Moral Support: How Moral Values Shape Foreign Policy Attitudes

2014/06/04 by Joshua D. Kertzer, Kathleen E. Powers, Brian C. Rathbun +1 · 376 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cultural Differences and Values #Epistemology #Foreign policy #Harm #Idealism #Ingroups and outgroups #International Relations and Foreign Policy #Law #Loyalty #Moral psychology #Morality #Philosophy #Political science #Politics #Psychology #Public opinion #Reciprocity (cultural anthropology) #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology #Sociology

paper · open access · doi:10.1017/s0022381614000073

published in The Journal of Politics 76(3), 825-840 (University of Chicago Press)

openalex publication_date 2014/06/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

Although classical international relations theorists largely agreed that public opinion about foreign policy is shaped by moral sentiments, public opinion scholars have yet to explore the content of these moral values, and American IR theorists have tended to exclusively associate morality with liberal idealism. Integrating the study of American foreign policy attitudes with Moral Foundations Theory from social psychology, we present original survey data showing that the five established moral values in psychology—harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, authority/respect, ingroup/loyalty, and purity/sanctity—are strongly and systematically associated with foreign policy attitudes. The “individualizing” foundations of harm/care and fairness/reciprocity are particularly important drivers of cooperative internationalism and the “binding” foundations of authority/respect, ingroup/loyalty, and purity/sanctity of militant internationalism. Hawks and hardliners have morals too, just a different set of moral values than the Enlightenment ones emphasized by liberal idealists.

Citations

• The Structure of Foreign Policy Attitudes among American Leaders
• Defending International Norms: The Role of Obligation, Material Interest, and Perception in Decision Making
• Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations.
• Unpacking the Black Box of Causality: Learning about Causal Mechanisms from Experimental and Observational Studies

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Related

• Mechanisms of Morality
• Moral portraits: Understanding world leaders with moral foundations theory
• Mapping the moral domain.
• Morality as cooperation, politics as conflict
• Defending International Norms: The Role of Obligation, Material Interest, and Perception in Decision Making