Omission and Compromise: The Sacredness of Moral Foundations in Political Groups in Italy

The Moral Compromises of Sacred Values

In many situations, people dislike making a trade-off between different choice alternatives, especially if choice options mirror inviolable sacred values (Tetlock, Kristel, Elson, Green, & Lerner, 2000). Any moral value that people implicitly or explicitly treat as having infinite or transcendental meaning that prohibits comparisons, trade-offs, or other exchanges is referred to as a “sacred value” (Bartels, Bauman, Cushman, Pizarro, & McGraw, 2015; Tetlock et al., 2000).

Graham and Haidt (2012) argued that sacredness is crucial for understanding morality and it is a universal human propensity to invest people, places, times, and ideas with an importance which goes far beyond the utility they possess. In particular, some goods, such as human life, rights, or health, are treated as having a transcendental or sacred meaning that cannot be exchanged for secular values, especially those goods that can be bought or sold (Bartels et al., 2015; Carmichael, Hubert, Reeves, & Schanche, 1994). Sacred values are not always religious in character, because core secular values can be assumed as sacred and inviolable by a community (Graham & Haidt, 2012; Tetlock et al., 2000). Graham and Haidt (2012) explained that sacredness does not require a God, because flags, national holidays and many other markers of collective solidarity are sacred in the same way.

The opportunity for moral compromise of sacred values occurs whenever an individual confronts a situation where a contemplated choice or action puts at risk those moral principles with which an individual and his group strongly identify (Goodstein, 2000). Moral compromise involving what is sacralized are often resisted or refused (Graham & Haidt, 2012). Previous research has shown that trading off sacred values is considered a taboo and people express negative feelings even when contemplating this mere opportunity (Tetlock, 2003). For instance, Hanselmann and Tanner (2008) argued that taboo trade-offs are negatively emotion-laden, because the decision-makers realize that something important is at stake and has to be protected. Authors have also found that when a decision situation is associated with a sacred value (i.e., taboo trade-off), people perceive the task as easier to solve compared with a situation not involving sacred values (i.e., routine trade-off). Performing a functional MRI (fMRI) with volunteers who were faced with a series of decision tasks, Duc, Hanselmann, Boesiger, and Tanner (2013) found that taboo trade-off proposals increased neuronal activations in the left anterior temporal lobe and bilateral amygdalae – areas associated with rule-based processing and emotion - as well as significant correlations between activations of the right amygdala and moral disgust ratings.

Following a social psychological approach, although people wish to protect their moral self-image (Monin & Jordan, 2009) and want to see themselves as moral actors (Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008; Nisan, 1991), studies have also demonstrated that people recognize that moral concepts, like purity, can have different meanings depending on the type of social relationship a given situation involves (Rai & Fiske, 2011). According to what is known as moral flexibility (Bartels, 2008), contextual and societal factors could influence which values are more relevant than others. Morgan, Skitka, and Wisneski (2010) argued that different individuals may see some issues as relevant or irrelevant to morality. For example, people know that tax evasion is wrong, that it represents a risk because there is a certain probability of being discovered and punished, and that it leads to higher taxes for the remaining taxpayers. Empirical literature on the ethics of tax evasion reveals that, in general, there is strong moral opposition to it (e.g., Bosco & Mittone, 1997). However, the opposition to tax evasion could be weaker in a number of circumstances: cases in which the government engages in human rights abuses or cases in which the tax system is perceived as unfair (McGee, 2012). Which moral values become sacred for a group is somewhat arbitrary, a function of cultural context and need (Ginges, 2015). McGraw and Tetlock (2005) found that apparently absolute opposition to selling body organs on the marketplace was substantially reduced when, for example, it was emphasized that this trade would save many lives. In other words, what counts as a taboo trade-off varies dramatically across ideological subcultures, group-specific approaches to morality, and historical periods (Tetlock, Peterson, & Lerner, 1996). There are many opportunities for reframing issues that involve sacred values for groups. As in religions, values survive in time and in space because they are readily rewritable in ways that are sensitive to changing contexts (Atran & Norenzayan, 2004). The way in which moral values are relevant and sacralized could depend on collective reasons and could be based on a specific ingroup internalized conviction of right and wrong (Bartels et al., 2015). However, moral values can be defined as sacred by means of a taboo against material trade-offs, with several implications for intergroup dynamics and conflicts. What gives sacred values their meaning and their moral status is their separation from the profane domain of everyday life (Durkheim, 1955; Tetlock, 2003). Therefore, their defining characteristic is a taboo against valuing moral values along a material or monetary scale (Ginges, Atran, Medin, & Shikaki, 2007).

