Morality and other weapons

How progressive taboos cut and slice.

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Written by Rob Kurzban.

The Golden Rule

Cynics will tell you that the Golden Rule is that whoever has the gold makes the rules.

There is some truth to this, and there’s a corollary: when people with the gold make the rules, they often make rules that bring them more gold. History provides ample evidence.

For example, in Why Nations Fail, Acemoglu and Robinson answer the question in their title with one such case.¹ In the 14^th Century, Venice benefited from the commenda, a kind of contract. Suppose you were a merchant of Venice with plenty of ducats but unwilling to brave the wine dark sea. You could instead lend money to a poor nautical adventurer to sail the seas and trade for profits, giving you most of the riches, all cemented by the commenda contract. Venetian fortunes were made this way until the rich applied the golden rule: not wanting others to get rich and challenge their power, they decided the commenda was a bad thing and banned it. Acemoglu and Robinson lament what this did to Venice thus:

Instead of pioneering trade routes and economic institutions, Venetians make pizza and ice cream and blow colored glass for hordes of foreigners. The tourists come to see the pre-Serrata wonders of Venice, such as the Doge’s Palace and the lions of St. Mark’s Cathedral, which were looted from Byzantium when Venice ruled the Mediterranean. Venice went from economic powerhouse to museum.

In the late 19^th century, white politicians passed the infamous Jim Crow laws, such as grandfather clauses and poll taxes, to prevent black people from winning elections and enacting policies that benefit the black community.

In 1935, the Nazis in Germany enacted the Nuremberg Race Laws, which reduced the rights of Jews, including which jobs and professions they could have. This restriction reduced competition from Jews, helping those not so restricted.

Whoever has the gold—or, really, the power, whether from gold or other sources—makes the rules.

In the present moment, people who style themselves “progressives” have the power. They hold sway over important institutions including the presidency, Congress, legislatures in blue states, corporations, universities, the news media, entertainment, and many others. Many such people have assumed—or been given—the moniker, “Social Justice Warriors.”

This term is apt. Here I explain how morality works and how progressives have perverted the principles of justice to impose their ideology with aggressive coercion while camouflaging their attacks in the language of morality.  The progressive use of morality for coercion illustrates an important principle: morality can protect, but it is also wielded as a weapon.

Moral Attacks

Here is an idealized account of how justice and human morality work.

Someone accuses a person of doing something wrong, illegal, or immoral. That person is the Accused. Third parties to the conflict (e.g., impartial community members) decide whose side to take. These third parties observe the evidence, focusing on facts, not the identities of the accused and accuser, which is the domain of loyalty rather than morality. Then, if enough third parties side against the Accused, they attack and punish them, either collectively or through a representative like the police or courts. If the accusation is made in a formal court, the state performs the punishment through, say, fines or imprisonment. If the accusation is made informally—at a party or on social media—then the group performs the punishment. The specific kind of punishment varies and includes social censure (like branding with a scarlet letter), nasty insults, ostracism, public stoning, hanging, and so forth.

Now, that’s an over-simplification of courts and the social world. Still, it’s more or less how both moral judgment and the law, in their idealized form, operate. There are certain actions that are forbidden. If someone is accused of taking one of these actions, then people judge whether they did or not and, if so, costs are imposed, according to the local norms.

The crucial thing to recognize, however—coming back to our friends in Venice—is that each and every new rule that is minted—whether an informal taboo or a statute in criminal law—is a threat of attack on everyone who may be accused of breaking the new rule. This is simply how laws and morals work. For instance, perhaps yesterday it was fine to say the word “splendid,” but today a taboo has spread and anyone caught saying it will be ganged up on and shamed. Yesterday you could make a certain contract with a ship’s captain, but today a new law will bring the police if you do.

Creating new moral rules creates new threats and new ways for those in power to attack. This fact is simply a consequence of the way that morality—and the law—operate. (For an excellent discussion of the parallel between morality and the law, see this recent paper by Peter DeScioli.)

In my view, it is hard to overstate the importance of that fact—the power that attends the minting of new moral rules—for understanding human social life and history. According to this view, the ability to persuade others that some previously acceptable act is “wrong” represents enormous power. Morality is a weapon. This is the case because human moral intuitions tell us it is acceptable, even necessary, to hurt those who take forbidden actions as “immoral” or “wrong.” To mint a moral taboo is to mint a conditional threat: if you do this, third parties will harm you and, when they do so, they will have the backing of other third parties, so they can harm you with impunity. (Some moral rules go beyond prohibitions into duties: if you don’t do this—light a candle, recite an oath, kill the infidel, etc.—then we’ll harm you.)

