Moral foundations and political ideology in the UK

Abstract

Moral foundations theory is one of the most popularised and tested lenses of recent years, with its ability to account for differences in political ideology. For the first time using a nationally representative random probability sample, we assess how the newly refined moral foundation questionnaire may explain differences in political ideology and views on political issues in the UK. We confirm a six-factor model with robust estimates for the moral intuitions of care, equality, proportionality, authority, loyalty, and purity. We then use moral intuitions to predict (a) economic left-right and socially liberal-conservative ideology and (b) the relationship between political ideology and views on salient political issues. We find moral intuitions mostly play a unifying role across a series of issues, with the exception of feelings toward patriotism and Brexit.