Moral Sacredness and Political Ideology

The political arena is a field where moral convictions are the most debated and relevant for guiding the attitudes and behavior of electors, parties, and candidates. Discussions around inviolable values abound in many fundamental political disputes (e.g., The right to life, LGBT+ rights or the death penalty), and they often make disputes much harder to resolve. With regard to political issues, there is considerable variation in the degree to which people’s opinions are vested with moral conviction (e.g., Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, 2005). Increased moral conviction about a given issue predicts increased prejudice toward those who have different views (Skitka et al., 2005), as well as distrust of political authorities who have to work on the issue (Wisneski, Lytle, & Skitka, 2009). Skitka and colleagues (2005) found that attitudes held with strong moral conviction predicted greater social and physical distance from, and intolerance towards, dissimilar others, lower levels of good will and engagement in attitudinally heterogeneous groups, and inability to generate procedural solutions to resolve disagreements.

Graham and Haidt (2010) argued that the most intractable political debates are likely to involve binding moral foundations, whereas the greatest degree of commonality may be found in issues related to individualizing ones. According to the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT; Haidt & Joseph, 2004; Haidt & Graham, 2007), individualizing foundations are related to care for and devotion to the discomfort of others (Harm / Care) and concern for justice and rights (Fairness / Reciprocity); while binding foundations describe the concern for and interest in social solidarity and responsibilities of group membership (Ingroup / Loyalty); social order, social role fulfillment and respect for traditions and institutions (Authority / Respect); and interest in control of impulses and desires (Purity / Sanctity). Individualizing foundations are described as the source of those moral intuitions correlated with the liberal philosophical tradition with its emphasis on the rights and welfare of individuals. Individualizing foundations are specific to a secular contractual society prioritizing individual rights and in which binding foundations are less important, or even elicit racism, prejudice or nationalism, authoritarianism, homophobia and disgust-based restrictions on the rights of women (Haidt & Kesebir, 2010). Binding foundations correlate with many conservative and religious moralities with their emphasis on group-binding loyalty (see also Graham & Haidt, 2012), and tend to be supported by more conservative elements within a society. In general, conservatives prefer a binding approach (i.e., They give similar evaluations on all five sets of moral foundations), whereas liberals show a preference for an individualizing approach (i.e., They give higher evaluations on fairness and harm moral foundations than on other foundations; Graham & Haidt, 2010; Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; Graham et al., 2011; Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004). Testing the MF hypothesis in different countries, Graham and colleagues (2011) found that liberalism / left-wing ideology sustains liberty and equality as fundamental political goods, and so liberal people mainly support individual rights and the use of government programs to extend such rights as widely - and as equally - as possible. On the other hand, the fundamental values of conservatism / right-wing ideology are found in their propensity to preserve the status quo in human welfare and long-existing institutions, norms, and traditions across generations. Conservatives support solid institutions and social control as necessary and they tend to believe that they are hard to replace if delegitimized. However, these assumptions have not always been confirmed in all studies. For instance, Davis and colleagues (2016) could not generalize the moral foundations hypothesis which predicted that conservatism would positively correlate to binding foundations in black people in the United States.

Few studies used the Moral Foundation approach to investigate left-wing and right-wing moral reasoning in the Italian context (D’Alberti, 2013; Di Battista, Pivetti, & Berti, 2018; Milesi, 2017). Across three studies carried out in Italy from 2010 to 2013, Milesi (2017) found that the intention to vote for right-wing political groups rather than for left-wing rivals is associated with concerns about sanctity. Results also showed that individualizing is weakly related to political orientation, particularly in the dimension of care. Di Battista, Pivetti, and Berti (2018) found that both Italian left and right-wingers attribute higher scores to individualizing moral foundations than to binding ones. Right-wingers give similar evaluations on all five sets of moral foundations, whereas left-wingers give higher evaluations on individualizing foundations than on the other foundations. These studies did not measure moral foundations in a taboo trade-off framework.