Actually, in many cultures, it’s even more dangerous than that.

For some proscribed actions, people are morally obligated to believe the accusation, so you can be attacked simply for being accused of doing it.

In 1536, for instance, King Henry VIII wanted to marry Jane Seymour, an awkward wish because he was already married to Anne Bolyn. He falsely accused Bolyn of adultery and treason—among other crimes—to have her executed, clearing the way to remarry.

In 17^th century Salem, there were conflicts, as there always are, over zero-sum resources, such as land for grazing. In 1692, Ann Putnam, then a young girl, leveled an accusation of witchcraft against Rebecca Nurse, a woman with whom the Putnam family was in a dispute over land. Rebecca Nurse was tried, eventually found guilty, and executed, removing a key figure from the family of a rival of the Putnams. (Ann would later say she was sorry she had caused Rebecca to be killed.)

On January 30^th, 1939, Adolf Hitler gave a speech to the Reichstag, continuing his pattern of accusing Jews of committing myriad sins, including economic crimes such as causing unemployment and instigating inflation. It was in this speech that Hitler foretold that in the event of war, Jews in Europe would be annihilated. 

Throughout history, moral attacks have made some people powerful, some rich, and many dead.

Wait. Isn’t Morality Nice? An Interlude

Aporia readers, who are likely familiar with evolutionary views of morality, might be confused. A main thread in evolutionary communities is the idea that moral psychology is for cooperation.

The reason for this—I would argue, confusion—is somewhat semantic. People who study “morality” have focused on phenomena such as conscience and goodness. Why do people conform to rules and why do people deliver benefits to others? However, the question of why people are altruistic or obey rules is very different from the question of why people think that certain actions—violence, lending money, dancing—are wrong. Consider that when people discuss moral dilemmas, they are referring to decisions about what action to take that might be considered wrong. Is it wrong to push the guy with the backpack off the footbridge? That’s a moral dilemma. Should I donate to the charity that supports dogs or the one that ships mosquito nets? That’s a dilemma about altruism or goodness. But it’s not a moral dilemma.

So what is morality for? Well, disagreement continues but I have argued, with Peter DeScioli, that human moral judgment is a way to choose sides. A conflict breaks out. Maybe your partner slams into another skier on the slope. You want to avoid being on the losing side of the conflict that is about to emerge, so you choose based on who did what—barreling into another skier—rather than who you like most—your partner. By using actions to choose sides, people can avoid siding with someone who is about to be attacked by other third parties.

In short, no, moral judgment isn’t for cooperation. It’s for side-taking.

This account explains the puzzling fact that many moral rules don’t actually improve cooperation—prohibitions on everything from art to zoophilia are examples—and many rules, in fact, make things worse for entire communities, sometimes for generations. The prohibition on the commenda is one such rule.  

Because morality is for side-taking, it can be used for attacks.

Lady Justice

Above I suggested that each new moral rule creates jeopardy: those judged to have broken the rule can be harmed by third parties. But it’s actually much, much more fraught than that.

Most simply, as in the commenda example, people in power can mint new rules. They can mint rules that advance their interests. Religious leaders could mint rules against heresy. Wealthy people might mint rules against taxation. Influential married people might mint rules against sex outside of marriage. Generally, people try to implement rules that advance their interests or those of their group.

There are several additional ways people with power change the rules of the game to help some and harm others.

To illustrate, consider Lady Justice as a guide. Lady Justice has three key features: a balance, a blindfold, and a sword. The balance refers to weighing evidence fairly. The blindfold refers to impartiality: actions are evaluated based on the facts, not the identity—serf or noble—of the accused or victim. The sword symbolizes the punishment of those found guilty.

In an ideal world, so outfitted, Lady Justice is as much a defender of rights as distributor of punishment: human moral judgment can protect us. Across cultures, a common moral rule is that unprovoked, intentional attacks are categorized as “wrong” and subject to sanction. This deters unprovoked, intentional attacks, which is all to the good. Similarly, rules that prohibit stealing are good for everyone who has possessions they want to keep, as discussed in books on economic development such as Why Nations Fail. In short, when moral rules specify harmful acts and accusations are judged impartially by the evidence, much good can result, including preventing many assaults, robberies, and murders. Reciprocally, humans and their cultural institutions can interrogate facts, set standards of evidence, and apply the laws uniformly, protecting the innocent and disempowered from unjustified moral attacks.

