Holiness and Moral Grammars

The psychologist Jonathan Haidt, a leading moral psychology researcher, has suggested that there are four moral grammars that humans employ when making judgments of “wrongness.” These are:

Fairness/Justice: Things are deemed “wrong” when they are unfair or unjust (given cultural criteria).

Harm: Things are deemed “wrong” when harm is done. This can be all sorts of harm: Bodily harm, economic harm, status harm, emotional harm, etc.

Hierarchy Violation: Things are deemed “wrong” because a hierarchical relationship has been violated. Examples include issues of respect or deference or the differential rights/privileges of social groups of different standing.

Purity Violation: Things are deemed “wrong” when a previously “pure” state is contaminated by either a group or a behavior.

Haidt points out that each of these moral grammars have their own internal logic guiding judgments of “wrongness,” “sin,” or “morality.” Further, cultures mix these grammars in a multitude of ways. In some cultures a particular grammar is ascendant. In another culture the same grammar might be generally absent. But, at the end of the day, if someone deems an act to be “wrong” the claim generally is governed by one of these four grammars.

Haidt points out that in the contemporary American culture wars the difference between Christian conservatives and secular liberals is that each group deploys different moral criteria. Generally, liberals work with only two of the grammars: Harm and Justice. That is, they feel that an action should be sanctioned only if it either harms people or treats people unfairly. By contrast, conservative Christians deploy all four grammars. That is, even if an act doesn’t harm or cause injustice, it still might be ruled “wrong” for hierarchical (e.g., we must obey God’s law) or purity (e.g., contamination of a scared space, institution, or object, like one’s body) reasons.

It is due to the differential deployment of grammars which causes much of the culture wars. Take homosexuality as an example, as I did a few weeks ago in my adult bible class at Highland.

For the liberal, who only deploys two moral grammars, homosexuality isn’t “wrong.” The analysis runs like this:

Liberal Moral Grammar applied to Homosexuality
Harm? No.
Unfair? No.
Hierarchy Violation? NA
Purity Violation? NA

In fact, if we revisit the Fairness/Justice entry, we find that homosexuals are being treated unfairly. Thus, efforts on their behalf, on the grounds of justice, commence.

Let’s now look at the conservative Christian analysis of the “wrongfulness” of homosexuality:

Conservative Christian Moral Grammar applied to Homosexuality
Harm? No.
Unfair? No.
Hierarchy Violation? Yes. (Defiance of God’s Law.)
Purity Violation? Yes. (Act is deemed unnatural and deviant.)

What Haidt helps us see is this: Liberals and conservatives are talking past each other on these issues because they are not even applying the same moral criteria. They don’t agree, on a fundamental level, about what makes something “wrong.” Unless they each change their moral criteria, agreement is impossible.

Now, this discussion isn’t just between secular people and Christians. It’s a debate within Christianity as well.

In my opinion, the debate centers on if purity categories are, in essence, a form of harm. That is, is it intrinsically harmful to consider persons sources of pollution, defilement, corruption, disgust, and contamination? Are not those attributes, along with their socio-psychological sequelae, when applied to people demeaning, hurtful, and harmful?

If so, which moral grammar should trump in this debate? Harm or purity? As evidence of this current debate within Christianity, consider this comment from Walter Brueggemann:

[I]t is evident that the current and freighted dispute in the U.S. church concerning homosexual persons, especially their ordination, indicates the continuing felt cruciality of the tradition of holiness, even after we imagine we have moved beyond such “primitiveness.” It is my impression that the question of equal rights and privileges for homosexuals (in civil society as in the church) is a question that may be adjudicated on the grounds of justice. It is equally my impression, however, that the enormous hostility to homosexual persons (as to proposals of justice for them) does not concern issues of justice and injustice, but rather concerns the more elemental issues of purity—cleanness and uncleanness. This more elemental concern is evidenced in the widespread notion that homosexuals must be disqualified from access to wherever society has its important stakes and that physical contact with them is contaminating.

In Brueggemann’s quote “holiness” is a standing in for Haidt’s purity grammar. In short, we see the tension clearly articulated: What moral grammar gets applied to an issue like homosexuality?

I don’t necessarily want to dwell on homosexuality in this post, although it’s fine to take this post in that direction in your comments if you wish. I would like to meditate on the issue of holiness.

In my Highland class, as I was discussing Haidt’s grammars and applying them to the issues of homosexuality, a member of the class, one of ACU’s bible professors, said something along these lines: “This issue really just boils down to holiness.”

The comment stumped me. I couldn’t figure out what it meant.

First, perhaps the bible professor meant to equate holiness with purity. If so, then the issue doesn’t really “boil down” to holiness as there are other criteria that Christians like Brueggemann and myself are concerned with (e.g., justice).

Second, perhaps the bible professor meant to group all four of Haidt’s grammars (purity, hierarchy, justice, and harm) under the umbrella term of Holiness. If so, then that move doesn’t get us anywhere as some of those grammars conflict and require adjudication (see Brueggemann’s quote above).

In sum, I didn’t know what the bible professor was saying. I mean, it sounded good. Very theological. But as I unpacked the comment in my mind I found the term “holiness” (as used in this exchange) semantically (or at least rhetorically) vacuous. My suspicion is that the word “holiness” is so abstract as to be almost unhelpful in conversation. As a synonym for purity it is too narrow. Yet, as an umbrella term it fails to give guidance when making difficult adjudications between competing moral goods.