In general, existing research measuring moral foundations in a taboo trade-off framework relies primarily on the Moral Foundations Sacredness Scale (MFSS; see Graham et al., 2009). The MFSS is designed to measure an individual’s willingness to violate moral norms in exchange for money (e.g., “Kick a dog in the head, hard”; Graham et al., 2009). As far as we know, only one Italian study administered the MFSS (D’Alberti, 2013) in order to study moral foundations and voting intentions in the Italian general election in 2013. The author found that the correlations between the indexes obtained with two methods of measurement (moral foundations questionnaire and MFSS) were quite different. According to the MFSS measurement, the only relevant result was an unexpectedly high foundation score for the political center. The Italian centrist faction seemed particularly sensitive to the notion of asking for money in exchange for violating taboos. D’Alberti (2013) highlighted that an explanation might lie in Italian political history. A centrist party such as Democrazia Cristiana (Christian Democracy) was traditionally the party with the closest ties to Catholics for a long period, namely, from the end of the Second World War until the 1990s. A strong identification with Catholic values for the centrist parties might explain these high scores in the moral trade-off measure, but D’Alberti cannot explain why these scores weren’t reflected in the moral foundations questionnaire.

Other studies, which aimed at measuring purity violations alone, have used scenarios involving incest and sex with a dead chicken (Feinberg, Willer, Antonenko, & John, 2012; Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2014), or vignettes involving incest and eating a pet dog (Eskine, Kacinik, & Prinz, 2011; Schnall, Haidt, Clore, & Jordan, 2008; Wheatley & Haidt, 2005). These specific scenarios and scales of moral compromise are difficult to adapt to Italian participants, as they are generally against these violations. For instance, in Italy incest and sexual relations between people and animals are punishable by law, therefore the moral applicability of these sentences, scenarios, and items is complicated. For this reason, we suspect that items designed to measure an individual’s willingness to violate moral norms in exchange for money as in previous studies will be particularly rejected by participants, obscuring any difference between groups.

The Current Study

This study aims to better understand the moral quandaries people face when they debate sacred values and to further the study of moral psychology and its link with political ideology in the Italian context, showing 1) how compromise on moral foundations unveils the moral reasoning of the political left, center, and right in Italy; 2) which set of moral factors plays the most important role in these distinctions. The inclusion of the assessment of omission as a compromises on moral foundations is useful for understanding the moral roots of the ideological debates between groups. Furthermore, exploring moral psychology and judgments calls for different tools and methods that can cover all moral domains. For these reasons, we aim to use a new tool to measure the sacralization of moral foundations in a taboo trade-off context, drawing inspiration from the MFSS. We are interested in showing how a moral dilemma can conflict with the political groups’ internalized convictions of right and wrong in the Italian context. Moral regret for compromise on moral foundations in some specific dilemmas could explain what kind of morality a group and its members have. In line with the relevant research, MF hypothesis predict that conservatives prefer the binding approach (i.e., They give similar evaluations on all five sets of moral foundations), whereas liberals show a preference for individualizing moral foundations when compared to conservatives (Graham et al., 2009; Graham et al., 2011). Adapting Tetlock’s work on sacred values and taboo trade-offs (Tetlock et al., 2000) to make moral judgments “personal and visceral” (Graham et al., 2009, p. 1036) or personally relevant, Graham and colleagues (2009) showed participants’ resistance to contemplate a trade-off. Liberals refused to make trade-offs on individualizing foundations but were more willing to perform actions that violated the binding foundations. They were less likely than conservatives to see trade-offs related to binding foundations as violations of sacred values. The authors commented their results, finding that liberals mainly justify moral rules in terms of their consequences for individuals; they are familiarized with balancing opposing interests with the primary interest of individual care and rights. Conservatives, in contrast, are more likely not to break moral rules, even when the consequences would be positive, because they justify these values as handed down from authorities, such as God, or from earlier generations. The authors highlighted that this deontological reluctance to make trade-offs could be well detected by the methods used in the MFSS (Graham et al., 2009). The opportunity for moral compromise on sacred values, putting at risk those moral principles with which a group and its members strongly identify (Goodstein, 2000), could disclose which sets of foundations are truly inviolable for the left and the right. In this study and in line with the literature (Graham et al., 2009; Graham et al., 2011), it is hypothesized that Italian center - left morality relies heavily on the individualizing foundations that people would not compromise by accepting money in exchange for violating them. On the other hand, we predict that those on the center - right would be less likely to violate binding foundations for money than left-wingers. We also expect to find high scores on either individualizing or binding foundations for the political center, which can represent those Italian political parties traditionally linked to religiousness (D’Alberti, 2013).