Moreover, those in power can change not only the rules but also each aspect of Lady Justice, turning her from Lady Justice into a marauder who slays her tribe’s enemies and puts their heads on spikes. Indeed, history teaches us that once a coalition gains power, they will alter the rules of the game to serve their interests and advance whatever ideology has taken hold of them.

Removing the Blindfold

Impartiality is the cornerstone of morality.

Impartiality means that the rules—prohibitions, duties, and rights—apply to everyone. Impartiality is the enlightenment rule of law and a signature feature of morality.

Its value is best seen when it is absent and the blindfold has been removed. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, in various times and places, people have chosen sides partially, picking by focusing on the identity of those involved in the conflict. For example, Victor Hugo wrote about a time in Paris when those in power chose sides according to nobility: the authorities believed and sided with aristocrats over commoners. In the American South in the 1940s and 50s, state authorities sided with a person who was white over someone who was black. In both cases, the powerful could use the rules to attack members of subordinate groups because third parties could “see” the identities of both sides, lacking the blindfold of justice. They could also operate outside the law, as illustrated by lynching and other vigilante attacks.

These regimes represent Lady Justice without her blindfold, when she is no longer, in truth, Lady Justice. When people take sides by focusing on identity, morality is no longer really morality—about actions—and instead rules become a pretext for coercion by authorities or alliances. That is, if third parties in a given community always side with someone of a particular race, class, sex, orientation, or what have you, then that community isn’t really governed by morality. It’s simply one in which members of the powerful group attack members of the less powerful group, though they will often still use the language of morality (and, possibly, the legal system).

Putting a Thumb on the Scale

The symbolism behind Lady Justice’s scale—really it’s a “balance”—is the idea that both sides of the conflict can state their case and the evidence on both sides will be weighed.

People with power can put their thumbs on the scale, however.

Let’s combine the missing blindfold with a loaded scale. Suppose a powerful coalition knows that they are unlikely to break a given rule. At the same time, they expect that their opponents are likely to break the rule, or to be suspected of breaking it. In that case, they can favor strengthening the rule so they can use it to attack their opponents. Under these conditions, they can tip the scales in favor of successful attacks in multiple ways.

For one, they can change the criteria for deciding that the rule has been broken, the standard of evidence. For serious offenses, we are used to hearing the term “beyond a reasonable doubt,” a standard that leads to fewer guilty convictions but prevents false convictions of innocent people. But, again, if those in power are unlikely to be falsely convicted, they can relax the standard to a looser one, such as a preponderance of evidence or even strict liability.

Another way to weight the scale is to reduce the common requirement that an offense must be intended by the accused. In both the law and life, by and large we judge actions to be wrong when the person committed the violation intentionally. If you step on my foot, I’ll react very differently if you saw my foot and stomped on it as opposed to if you tripped and stumbled onto it accidentally. Now, I might be irritated if we’re on a subway train and you weren’t holding on—you were being reckless—but I won’t fault you if you wind up on top of me after a crash.

So, people in power can launch more successful moral attacks by reducing the requirements for intention and knowledge in finding someone guilty. To return to maritime trade, historically ship captains were strictly liable for loss or damage of goods. It didn’t matter if they stole the goods or a storm blew them off decks. From the perspective of the provider of the capital—the people with power—it was helpful to hold captains responsible even if they had no malign intent at all.

The Sword Becomes a Thousand Daggers

Which brings us to the final way in which Lady Justice has been weaponized: her sword has become a thousand daggers.

Moral judgment is, by its very nature, something of a team sport. Choosing sides based on actions gets its power exactly because choosing sides this way attracts other third parties—who also use actions to choose—on the same side. In some sense, then, mobbing is a natural and necessary consequence of moral judgment.

However, there is mobbing and there is mobbing. Take the case of Justine Sacco, arguably the first in a long line of targets of cancellation. Had she made the same joke at a party in the 1990s or 1980s, maybe those in earshot think less of her, or more likely, since people still had a sense of humor, they would shrug it off as a joke. Maybe, worst case, they tell a few friends who scorn her and leave her off their holiday card list. But there’s no way that joke turns into losing her job, her friends, and her ability to live out in the open.

Now, in the age of social media, her remark is broadcast to everyone and, in turn, everyone piles on, in part due to how much sadistic pleasure people take in joining moral attacks. Now, perhaps she deserved some punishment, some “accountability” as the unaccountable mob likes to call it. If someone acts like a jerk, maybe a little elbow to the ribs will make them more considerate next time.

But when does a jerk deserve not one jolt to the ribs, but thousands? Social media multiplies punishments into the hundreds, thousands, and millions. Even more striking, these punishments are dealt to the victim—I say victim instead of guilty because mobbers don’t care much about guilt—when the person is at their most powerless, beaten down by an inhuman mob of digital trolls.

