Moral Conservatism, Distractors, and Authoritarianism

Abstract

Practical rationality involves the voters’ deliberative considerations of means to practical ends. Moral rationality involves the voter’s deeply held values, beliefs, and emotional commitments. Regarding voting decisions, moral rationality often trumps practical rationality. This chapter asks, How do the characteristics of the states, political and social attributes, and moral conservatism limit practical rationality, and what can be done to ease these limits? This chapter studies abortion and guns as key distractors and connects these sentiments to authoritarianism. It develops a set of macrolevel societal problems indicative of a state’s neglect of children and shows how these factors initially are positively related to anti-abortion sentiments; it then shows how religious traditions and participation, and a state’s human development (HD), disconnect the abortion sentiments from the indicators of child neglect. Similarly, to study support for the NRA (i.e., gun possession and use), it develops a set of macrolevel indicators of crime and incarcerations and relates these factors to sentiments about the NRA. When the HD context and the social attributes are controlled then any linkages between state crime rates and pro-gun sentiments are severed. The South and Heartland and morally conservative religious traditions and religious participation shape these pro-life and pro-gun sentiments; the other social attributes as coded have negative effects. Indicators of moral conservatism and indicators of authoritarianism have similar determinants and consequences but these constructs are not identical. But the same strategy promises to ameliorate their unfavorable consequences. Improving the quality of education could drive improvements in income, health, and politics, thereby enhancing socioeconomic status, while at the same time providing a prophylactic against any authoritarian tendencies of the voters.