We often refer to things like loyalty, courage, or consistency as virtues to be sought after. Realistically, though, they are only as virtuous as the things they support. This puts them in a different category, that of “moral amplifier.” Consider for example the loyalty one has in a relationship. This can lead them to honor commitments, stand by the person during hardship, or help someone through setbacks. But if the relationship is co-dependent or the person to whom they are loyal is manipulative, destructive or otherwise toxic, this can lead to conducting immoral acts on their behalf, harming others, or bolstering a narcissist’s power over others. Courage also operates in this way, amplifying our feelings and actions relative to an ideology that might be good or bad. A soldier can behave courageously in a cause that is immoral.
When loyalty suppresses dissent, when it overrides truth, justice or conscience, it becomes a vice rather than a virtue. I blogged about this in the wake of the reprehensible Policy of Exclusion in 2015 that barred children with gay parents from LDS baptism.
It’s only become harder, not easier, to break from the emotional pull of divisive rhetoric since that time. We should all stop to ask ourselves if we are defending wrongdoing by those on our side because they are “one of us” or staying silent about harm done to another group because they are not on our team. Obeying authority in wrongdoing is a symptom of blind loyalty, which is exactly how authoritarianism succeeds.
Healthy loyalty looks different:
- Based on shared values
- Allows disagreement
- Is withdrawn when harm is being done
- Includes accountability
By contrast, unhealthy loyalty looks like this:
- Demands obedience
- Punishes dissent
- Frames leaving as a betrayal
- Ties identity to morality
Loyalty functions in a healthy way when it is:
- reciprocal
- chosen, not coerced
- aligned with broader principles
- open to revision
Autocractic leaders and systems, whether political or religious, want to convert loyalty into obedience in order to control a population toward their aims. That doesn’t mean that obedience is bad and disobedience is good. It just means that both are moral amplifiers. The important thing is what they are for or against.
Discipline is another moral amplifier. It fosters dedication to meaningful work, self-control, and long-term responsibility. But it can instead be used to amplify rigid or extreme ideology, fanaticism, unhealthy self-denial. Consider the way discipline can either create a successful Olympic athlete or a self-loathing looks-maxxer hitting his facial bones with a hammer to create a chiseled jawline. Both require discipline. One is toward a worthwhile goal; the other is self-destructive.
Courage can be a positive or a negative, depending on the cause. Courage amplifies moral resilience, truth-telling in the face of oppression or danger, and protection of other people at personal expense. But it can also amplify violent extremism, ideological fanaticism or destructive loyalty. Courage increases personal power, not the things that power is used to support.
Any science ficition fan will note that intelligence is also a moral amplifier. It can be used for creative ends, empathy, and superior ethical reasoning. It can also be used to manipulate, the rationalize, and to exploit. Sometimes the most intelligent beings are the most dangerous.
Passion is a moral amplifier rather than a virtue. Someone with passion may be more able to create art, to push for social reform, to love and care for others, and to remain resilient. But it can be used to advance someone’s obsession, moral absolutism, tribalism or destructive anger.
Faith is a deep trust in an idea, cause or system, whether religious or not. It can amplify hope, perseverance, and moral commitment. But it can also amplify someone’s ability to deny reality in favor of abstract ideas, to become blindly loyal to an idea or cause, or to be intolerant of dissent.
This next one is a bit yikes because of how the religious right has tried to discard or disfavor the second greatest commandment (to love our neighbor as ourself), but empathy is actually another moral amplifier. Someone I know who is in the military felt empathy toward the Ayatollah after he was killed in the strikes, which struck me as odd, overlooking the tens of thousands of Iranians he murdered a month earlier. The basis for the empathy was that he was an old man. Empathy can lead to compassion, protecting vulnerable people, and moral awareness outside of our in-group. But it can also amplify favoritism toward “our group” (whatever that group may be), moral outrage without fairness or realism, and emotional bias toward disfavored groups. It intensifies feelings of injustice, but doesn’t necessarily lead to justice.
Certainty is another moral amplifier, which makes it tricky. If you are certain of something that is actually right, good and true, then you will have clarity, courage in defending what’s right, and will resist injustice. If you are certain of something that is not true, not good, or not worthy of your certainty, well, a bit of doubt would have served you better. Misplaced certainty leads to intolerance, rigidity, closed-mindedness, and ideological extremism. Certainty may make you stronger, but it doesn’t make you wiser.
