America was founded on the ideas of freedom, liberty, equality, and justice. But what do these values mean today? Although we live in a very diverse culture, there are some basic values that are embedded in our founding documents, and which we, as a nation, uphold. But in talking about values such as liberty, justice, and equality, we may each mean something different. As former president Abraham Lincoln said, "We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.”

Analyzing these situations is not for merely the sake of gaining understanding, it is to establish a set of basic truths by which we can use to better assess situations and propose a course of action. Moral discrepancies will always exist, but that does not mean that they cannot be managed in a sense. If it is possible to at least clarify the fault lines of moral agreement, then we might be able to devise resolutions to our disagreements in a more effective manner.

 

Our research questions ask: 

 

(1) To what extent do individuals’ definitions of value terms and how they rank values explain their moral and policy stances on the three issues?

(2) To what degree is personality type correlated with how a person rank orders and defines values provided in the survey?

(3) Which of the following--personality type, race, socioeconomic status, gender, religion, religiosity, and political affiliation--best predicts how a person rank orders and defines values provided in the survey?

 

For more information about our research, click here.