When Gallup polled Americans about their views on adultery in 2013, 91% of the respondents said that it was morally wrong. While surveys are inductive generalizations and thus can always get things wrong, it is reasonable to believe that most Americans think adultery is wrong. Interestingly, this moral view shifts under the influence of partisan politics.
When Bill Clinton’s sex scandal was in the news, the overwhelming majority of Republicans regarded his behavior as immoral. While many of the surveyed Democrats also regarded Clinton’s actions as wrong, many also did not. Not surprisingly, this reversed in the case of the revelations of Trump’s adultery: Democrats overwhelmingly condemn it as immoral while the Republicans are underwhelming in their condemnation.
This is, of course, consistent with J.S. Mill’s discussion of liberty. As he noted, people tend to think that liberties should be allowed or restricted based on their likes and dislikes rather than on the basis of a consistent principle. The same applies to moral assessment along partisan lines: people tend to assess their side far more favorably than the other side, even when the moral offenses are the same. As noted above, while Americans overwhelming claim to condemn adultery, this condemnation is dampened considerably by the influence of partisanship.
From a logical standpoint, this behavior seems to be irrational. After all, if an action is wrong, then the fact that it is done by a Democrat or Republican would not change the ethics of the action. This is because party affiliation does not seem to be a morally relevant difference in determining the morality of an action, such as committing murder, theft or adultery. To illustrate, if you were told that Bill committed adultery or murder, it would be odd to need to inquire into his party affiliation before deciding whether the murder or adultery is immoral.
This sort of partisan effect on morality is not limited to moral assessment of actions and people, but also impacts people’s avowed principles. Research by Pope and Barber show that people are generally quite willing to shift their views in ways inconsistent with their professed ideology, provided that the shift is motived by party affiliation. This certainly helps account for what Mill noted, namely that most people do not have a view of liberty based on principle but based on their likes and dislikes of the moment. So, for example, most Republicans usually profess that the liberty of local rule is both correct and a conservative principle while condemning the imposition of state or federal power as an evil of the Democrats. But, they easily shift their view on local rule when the party takes a position on a specific issue, such as local gun or fracking laws. Most Democrats presumably do the same—shifting their views with the party, even when these views do not match liberal ideology.
On the one hand, some might praise this flexibility and contend that it could be the basis for compromise. After all, if party members can so easily shift between positions irrespective of ideology, then it would seem they could shift to the same position and reach an agreement.
On the other hand, there is the concern that such flexibility does more to show a lack of principles than a willingness to compromise. This is supported by the fact that the Democrats and Republicans are often unlikely to compromise because they tend to simply follow their own party and oppose the other party. Put crudely, while such tribal loyalty makes the Democrats and Republicans morally flexible within their parties, it also interferes with compromise on matters they would otherwise agree on. As such, even if the Republican party adopted a liberal view on, for example, tariffs, then the Democrats are likely to oppose it because it would now be a Republican position. This sort of tribalism is especially concerning since Americans tend to have considerable agreement on issues when they are considered apart from party affiliation. As noted above, the vast majority of Americans condemn adultery—except when it becomes a partisan issue. The same also seems true of such things as gun control. As such, the country is engaged in many utterly needless and senseless conflicts over tribalism when there is, in fact, considerable agreement. The challenge, then, is getting Americans to be less ruled by tribalism and able to agree on what they actually already agree on. Perhaps this can start by an agreement that adultery is bad, whether it is Bill Clinton or Donald Trump having the affair.
Right on. You would know more about this than I would, from an academic perspective, anyway, but it seems to me this is the very definition of “Post Modernism”.
What is amusing to me is that Trump is often described as “The First Post-Modern President”, as though this were something new; also the fact that we live in the “Post-Truth” era.
Recently, Trump came under a lot of fire for proposing the death penalty for certain kinds of drug dealers – and on further research it turns out that this is already a matter of law, supported by Democrats and signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1994.
Five years ago, the entire Democratic caucus voted unanimously for hundreds of miles of wall under the US-Mexico border, and today they are against it.
Barack Obama famously said that “Adding $4 trillion to the US debt was unpatriotic” when Bush was president, then proceeded to add over $9 trillion of his own.