Solidarity is also like these other moral amplifiers. Being unified adds power to achieve collective goals, protect members, and mobilize resources. We are told “If ye are not one, ye are not mine.” But unity can also lead to groupthink, suppression of dissent (including suppressing more accurate or correct ideas), and persecution of outsiders and former adherents. It can lead to a tyrannical rule of the majority, and punishment of anyone different.
When someone exhibits grit or perseverance, they can overcome obstacles and difficulty to build better things. But it can also keep people trapped in bad systems, pursuing failed strategies, and defending harmful beliefs long after they’ve been discredited by evidence. Sometimes quitters win by losing less.
The most successful authoritarian systems layer these moral amplifiers to maximize their control and influence. For example:
- Loyalty + identity → “I am this system” (Remember the “I’m a Mormon” campaign? That’s a perfect example of this coupling)
- Obedience + moral certainty → “The system is always right” (Every willing Nazi conflated their participation with patriotism or as German comedian Mario Adrion would put it “Maybe Grandpa loved Germany just a little too much”)
- Fear + conformity → “Everyone else agrees, and it’s dangerous not to” (This is what led to the mass suicide at Jonestown)
- Discipline + faith → “I will endure and believe no matter what” (We only bring up “enduring to the end” when it sucks)
It doesn’t take much imagination to see how moral amplifiers function in political groups, and also in other identity groups like religions. Mormonism is no exception. The key is what lies underneath. People sometimes say that alcohol merely reveals the type of person someone is. An angry drunk is an angry person whose inhibitions have been lowered. A happy drunk is an optimistic person, etc. While that’s not entirely true, it’s one way to look at moral amplifiers. The way they manifest reveals the underlying belief, whether it’s true or inaccurate, whether it’s moral or immoral.
- Have you seen moral amplifiers at work in politics, the church, or other places?
- How have you noticed moral amplifiers having a positive outcome?
- What negative outcomes have you seen from moral amplifiers?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
A story Marion G. Romney told about President Heber J. Grant, recounted in Ezra Taft Benson’s famous 1980 talk “Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet”:
“I remember years ago when I was a Bishop I had President [Heber J.] Grant talk to our ward. After the meeting I drove him home. . . . Standing by me, he put his arm over my shoulder and said: ‘My boy, you always keep your eye on the President of the Church, and if he ever tells you to do anything, and it is wrong, and you do it, the Lord will bless you for it.’ Then with a twinkle in his eye, he said, ‘But you don’t need to worry. The Lord will never let his mouthpiece lead the people astray.'” (end quote)
Personally, I bear complete responsibility for all my thoughts, words and actions. See also 1 Kings 13.
I issue my strongest possible condemnation to all moral amplifiers. Every one of them.
Let me tell you why. Oscar Wilde famously stated: “Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.” That is the problem here.
I obviously believe that everyone should be moral and should have strong moral values. But the problem is that the so-called amplifiers are not used to promote morality. They are used in this modern age as a tool for attacking others.
Moral amplifiers are primarily used these days to attack unpopular groups who differ in race, belief, or orientation. The person doing the attacking of those he dislikes justifies his attacks by using a moral amplifier to claim that not only is he justified in attacking those he dislikes, but that morality requires him to do so.
Morality should not be used as a means of attacking those who one dislikes. One should simply act in a moral fashion. Period.
I agree with John Charity Spring, I could not have said any better.
As I read the loyalty section, I immediately thought of Pres. Oaks’s comments from the Be One Celebration in 2018. He described a discomfort with the race based restrictions, assumed (like almost everyone else at the time) that they were commanded by God, but without explanation, and determined to be “loyal to our prophetic leaders…” Ever since, I have frequently reflected how the church views loyalty (and some of these other moral amplifiers) in relation to itself. I think that the church sees itself as largely good and true (even if, through human fallibility there are individual beliefs and practices that are not good and true), so that loyalty and obedience to the church are automatically virtuous. I see this further reflected in Pres. Oaks’s statement in his recent BYU devotional where he said that he believes that God wants “each of us” (assuming he means every human) to be active participating members of the LDS church. This belief makes it difficult (if not impossible) for the church and the orthodox members to even conceive that someone might be better able to follow God’s plan for their life outside of the church.
