Liberals and Conservatives Make Different Assumptions of Vulnerability, Explaining Moral Disagreement

Political disagreement can make it seem like liberals and conservatives have different moral minds, but here we show how moral disagreement can arise from a universal harm-based morality—people make different assumptions about who and what is especially vulnerable to harm. Assumptions of vulnerability (AoVs) predict people’s moral judgments, implicit attitudes, and charity behaviors, and can also be experimentally manipulated. We highlight four clusters of targets—the Environment, Othered, Powerful, and Divine—where liberals and conservatives hold different AoVs, helping to explain political disagreements about hot-button issues from abortion to policing. More generally, liberals amplify group differences in vulnerability, splitting the world into the very vulnerable (oppressed) versus the very invulnerable (oppressors), while conservatives dampen group differences in vulnerability, seeing all people as similarly vulnerable to harm. AoVs show how people with a common harm-based mind can make starkly different moral judgments, and they provide opportunities for bridging divides.