Moral indignation is an emotion and a response tendency. The response tendency is to punish. In study after study, the most indignant subjects are those who want to inflict the most pain on perceived violators of deeply-felt norms. A hundred lashes!
Being a mere human, with evolved tendencies like everybody else, I'm no exception. Oh, those delicious fantasies of evil-doers getting their comeuppance: endless humiliation and pain. Just desserts for lacking sufficient compassion, for being selfish, for causing harm, and for not feeling bad enough about it.
Moral indignation has served us well throughout the evolution of our species, keeping free-riders and rule-breakers in check, maintaining group cohesion, helping us reproduce and thrive. It is deeply embedded in our nature. Yet moral indignation is a response tendency that gets us into all sorts of trouble. Like love of sweets, it is a natural inclination to be managed and restrained.
Moral indignation makes us think in generalities, impairing our ability to think clearly about problems and issues. Its urge to punish is about inflicting pain not preventing or deterring bad behavior. Moral indignation can also become a force for personal stasis, locking us into ways of being for fear of moral backsliding.
Expressing moral indignation seems to make it even harder to change our minds, partly because saving face has been added into the equation. That's one reason politicians should avoid relying on moralistic arguments for their policy proscriptions: the public may well consider a change of position a reflection of poor character rather than evolved understanding. Recent research bears out this concern. As one researcher puts it:
“...leaders who change their moral minds are seen as more hypocritical, and not as courageous or flexible, compared with those whose initial view was based on a pragmatic argument. Due to this perception of hypocrisy, they are also seen as less effective and less worthy of support.”
It takes courage to overcome the foolish consistency of a moralistic mind.
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References:
Cass R. Sunstein & Daniel Kahneman. Indignation: Psychology, Politics, Law (John M. Olin Program in Law & Economics Working Paper No. 346, 2007).
Tamar Kreps, Kristin Laurin, and Anna Merritt, “Hypocritical Flip-Flop or Courageous Evolution? When Leaders Change Their Moral Minds,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published online June 8, 2017.