“The way they manifest reveals the underlying belief, whether it’s true or inaccurate, whether it’s moral or immoral.”
I think we also need to figure the way they’re received. In the scriptures some folks clap their hands with joy at the words of the prophets and others want to stone them.
Sincerity is a huge moral amplifier because a person can be sincerely wrong. Sincerity can have as its roots fear or hate, along with many other misapplied “morals” mentioned in the post. Just because someone is sincere doesn’t make them right. Wrapping themselves in the scriptures, flag, or Constitution doesn’t make a person right. There’s a huge difference in quoting a scripture and asking yourself, “What would Jesus do?” Would Christ, in rage, chase us out of the Temple as he did during his ministry, or would he feed us on the Mount? I believe there is a huge difference between the moral character of each group.
I wonder if the most pernicious amplifier is certainty, because certainty leads to dogmatism, and heaven knows that there are many people in the church who want to impose their dogmatism on others. All LDS folk know that we are supposed to oppose creeds of all sorts, but creeds are nothing more that the fruit of dogmatism, or a crystallization of dogma. I like Ralph Fiennes’ character’s words from Conclave: “To work together, and to grow together, we must be tolerant. No one person or faction seeking to dominate another.” And “There is one sin, which I have come to fear above all others. Certainty. Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.” Finally, “Our faith is a living thing, precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.” Dogmatism kills faith, because it replaces a living relationship or trust in God with a rigid intellectual checklist. Religion becomes transactional, and that is not good. Faith, in its very definition, requires some element of the unknown, and dogmatism does not allow for the unknown. When dogmatism provides certainty, there is no longer any leap of faith, because one no longer trusts in God: one is simply calculating the best decision statistically, or following a manual. That’s why I think that certainty (aka dogmatism) might be the most pernicious moral amplifier, at least in the domain of faith.
The Loyalty+Identity line really struck me. It coincides with an idea I’ve been developing over the last several years. That in United States-ian politics, part of the rancor comes from the declarations of “I am a Republican” or “I am a Democrat” or being whichever other option one can find rather than saying (believing) “I tend to vote for Republican candidates” or “I tend to vote for Democrat candidates.”
As soon as we identify ourselves as part of a group, any criticism of a policy or candidate becomes a criticism of a group, which becomes a criticism of our own identity and choices. So of course we respond strongly and negatively.
I’ve been working hard to change my perspective. I am working on no longer letting the choices I made in the past define who I am. Instead, I’m trying to choose the parts of me that I really like form my core; trying to consciously choose who I am. Then I’m choosing to let who I am define the choices I make.
This is a great framing, Hawkgrrrl. I like the moral amplifiers idea a lot.
I think JCS is actually really on to something, his usual bluster aside. It seems like the moral amplifiers you’ve identified are typically used by authoritarian groups (the Church, Trumpists) to make demands of their followers, and pretend that the amplifiers are moral goods rather than morally neutral. Loyalty and certainty are obvious favorites. GAs love loyalty a person’s ideas of morality. Trumpists love certainty, because then they can be sure that anything bad that happens (gas prices up? must be Biden’s fault, not Trump’s war) is the fault of Democrats, not their dear leader.
The observation about healthy loyalty including accountability. I think that is fundamentally missing from discourse – sure, be loyal to whomever you decide based on whatever, but if they act in ways that are contrary to expected shared values/proclaimed values/etc., holding them to account is not only healthy but tends to also edify and strengthen the overall community.
This is a thought provoking concept. I have enjoyed everybody’s thoughts.
I have long had misgivings about blind loyalty and certainty. They are upheld as virtues and yet they are so often misapplied. Like the example of Oaks above where he put his loyalty to the church above his own feeling that something was wrong. I did the opposite. I felt that the priesthood/temple ban on blacks was racist, and instead of blindly saying, “well, I just don’t understand and the prophet speaks with God so it must be true.” I took the route of saying, “I feel the racist ban is bad, so our church leaders must not speak to God as much as they claim.” I took the path of putting my own conscience above what others said. Made enemies at church, but who wants that kind of friend. Over and over in my life that has proven smarter than following others. You give up the smug feeling of certainty and belonging to a group, but you also do not get led around by the nose by other people who want to control you.
