The Difference Between Liberals and Conservatives in Charitable Donations
There's some really interesting work comparing how liberals and conservatives allocate their moral resources that can speak to this. Some people are more parochiala who donate an extreme amount to causes that are close to them, while others attribute more to a greater number of different sources. When you look at the aggregate amount of a charitable donation, liberals and conservatives are actually fairly similar. So it's not that liberals donate more in an absolute, they're just spreading out the wealth more.
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I was raised in the tradition of believing that everyone is of equal moral worth. But when I scrutinise my daily practices, I don’t think I can honestly say that I act as if everyone is of equal moral worth. The idea that some people belong within the circle of moral concern and some do not is central to many moral systems. But what affects the dynamics of the moral circle? How does it contract and expand? Can it expand indefinitely? In this episode I discuss these questions with Joshua Rottman. Josh is an associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Program in Scientific and Philosophical Studies of Mind at Franklin and Marshall College. His research is situated at the intersection of cognitive development and moral psychology, and he primarily focuses on studying the factors that lead certain entities and objects to be attributed with (or stripped of) moral concern.
