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Studies reveal the real political divide is over the nature of morality _Today, many public debates escalate with striking speed — from whether a novel should be taught at school, to whether a statue should be torn down, or whether a public figure should be “cancelled”. We often take these clashes as the fight between conservatives and liberals. But social psychologist**Namrata Goyal** , drawing on research across 59 countries, argues that the real divide runs deeper: a psychological and philosophical split between moral absolutism and moral relativism. Understanding this divide, she suggests, is key to making sense of today’s culture wars — and for enabling effective dialogue between the left and the right._ Why do so many disagreements today feel impossible to resolve? A debate over whether a novel should be taught in schools, whether a historical monument should stay or be removed, or whether a public figure deserves forgiveness can escalate rapidly. One person insists a line has been crossed and that certain actions are _always_ wrong; another argues that the situation is more complicated and that judgment depends on context. The content of the dispute varies, but the structure is the same: one side appeals to fixed moral rules, the other to circumstances and interpretation. It is tempting to explain these collisions as a clash between conservatives and liberals. But our research suggests the divide runs deeper. What actually drives these conflicts is a more fundamental difference in moral philosophy: moral absolutism, the belief that some actions are right or wrong regardless of context, and moral relativism, the view that moral judgment depends on circumstances, intentions, and cultural meaning. In survey data covering 59 countries and hundreds of thousands of people, this philosophical divide appeared with remarkable consistency. Conservatives tended to reason in more absolutist terms, while liberals leaned toward relativist ones. This broad pattern set the stage for a closer look at how these moral philosophies appear in people’s beliefs and their everyday language. **Conservatives and absolutism, liberals and relativism** In our experiments, conservatives were consistently more likely to endorse statements such as “Morality is defined by basic human principles that do not vary across societies” and “What is moral or immoral does not change based on the circumstances.” Liberals, in contrast, tended to agree with items expressing a more contextual view of morality, such as “Morality is defined by culturally specific principles” and “What is moral or immoral depends on the situation you are in.” ___ Although absolutism and relativism seem abstract, they show up in political behavior in surprisingly concrete ways. ___ These differences appear not only in the explicit statements they endorsed, but also in the way people communicate. When we examined millions of tweets from politically identified users on X, conservative users were far more likely to use phrases like “always wrong,” “never okay,” and “absolutely unacceptable,” and their language overall aligned more closely with a morally absolutist outlook. Liberal users used this kind of categorical language far less often, and their tweets more closely resembled a relativist way of thinking, one that allows for nuance and context. Why do these differences arise at all? To answer this question, we examined psychological tendencies that influence moral judgment. One of the most important was a person’s desire for clear answers and firm boundaries, known as need for closure. Individuals with a high need for closure were more likely to adopt an absolutist view of morality. In our data, this tendency appeared more often among conservatives. Absolutism offers clarity in situations that might otherwise feel uncertain. Relativism, in contrast, accepts ambiguity and assumes that the meaning of an action depends on the social and cultural world in which it occurs. **When moral philosophy predicts political behavior** Although absolutism and relativism seem abstract, they show up in political behavior in surprisingly concrete ways. Across our studies, one pattern appeared with particular force. People who adopt a morally absolutist mindset, whether conservative or liberal, are much more likely to support outright bans on practices they consider immoral. For example, a conservative absolutist who opposes marijuana, euthanasia, or abortion is very likely to support prohibiting those practices entirely. A liberal absolutist who opposes gun ownership, trophy hunting, or the death penalty shows the same structure of reasoning and is equally likely to support a full ban. In many cases, a conservative absolutist resembles a liberal absolutist more closely than a conservative relativist. This helps clarify a frequent misconception. We often assume that conservatives are especially prone to support bans. The reality is more subtle. Absolutists support bans regardless of ideology. Political identity determines the content of moral concern. Moral philosophy determines how inflexible or flexible people believe law and policy should be. Examples of this contrast appear throughout public life. When a celebrity is accused of wrongdoing, regardless of ideology, absolutist thinkers often insist that consuming the person’s work is unacceptable under any conditions. Relativist thinkers may focus instead on whether time has passed since the harm, whether the person apologized sincerely, or how their work is interpreted today. Similarly, in debates over school curricula, regardless of ideology, an absolutist mindset might hold that certain books must never be removed, while a relativist mindset might argue that the meaning of a text depends on how it is taught and who is reading it. ___ When people see their moral principles as absolute, compromise can begin to look like betrayal