If someone is a jerk, would you kick them when they’re lying on the ground with their hands tied behind their back? Isn’t that cowardly and inhumane, even if they deserve some punishment? The digital mafia attacks people who are helplessly outnumbered, the same as having their hands tied and feet bound. Hordes of vigilantes kick the helpless accused and then call it social justice and accountability.

The internet has turned the sword into a thousand daggers.

Social Justice Warrior

The last decade, and then some, has seen an onslaught of moral attacks from progressives. The so-called “grievance studies affair” illustrates the trend. Scholars submitted bogus papers to critical theory journals—many of which were accepted—highlighting that progressives eagerly accept claims that focus on grievances, claims that certain groups of people have been oppressed and wronged by more powerful groups. Progressives continuously and loudly levy accusations of racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, fatphobia, cultural appropriation, Islamophobia, transphobia, even genocide, and so on. These attacks bear the superficial hallmarks of Lady Justice—claims of wrongdoing and demands for punishment—but progressives have perverted Lady Justice so much that she is unrecognizable.

In this final section, I illustrate some of the perversions of Lady Justice drawing on the ideas above.

First, the blindfold. Removing the blindfold is the most important feature of progressive ideology. The progressive viewpoint is that guilt or innocence is determined by your identity, not independent of it.

Nothing better illustrates the point than progressives’ indifference to the rape of Israeli women. The #metoo movement sought maximal punishment for any sexual offense by a man, including mild, even unintentional discomfort a woman felt. To this end, the movement used the techniques described above: guilt determined by group membership (if the accused is male he’s guilty), thumbs on the balance (intentions and evidence are irrelevant), and no punishment is too great for any offense. Yet, progressives reacted to the gang rape of Israeli women with silence at best and at worst denial. This reaction was so obviously inconsistent, it drew easy lampooning. The explanation for this is that #metoo—which was party defensive but also a moral weapon to target male opponents at workplaces, colleges, and in political competition—wasn’t applied because in the intersectional hierarchy, Palestinian men rank above Israeli (white) women. The fact that the movement was not really about minimizing sexual harassment was made crystal clear by these reactions as well as cases when the accused is a woman: in such cases—blindfolds are off—the accused is defended.

This can be taken to the extreme, requiring no evidence at all, to find the accused guilty. This standard is illustrated by the term—and hashtag—believe women. This criteria for guilt—merely the accusation—guarantees that anyone accused will be deemed guilty at the cost of many false convictions of innocent men. From any given woman’s perspective, this might be a worthwhile tradeoff because they personally are unlikely to be accused. Being immune from accusations—holding aside accusations from other women—this thumb on the scale harms them little while adding a weapon for conflicts with men.

The progressive view of racism shares precisely the same features. Accusations of racism are a means of attack, not only defense. There is no balance when these judgments are made. People in the progressive community side with the person or group who is highest in their oppression hierarchy, even in the face of evidence of horrific actions. Indeed, there is no longer even a pretense that the blindfold is still on: the racism rules only apply to members of some groups. This is visible in the progressive mantra that white people can’t be victims of racism, a bald claim that the prohibition of racism can only hurt and can never protect white people.

Being accused of racism has life-altering consequences, as people ranging from Justine Sacco to Amy Cooper, and many others have discovered. Related, as in cases such as Emmanuel Cafferty, the thumb is on the scale: intentions no longer matter. If, however, the targets of racism are “oppressors,” all of the rules change. This explains why the Presidents of prominent universities couldn’t bring themselves to say that calling for genocide against Jews was harassment. The key piece is that progressive ideology does not serve to protect people, generally. It’s purpose is to protect some people and to attack others.

Another thumb on the balance is reducing the standard for intentions, as discussed above. For instance, people used to recognize that mentioning a slur, in the course of a discussion is not wrongful because the speaker has no intention to insult anyone, unlike using a slur as an insult, an intentional offense considered wrongful. Again, however, those immune from such accusations—or those who want to signal alliance with those so immune—gain a weapon by changing the offense from requiring intent to strict liability: no intent or knowledge needed. This distortion goes by the progressive mantra, “impact not intent:” they do not care what you meant.

There is yet another way to widen the net to increase convictions of racism: make the rule apply retroactively. Again, people used to recognize the distinction between the use and mention of taboo language. Now that the distinction has been eliminated—liability is strict for certain terms—aggressors can unearth someone’s prior use of a taboo term, and then use it to smear their opponents and summon a mob against them.

