Society & Politics

Can we find common ground without a shared reality? Can asking "What harm do they see?" lead to mutual understanding?

Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground.”

Gray, a professor of moral psychology at UNC argues that most Americans belong to an “exhausted majority” that “just wants its government to get things done and the economy to help people flourish".

Gray’s idea is that all humans make moral judgments by weighing harm. Because our prehistoric ancestors were vulnerable to predators, we constantly scan even our relatively safe modern lives for signs of threat and act to ward off potential danger.

Liberals and conservatives arrive at different moral conclusions because we weigh harms differently based on whom we believe to be vulnerable. Take the issue of abortion: I am more concerned for the pregnant person; a pro-lifer is more concerned for the fetus. But we both want to prevent harm.

Gray calls harm “the master key of morality”; it unlocks our understanding of moral judgments. “When someone has an opinion we find immoral, we can ask ourselves, ‘What harm do they see?’”

But what if the harm people see isn’t real?

What if they believe the 2020 election was stolen? What if they believe undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crime than citizens are? What if they believe Democrats execute babies after they’re born?

In Gray’s framework, it doesn’t matter. “It makes no more sense to talk about ‘objective’ harm or ‘objective’ morality". Both are in the eye of the beholder.”

We’re in this mess because one side’s perception of harm is increasingly disconnected from reality. In the world that reelected Donald Trump — there’s a strong chance they believe that immigrants are eating pets and that climate change is a hoax.

So if voters perceive harms that aren’t real, make moral judgments in response to those harms, and vote based on those judgments, then what do we do?

So, although the fearful human in me recognizes the fearful human in my neighbor, I don’t expect sharing stories to change their vote.

Can we find common ground without a shared reality? Can asking "What harm do they see?" lead to mutual understanding?
Post Opinion