Specifically, in the assessment of moral foundations via a new moral compromise foundation scale, namely the Omission as a Compromise on Moral Foundations scale (OC-MF), it is predicted that:

Confirmation of a two-factor structure of the OC-MF according to one of the principal two-factor models identified by Graham and colleagues (2011) is also expected.

The Research Context

Italy has a multi-party system characterized by rapidly changing governments. It is recognized as a Westernized country with a modern liberal tradition with regard to the importance of the protection of each individual and his / her rights across every level of the political spectrum. Between 1996 and 2008, the Italian political parties were organized into two large center-left and center-right coalitions. In 2013 the bipolar system was unsettled by several new political actors and widespread political disaffection increased among Italian citizens (Pasquino & Valbruzzi, 2013). However, despite the alleged end of ideologies (Bell, 1965) and despite the disaffection for specific parties, in Italy the relevance of the left-liberal and right-conservative distinction is still present in the electors’ identification and represents a valuable organizing principle of the political space (Baldassarri, 2013; Bellucci & Maraffi, 2014; Corbetta, Cavazza, & Roccato, 2009; Gries, 2017; Natale, 2006; Vegetti, Poletti, & Segatti, 2013). Furthermore, due to growing political party fragmentation and unstable coalitions between parties, personal reasons (such as moral values or the vision of a “good society”) increase in importance in people’s personal political orientation and identification, more significantly than previous traditional indicators for political decision-making (such as geographical derivation, status, education, and occupation; Caprara, Schwartz, Capanna, Vecchione, & Barbaranelli, 2006; Lakoff, 2004; Vecchione, Tullio, & Caprara, 2011; Westen, 2007).

Italian political leaders often invoke sacred values in their electoral programs and use them to discredit political adversaries. The sacralization of the same moral imperative (i.e., The right to life) makes discussion between political groups particularly unfeasible. Indeed, moral issues are often the focus of severe electoral debates on the inviolability of certain issues.

Participants

The convenience sample included 224 Italian participants recruited via snowball sampling with the collaboration of research assistants. The majority (58.6%) were females (males 37.6%; 4% gender information missing). Their mean age was 27.93 years (SD = 10.9; range 18-75). About 59.8% of the participants were students. As for political orientation (M = 4.1; SD = 1.5), the sample was fairly balanced between left, right, and center, revealing that 27.7% of the participants positioned themselves on the left of the left-right axis (from 1 to 3 on the scale), whereas 27.7% positioned themselves in the center (point 4 on the scale), and 30.4% positioned themselves on the right (from 5 to 7) (14.3% did not report their political orientation). Participants who declared their political party affiliation were a minor part of the total sample (n = 82; 36.6%).

Procedure

The research was carried out by the University G. d’Annunzio of Chieti-Pescara in Italy. The questionnaire was implemented using a Google Drive Form and administered in the Italian regions of Abruzzo and Lazio. Participants were recruited via snowball sampling with the collaboration of researchers and doctoral students. They posted the questionnaire link on social networks or sent it to the mailing lists of both close (e.g., Friends) and more distant acquaintances (e.g., Colleagues) who were involved in political groups or who they deemed to be very interested in political debates. The questionnaire took approximately 20 minutes to fill in.