Motives

The list of moral attacks could, of course, go on indefinitely. I close with the question of motive. Why is there a close link between progressive ideology and moral attacks? While there is much debate on this topic, I think a few possibilities present themselves.

First, progressive ideology is, at its heart, a belief that the world consists of oppressors and the oppressed. If one genuinely believes this worldview, then one might believe that the oppressors deserve punishment. Perhaps moral attacks seem to be an expedient way to deal the punishment they deserve. If all men are pigs, or all whites are racist, or all Jews are genocidal, then maybe it makes sense to attack them indiscriminately, with little regard for evidence or intentions. And it’s cheap and easy to throw daggers from behind a keyboard, or from within an angry mob of rioters. 

 Physical attacks would themselves be punished, but moral attacks rarely are.

A second possibility is that progressives are in a feedback loop. Suppose that some progressives genuinely believe that whites, men, Jews, and so on, deserve to be punished and so launch moral attacks on them. Then, in the same way that witchcraft accusations spiral, people launch pre-emptive attacks on others to demonstrate they are a “good” ally, to avoid being attacked themselves. After all, the progressives warn that “silence is violence,” so you have a choice: condemn or be condemned. As this grew more common, the tactic itself became more valuable, leading to a cycle.

Related, bandwagoning—or dogpiling in internet slang—presents opportunities. Condemners can burnish their credentials as “good” members of their coalition by righteously stabbing the accused. Expressing scorn shows a commitment to the moral rules that distinguish the coalition, especially parochial rules that are not widely observed outside of the coalition. And again, the growing mob provides a safe cover for throwing verbal daggers. As we have seen, people who pile on are attacking an individual who is now powerless, held down and beaten by the digital mob.

Another possibility is that people launch moral attacks to gain advantages over rivals, settle scores, and clear the way for their own success. Bill Ackman reported in a recent letter to the president of Harvard that senior professors complained that in their departments, hiring straight white males is “off the table,” clearing a career path for everyone else. That’s a straightforward motive to habitually condemn a large category of people, as they would put it, the “intersectionality” of “whiteness” and “heteronormative masculinity.” It appears that condemning those bad abstractions can get you a concrete job at Harvard.

Attacks can be personal. In my own case, I pointed out misrepresentations in the scholarly literature made by Michael Weisberg, my colleague at the time, which he did not appreciate. When my Justine Sacco moment arrived, he and his allies used the opportunity to amplify the moral attack in revenge. As in the witch trials, bandwagoning has always allowed unscrupulous opportunists to attack whether for gain or revenge; the internet metastasized this kind of nasty gossip.

The motive to accuse should be particularly tempting for people in protected classes. With the blindfold off, people know that they are immune from certain forms of attack: blacks from charges of racism against whites, women from charges of harassment, and so forth. In 2016, Jessica Cantlon, at the University of Rochester, led a #metoo charge against a colleague, Florian Jaeger. According to reporting, Cantlon and Jaeger were competing over the hire for a faculty line. After two internal investigations that cleared Jaeger of violating any university policy, an external report concluded that "the complaints' narrative—framed through the language of sexual predation and retaliatory animus towards women—is largely without factual basis." For anyone who is immune from consequences, attacks must be tempting in the course of conflicts and competition.

Finally, there are ways to attack one’s colleagues, enemies, and rivals without using the language of morality. Why do progressives recruit (ironically) the language of “justice” and its accoutrements? When progressives marched under the banner of Black Lives Matter, the language of justice and morality were useful because moral language attracts allies. This has been very effective, but it seems to be currently falling apart because Jews, part of the progressive coalition, are seeing that their allies are not their allies. This analysis demystifies a linguistic puzzle. On the one hand, this ideology styles itself one of “social justice.” On the other hand, observers have noted that the dogpiles, the medieval standard of guilty-until-proven-innocent, and the blatant favoritism of some groups over others is precisely not “justice,” as generally understood.

The explanation is that they have clothed themselves in the garments of Lady Justice while perverting each of her three features. The progressive movement has transformed Lady Justice, keeping only the language of “justice,” but not its essence. Because morality can be used as a weapon, as we have seen, progressives have relentlessly crafted it into one.

In summary, “Social Justice” has weaponized Lady Justice. Social Justice is a woman without a blindfold, with her thumb on the scale, and who leads a mob with a thousand daggers. She has become a warrior.

Rob Kurzban has a PhD in Psychology from University of California Santa Barbara and Masters of Public Administration from the Fels Institute of Government. He also writes for Living Fossils. You can find more of his essays there.

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1. I drew some of this prose from this old post. Remember, recycling is eco-friendly.