heartedly to socially constructed moral norms, but this is more a matter of coming to value what society values than building on any innate attraction to moral goodness.

Thus, a liberal style of caregiving, which emphasizes children exploring their own values, fits nicely with the view that human nature is good, while a conservative style of caregiving, which emphasizes conformity to externally imposed rules, fits nicely with the view that human nature is bad.

Data: Schwitzgebel, Eric. 2022. “Do Political Liberals Have More Optimistic Views about the Goodness of Human Nature?” OSF. June 27. osf.io/ys6nj