The research complied with the Code of Ethics of the Italian Psychology Association (Associazione Italiana di Psicologia [A.I.P.], 2015).

Measures

Confirmatory Factor Analyses

To evaluate the adequacy of the OC-MF, we performed a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) on all 17 items, and re-specified the model by looking at the standardized residual covariances between the items (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1984): large values (above 2 in absolute value) were used for indicating that the model was not correct. Therefore, the items with largest standardized residual covariances were discarded one by one while looking at the improvement in goodness-of-fit indices. The final model included 14 items: three items for each dimension of care, ingroup, authority and purity, and two items for fairness (see items in Table 1).

The model fit of the hierarchical models containing two superordinate factors (individualizing and binding) was assessed using IBM SPSS AMOS 25.0 software. The fit indices showed an acceptable model fit (χ² = 174.16; df = 72; p < .001; χ²/df = 2.42; CFI = .91; RMSEA = .08; Bentler, 1995). The correlation between the two superordinate factors was significant and positive (r = .70; p < .001), and the factor loadings were highly significant (p < .001) (see Figure 1). To test an alternative model with a single superordinate factor, a second CFA was run. Fit indices on an alternative CFA model with a single superordinate factor were not as good (χ² = 196.54; df = 73, p < .001; χ²/df = 2.69; CFI = .89; RMSEA = .09) and therefore, the first model with two superordinate factors was retained.

With regard to individualizing, the Corrected Item-Total Correlations ranged from .52 to .67; with regard to binding, the Corrected Item-Total Correlations ranged from .39 to .72 (see Table 1). These coefficients showed that all of the individual items were associated with their respective subscale and were higher than the rule of thumb minimum value of 0.2 (Kline, 1986). Internal consistency was examined using Cronbach’s Alpha computed for the two subscales. Means, Standard Deviations, Cronbach’s Alpha, and Inter-Correlations between individualizing and binding foundations measured with the OC-MF and the moral relevance scale are reported in Table 2.

All the items of the scale were reversed. Firstly, the items for the 5 subscales of harm, fairness, ingroup, authority and purity were averaged; secondly the average of the subscales harm and fairness built the individual foundation scale, and the average of the ingroup, authority and purity subscales built the binding foundation scale.

The individualizing and binding foundations, assessed through the OC-MF, were related to the same constructs measured with the moral relevance instrument (individualizing: r = .39; p < .001; binding: r = .54; p < .001), even if the correlation for individualizing was only of medium effect size, and thus of low convergent validity. Individualizing and binding measures were related both in the OC-MF (r = .53; p < .001) and in the moral relevance scale (r = .47; p < .001), and the difference between these two correlations was not significant (Cohen’s q = .08; see Cohen, 1988). Political orientation was related to binding foundations, both in the OC-MF (binding: r = .25; p < .001) and in the moral relevance scale (binding: r = .27; p = < .001), and the difference between these two correlations was not significant (Cohen’s q = .021); individualizing foundations were not related to political orientation, either in the OC-MF (individualizing: r = -.03), or in the moral relevance scale (individualizing: r = -.04).