The Republicans are no better – the budget that just passed the house is the biggest spending spree the government has ever gone on, yet only a few short years ago the Democrats were the ones facing heavy criticism for their loose attitudes when it came to taxpayer money.
And let’s not forget Romneycare.
I see no principles in government today. I see no idealism, I see no truth. I see a quest for power, with policies designed with only that as the target. Truth is relative, ideology is dead; power and control are king and those lofty ideals of yesteryear are merely tools used in the acquisition process.
Because you chose “adultery” as your topic, I’d like to address that just a bit as well, though. “Adultery” in and of itself is a broad topic, and often one that shouldn’t really be judged by others. After all, if it’s OK with the spouse based on whatever arrangement the married couple has, who am I to judge?
At the risk of seemingly rushing to my “partisan tribe”, I would like to point out a few differences between Trump’s and Clinton’s dalliances. Trump, at the time, was essentially an “international Playboy”. His infidelity was one between consenting adults, on an equal playing field. Stormy Daniels made her living having sex; she had nothing to gain or lose by her relations with Trump. It was a booty call. Daniels made the first move, and even though she now says she didn’t want to have sex with him and felt “trapped” (once she went back to his hotel room alone) she is very clear that the sex was consensual.
Monica Lewinsky is a different story altogether – she was a young intern working for a sitting president. Their affair was ongoing, and while the relationship is not described as an assault, per se, it has been widely recognized as a “Gross Abuse of Power”.
I think that to paint the two with the same brush and call them both “Adultery” is probably incorrect. FDR was an adulterer, who had affairs for love. JFK was more like Trump – a playboy who slept with women for the thrill, and because they wanted to as well. Clinton is a rapist and an abuser.
As an analogy, I would suggest that you imagine a married professor who strays from his marriage and visits a massage parlor, or meets a woman for a one-night stand in a strip club – versus one who carries on a semester-long affair with a graduate assistant. One is adultery, plain and simple, and is the business of the professor and his wife alone. The other is far, far, worse, and will involve the entire university.
Those of us who resist the post-modernist rejection of truth and morality make those distinctions. For those who don’t, I guess it doesn’t matter.
What outraged me about Clinton’s behavior is that I would have been fired if I behaved similarly at work.
We knew that both Clinton and Trump were not faithful to their wives when we elected them, so no surprises there.
Clinton and Trump are both shameless. Maybe that is a job requirement now.
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” – Douglas Adams
These situations certainly make the case for us being in a post-modern era that eschews any sort of universal truth or common overriding moral code – opting instead for a “Selective Outrage” in service of our more immediate, more practical objectives.
I’d contend that this has been the case all along; people rage at the immorality of the others, advance excuses for their villains. But, there are cases where the misdeed does cross a line or the villain is not charismatic enough-such as that Weiner guy.
Yes, pretty much all of the rest of us would have been fired for that. And probably divorced if we were married.
Quite right; we knew what we were getting. Trump doing what he is alleged to have done is consistent with all that is known about Trump. Ditto for Clinton. Bipartisan boinking.
Barber, in the linked article, is careful to talk about positions on issues, rather than principles or morality. Twice, even in the presidential infidelity question, he specifies that the position is “morality is important in whether or not they can govern effectively” rather than on the morality of the action itself. I suspect that supporters of both parties agree that adultery is bad; they just don’t care much about it, except insofar as it can be weaponised as a talking-point. If they did care much about it, neither Clinton nor Trump would have been elected.
It is easier to compromise on positions than principles.
I find it unsurprising that people can be easily swayed in their issue positions. Very few people master enough detail and background to talk knowledgeably about even one policy issue, much less the hundreds that are debated every year. Further, they don’t care much about most of them, most of the time, and they know that their opinion matters little anyway, so they quite rationally take their lead from people they trust who have dedicated more time to the questions,
Politics works well when there is a range of opinions across a wide number of people: A and B agree on X but not on Y, but A and C agree on Y, while B and C agree on X. In such cases, people who find each other opposed on one issue may work together on another. This helps us all separate the positions from the people who hold them, and gives us the sense that even if we disagree with our neighbours on some points, we can co-operate on others.
When polarisation sets in, so that people line up on one side or another of a divide, with no co-operation across the line, and no way to build or maintain trust, politics breaks down, with disastrous consequences.