rather than cooperation. ___ Two core insights follow. First, conservatives and liberals both support bans when they hold absolutist moral beliefs. Second, absolutism is one of the strongest predictors of support for prohibition. When a person believes moral rules apply universally and without exception, allowing exceptions feels morally unacceptable. **Why absolutism feels necessary and also dangerous** Absolutism offers something that feels deeply grounding. It gives people a clear sense of right and wrong, a feeling of moral safety, and the reassurance that certain boundaries should never be crossed. This clarity can be energizing. It can motivate people to challenge injustice and to protect those who are vulnerable. Many of the most significant moral advances in history, including the abolition of slavery and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, grew out of the conviction that some principles must hold firm no matter the circumstances. Yet absolutism also carries real risks. When people see their moral principles as absolute, compromise can begin to look like betrayal rather than cooperation. Genuine dialogue becomes harder because people are no longer debating a specific policy; they are defending a moral truth that they believe cannot bend. Those who disagree can start to seem not simply mistaken but morally untrustworthy. In this way, absolutism can shift ordinary political disagreement into something closer to moral conflict, where opponents begin to see each other as threats rather than partners in a shared society. The goal is not to dismiss absolutism. It plays a crucial role in many forms of principled action. Rather, the goal is to understand the consequences that come with this way of thinking and to recognize both its strengths and its vulnerabilities. **Why relativism is compassionate and also unsettling** Moral relativism offers a different set of strengths. This kind of mindset allows people to pay attention to context, to consider circumstances carefully, and to appreciate that moral situations often involve complexity. This approach makes room for multiple perspectives and encourages humility about our own judgments. Because it is sensitive to nuance, relativism often supports forms of compassion that absolutism can overlook. ___ Understanding these dynamics is essential for living in today’s political culture, which often feels like a gridlocked struggle between competing moral worlds. ___ But relativism has limits as well. If every moral rule depends entirely on context, it becomes harder to say with confidence that certain actions are simply wrong. How should we respond to genuine harm when it is justified as a cultural norm or a situational exception? How do we protect people who are vulnerable if we hesitate to draw firm moral lines? For these reasons, relativism can sometimes feel unsettling because it appears to lack the decisiveness needed to confront serious injustice. Once again, the point is not that relativism is inferior. It is essential to empathy, to pluralism, and to the capacity to understand lives different from our own. But like absolutism, it comes with trade-offs, and understanding those trade-offs helps us see why moral disagreement can feel so emotionally charged and politically powerful. **Why this matters for democratic life** Understanding these dynamics is essential for living in today’s political culture, which often feels like a gridlocked struggle between competing moral worlds. The difficulty is not that one group cares about morality and the other does not. The difficulty is that each side uses morality in different ways and expects the other side to approach it in the same way. When those expectations clash, disagreement quickly turns into frustration and mistrust. Recognizing the moral frameworks that shape our disagreements allows us to communicate with more insight and less hostility. It helps explain why bans feel necessary to some people and alarming to others, and why compromise can feel like a principled act in one situation and an unacceptable concession in another. Once we understand that people are responding not only to policy but also to deeply held assumptions about what morality requires, we can begin to make sense of the intensity that often surrounds political debate. SUGGESTED VIEWING The end of Left and Right With David Goodhart, Rory Stewart, Chantal Mouffe In any diverse society, moral disagreement is unavoidable. What matters is the way we handle it. Disagreement becomes more productive when we approach it with curiosity rather than contempt, with an awareness of our own assumptions rather than an insistence on certainty, and with a willingness to understand how others come to their conclusions. The encouraging news from our experiments is that moral philosophy is not fixed. Like many psychological traits, it is a flexible psychological resource that exists on a continuum. People can shift toward more relativistic thinking or toward more absolutist thinking depending on how issues are framed and discussed. This matters for dialogue. When we understand the moral philosophy a person is using, we can speak to it directly. Acknowledging an absolutist’s need for firm boundaries can open the door to showing how even the strictest rules contain gray areas. Helping someone explore those gray areas can create room for nuance and greater flexibility. The reverse is also true. When a relativist is encouraged to stretch their flexibility as far as it can go, they often find that some boundaries still matter to them. In both cases, the goal is not to convert people from one philosophy to another. The goal is to help them reflect on their own assumptions so that conversations become less about defending moral identities and more about understanding the complex terrain we all share. https://iai.tv/articles/studies-reveal-the-real-political-divide-is-over-the-nature-of-morality-auid-3462