Hypotheses Testing

In order to test hypotheses 1 and 2, a Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), with political orientation (left, center, and right) as a between-subjects factor and moral compromise foundations (individualizing and binding) as a within-subject factor was run. The ANOVA yielded a significant main effect for moral compromise foundations, F(1, 189) = 40.89, p < .001, ${\mathrm{\eta }}_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .18, showing that all the participants refused to compromise more on individualizing (M = 6.25; SD = 0.97) than on binding moral foundations (M = 5.79; SD = 1.09), and a significant main effect of political orientation, F(2, 189) = 5.71, p = .004, ${\mathrm{\eta }}_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .06, indicating that center and right-wingers endorsed a greater aversion to compromise on all moral foundations (M_center = 6.23; SD = 0.91; M_right = 6.11; SD = 0.92) than Left-wingers (M_left = 5.73; SD = 0.78). Moreover, these main effects were qualified by a reliable interaction between moral compromise foundations and political orientation, F(2, 189) = 10.12, p < .001, ${\mathrm{\eta }}_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .10. A simple effect analysis showed that center and left-wingers refused to compromise more on the individualizing than on binding moral foundations, Left: F(1, 189) = 42, p < .001; ${\mathrm{\eta }}_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .18; Center: F(1, 189) = 16.78, p < .001; ${\mathrm{\eta }}_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ =.08, whereas a non-significant effect emerged with regard to right-wingers, F(1, 189) = 0.12, p = .73; ${\mathrm{\eta }}_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .001, supporting H1 (see Figure 2). Furthermore, in line with H2, a significant effect for moral compromise binding foundations emerged across the levels of political orientation, F(2, 189) = 10.08, p < .001; ${\mathrm{\eta }}_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ =.10, whereas the effect for moral compromise individualizing foundations across the levels of political orientation was non-significant, F(2, 189) = 2.86, p = .06; ${\mathrm{\eta }}_{\mathrm{p}}^2$ = .03. Left-wing participants indicated lower aversion to compromise on binding moral foundations than any other study group (Center: p = .001; Right: p < .001), whereas center and right wingers showed no difference (p = .51), supporting H2 (see Figure 2).

Implications

Disagreements over sacred values, particularly those associated with political ideology, abound in many public debates, making disputes very hard to resolve (Bazerman, Tenbrunsel, & Wade-Benzoni, 2008; Susskind et al., 2005). In line with Argo and Ginges (2015), regardless of whether sacred values are openly elicited in a group discussion, they must be acknowledged and considered in political debates. Good strategies for negotiations involve understanding how sacred values can affect decision making. Understanding moral sacredness associated with a given issue is relevant in order to suggest possible spaces and limits regarding negotiations (Atran & Axelrod, 2008). Liberals and conservatives are divided on many issues, including abortion, LGBT+ rights, women’s rights, gun ownership and more, and such differences help to explain many of the contrasting stances the two sides take (Brandt, Reyna, Chambers, Crawford, & Wetherell, 2014; Caprara et al., 2006; Graham et al., 2009). However, our findings suggested that in a taboo trade-off framework, individualizing moral foundations could be equally inviolable for left, center, and right, and in this sense this common point of view could serve as counterweight in political debates. This is partially in line with Schein and Gray’s (2015) finding that, despite moral diversity regarding specific issues (e.g., Patriotism, chastity), moral cognition in both liberals and conservatives is rooted in a harm-based template. Moreover, our findings also suggested the consideration that a compromise on binding moral foundations is seen differently by left, center, and right-wing participants, and thus sacred positions relating binding foundations may be representative of the most intractable political debates (in line with Graham & Haidt, 2010).

Gibson (2011) found that one of the greatest potential problems causing impasse in decisions involving sacred values is that parties do not consider the extent to which some values are “priceless” for the competing sides, and said sides are not willing to work within those constraints (see also Argo & Ginges, 2015). However, the literature also suggested that there are ways that people across the ideological spectrum can make their stance understandable to a person from the other side. For instance, Voelkel and Feinberg (2018) found that a moral reframing technique can be used to overcome the rigid stances partisans often hold and help to develop political acceptance. Furthermore, a capacity for contextual understanding of moral concerns is important in order to solve complex social problems when multiple moral reasonings are conflicting, such as in the case of abortion or LGBT+ rights. This capacity is also important for living in groups with different moral values or in groups that prioritize the same moral values differently (Atran & Axelrod, 2008). Skitka, Washburn, and Carsel (2015) found that people do not accept or expect their moral convictions to be contextually contingent or situationally variable, and tend to be offended by the idea that morality can be relative. For example, people morally convinced that abortion is wrong are likely to believe it is objectively and universally wrong and that it should be universally banned. In the context of international political negotiations, Argo and Ginges (2015) argued that this rhetoric reinforces absolutism, turning decision making into an irresolvable conflict in which people inflexibly refuse to manage creative solutions. Similarly, in the political field, Zagrebelsky (2008) described two different or even conflicting moral approaches. The first is a strict approach that leads to a rigid defence of moral values, unlikely to be negotiated or reframed depending on the context. For instance, the “right to life” could be sacralized and abortion would therefore be forbidden in all cases. On the basis of the second perspective, moral issues are rewritable in accordance with each specific and concrete situation. In this case, abortion could be viewed as a restriction of the right to life of the fetus that is opposed to and conflicting with the woman’s right to health care; according to an attentive evaluation of these two conflicting situations, the second perspective generally prevails and States are obliged to respect, protect, and fulfill the woman’s right, as, unlike a fetus, she is already a person.

