I have been pondering his six foundations of moral reasoning, as I think he calls them. They are Liberty, Authority, Sanctity, Loyalty, Fairness and Care. The more I think about it, the more I think these are NEEDS, what we might call meta-psychological needs. A good society contains all of them, in a healthy balance, but of course societies do not exist. Hence meta-psychological.
You can build Fascism out of Authority, Loyalty (Meine Ehre heisst Treue) and Sanctity. The German nation needed to be purified. Mother Russia needed to be purified.
In evaluating our border problem, Democrats bring to bear only concern for the well being of Mexicans, and a sense that they deserve their shot too. Republicans–while not ignoring these concerns, in that none of us are calling for a stop or even change in our current immigration numbers, which are about 1.5 million immigration visas annually–add to this Sanctity (we love our nation, and want to keep it clean from unwanted infestations of crime, disease, and chronic dependents), and Loyalty (we want to look out for American workers first).
If we view these six as NEEDS, and not emotional factors in decision making, we must see them as we see animal instincts. We are very skillful animals, in some respects, very competent animals. If they are instincts, then they will ALWAYS find ways to expression. If you hate all political leaders, you will still find a guru in a book. You will still have a code.
And it is an interesting game that people who value only Care and Fairness–Sybaritic Leftists–have to play. They have to allow, for example, a latent need for Authority to creep in under another banner. Their loyalty is to an ideology, but they don’t call it an ideology: they call it truth. Their calls to eradicate racism are an appeal to Sanctity. Etc.
It is always best to reject sainthood, and realize that if want to live a life free of emotion, you are only going to make the emotions negative, violent, and unconscious. You make them worse.
To my mind, the classical Liberal mindset balances all six needs, and does so consciously and diligently. Out of that balance, success: strong, stable, long lasting success, of the sort we have seen in our own nation, and have led other nations to as well.