And like AdamL above, I have never joined a political party of even called myself a Democrat. No, I just vote that way more often than not. I do not want to identify in any way with a group or party because then I give up my independent thinking. My DIL once called me a liberal and I objected to the label as badly as she objects to her autistic child being labeled autistic. She challenged me to one, just one subject on which I was not a flaming liberal. Well, financially. I am actually a financial conservative. Very financially conservative. And actually his orange puke face is correct about “America First” but for him it only means “ME me meme me me me”. We do need to put our own affairs and needs as a nation ahead of busting into everybody else’s business. We need to stop jumping into every war all over the world and stop trying to police the whole damn world. We cannot afford it. So, no, I am not a flaming liberal and will resist any political label that tries to tell me how to think. I am liberal on some issues and conservative on others and even a Trumpist on some, but puke face doesn’t seriously believe the trash he spouts, so no I am anti Trump in all areas because he is a dishonest lying hypocrite who has zero principles and zero morals and only cares about his own fat ugly orange hide. And the Republicans are NOT financially conservative. They run up the national debt faster, but whine about the Dems doing it but really it is war happy Republicans.
There are rumors of forcing people to declare which party they support, and although since puke face first ran for office I have voted straight Democrat, I still sill not say I am a Democrat. I was really voting against anyone who might support puke face. I guess I will start my own party. I will be an annanite and y’all can join my political party
Georgis and Anna – I echo your great thoughts on the problem of “certainty”, which is also the enemy of humility.
Blaise Pascal said that people never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Truth is that the real enemy is not the other tribe— the real enemy is the certainty that makes the other tribe an enemy.
We’re all co-opting God to our side, our tribe. It’s natural for anyone who reveres Jesus, or the authority of his name, to imagine he is in their camp. But what does the record show? Jesus made his own followers crazy, over and over…every time they became certain of their positions, thought they had him figured out, domesticated, he rocked them back on their heels. For anyone with an agenda, he was frustrating, infuriating, unexpected, outrageous, an equal opportunity offender of anyone who was seeing the enemies of their certainty. Jesus refused to be co-opted into any camp. Whatever political beliefs he had are not preserved in the gospels, meaning they were irrelevant to his message. They never created enemies for him because his primary identity was not in camp or tribe, but in oneness with his Father. If we can only see truth in our own tribe, we’ll see enemies everywhere, but we won’t see Jesus. He’s in the space between camps, where the real enemy is not another tribe, but the certainty that makes enemies of everyone else.
What is the call of a disciple of Christ? We might say it’s to defend the cause of righteousness, to stand firm in what we know to be right.
The call of the Christian is not to pick sides but to mediate the mess. Jesus is the mediator which means he’s not there to play the moral blame game, but to help all parties see how they are contributing to the fracture. And healing begins only at the moment when we admit we are part of the problem. Until then, our egos will defend our rightness with the fervor of a thousand warriors and claim God supports our view to fully justify it.
@Anna
Oh, one of those. I’m sorry for your grandchild. It sounds like both of them could greatly benefit from spending some time with autistic adults and learning healthier attitudes towards autism. At the very least she should learn why a large majority of us prefer the term “autistic” to every other alternative and euphemism that’s been coined for us.
Autistic Saint,
Actually, she isn’t the bad kind of “one of those” in that she accepts him just as he is, but just hates labels. If that makes sense. It is like she is afraid that a label makes it so people no longer see the individual. The label itself is announcing that “something is wrong with the child.” Me, I see it as something is different, not something is wrong. But then I had the misfortune of raising an autism spectrum child without the diagnosis, so I would have welcomed understanding how my child was different. And she did great at accepting him as an individual, quirks and all. She just has a “thing” about labels, which is what I found so odd about trying to label me politically. So, in spite of her not liking the label, I think he got lucky with getting her for a mom. She was just accepting of his quirks and never treated him as if there is anything wrong with him, which of course there isn’t. She just accepted him as he came and rolled with it, with a lot more grace and patience than I had with my autistic child, who was too much like me in all the bad ways. Which of course suggests that I am also on the spectrum, but never diagnosed.
But this idea of labeling people ties right in with belonging to a group and group loyalty and seeing ourselves as individuals and daring to think as individuals. Labels are so often used to form in group and out group.