Drawing inspiration from Gibson (2011), Argo and Ginges (2015) suggested that for a successful political negotiation it is necessary to be aware of when individuals are conflating a sacred position with sacred values. A conceptual clarification could allow for the reframing of sacred values so that they are preserved even in the face of a moral compromise. The authors argued that a good negotiation process emphasizes that sometimes a compromise is the only way one could retain at least some portion of the sacred. A complete discussion of those strategies enabling individuals and groups to negotiate on sacred values is beyond the scope of this paper, however some examples concerning the Italian specificities may provide constructive suggestions. Over the course of more than thirty years, one of the most violent political quarrels on issues with moral implications was focused on LGBT+ rights. In May 2016, the Italian Parliament gave its final approval to a law providing same-sex couples with many of the rights arising out of marriage (Gazzetta Ufficiale della Repubblica Italiana, 2016). The proposal supported by the Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and the left-wing coalition was postponed several times as a result of obstructionist opposition on the part of conservative and Catholics forces, who presented a barrage of amendments against the law (Tonacci, 2014). Italian conservative parties accused left-wing parties of not protecting the interests of the “natural family”, sacred values that are implied in the binding approach. Luigi Manconi, who was the President of the Italian Human Rights Commission, argued that the impasse in the approval of a law was mostly due to a debate between all the opposite parties that do not get in the right common perspective: the equal dignity of persons (Tonacci, 2014). A compromise was possible after a long negotiation on the need to distinguish same-sex partnerships, social units compliant with Articles 2 and 3 of the Italian Constitution, from families as natural gatherings as per Article 29 of said Constitution. This reframing enabled a compromise because both parties could adopt a version of their position which left their sacred values unchanged. For instance, the left-wing coalition emphasized the importance of the new law, stating that it was better than the previous arrangement and reprioritizing the issue of a full regulation of LGBT+ issues for the near future. The right-wing coalition and Catholic forces changed their sacred position against same-sex unions, accepting a norm where a compromise over their sacred values of the traditional family would no longer be necessary. A breakthrough was reached by recognizing that the political positions were not merely conflicting, but ultimately complementary when viewed in the broader perspective of long-term societal success.

Limitations

The study had some important limitations that must be kept in mind when interpreting the results. One limit is the correlational nature of the research and the low representativeness of the convenience sample, mainly made up of participants from central and southern Italy. Future research should explore compromise on moral foundations in a more extensive Italian sample. We failed to insert a new measure of political affiliation. The majority of participants refused to report the party they do or would vote for. In view of the rapid evolution of the Italian political context, the widespread political dissatisfaction, and the lack of confidence in the party system that was observed in other studies (Bellucci & Maraffi, 2014; Martini & Quaranta, 2015), we should add new measures of political ideology and political disaffection. Furthermore, in future studies a sixth moral foundation should be explored, namely Liberty / oppression (Iyer, Koleva, Graham, Ditto, & Haidt, 2012), describing the feelings of resentment people feel toward those who dominate them and restrict their liberty.

Conclusion

In this study, moral foundations were measured in a taboo trade-off framework among Italian participants, finding that political orientation correlates with moral foundations as sacred values. The new scale shows the hypothesized differences between Italian political groups: the left prioritizes individualizing foundations as opposed to binding ones in a context of moral dilemma, whereas conservatives and centrists have a broader idea of sacredness. This deep understanding of the opponents’ sacred values could offer new opportunities to improve ideological debates in the political arena. Although there is still much to learn about what leads people to have strong sacred values and about the full range of consequences of these attitudes, these results point towards a deeper understanding of the role that moral concerns may play in different ideological viewpoints in Italy.