The Importance of Consciously Curating Our Own Moral Identities

#TransparentTuesday

Hi friend,

Today I want to talk about how our moral identities are socially influenced, and why it’s so important to take an active and conscious role in curating them, as adults. 

(Real quick: if you haven’t heard the term “moral identity” before, I encourage you to read the blog post I wrote last week here, exploring both what it means, and how it’s impacted by gender!)

The short version is that our “moral identity” is the part of our self-concept having to do with our sense of ourselves as moral beings, similar to how our “body image” is the part of our self-concept having to do with our body and appearance, and it plays a crucial role in how we feel about ourselves, as well as in our choices, actions, and behaviors. 

A person’s moral identity includes how central morality is to their sense of self in general, as well as how important (or not) various moral qualities and values are to that individual, and how close or far they consider themselves to be from their own personal values and moral “ideals.” 

An individual’s moral identity can be positive, negative, or anywhere in between, and (just like with body image), it’s common for people to feel positively about certain parts of themselves morally speaking, but negative about others. 

For the last month, I’ve been sharing my discoveries about what I originally called the “nameless epidemic of pain and suffering” that I’ve been seeing lately, in which people are sort of generally ok, but they’re not really thriving, and can’t figure out why. 

I first identified the epidemic as a buildup of “moral residue” in this blog post here, and talked about the heavy toll it takes on our moral identities to live in a world where we have to make decisions that don’t align with our values or moral on a daily basis, we’re constantly witnessing stories that violate our innate sense of right and wrong, and we feel powerless to set things morally right. 

Today I want to talk about the way social conditioning influences our moral identities, and encourage you to actively decondition yours. 

The truth is that none of us develop our sense of right and wrong in a vacuum. Morality is inherently social, and the vast majority of our moral compass and moral identity are developed through our social conditioning as children. 

To be fair, most of us internalized at least some healthy and positive moral messaging from our parents, schools, churches, and other communities, including ideas like the “golden rule,” and treating others with kindness and respect. 

Of course, a lot of the moral messages we internalized growing up actually weren’t healthy or positive at all, because they were rooted in control, shame, and/or the systems of power and oppression that our society is built upon. 

Sometimes, otherwise reasonable moral messages were twisted in an attempt to control us through fear and shame as children, such as “if you lie, Santa will know you’re bad and you won’t get any gifts,” or “don’t ever hit people, because it makes God sad.” 

Other times we were taught outright false, toxic, and oppressive ideas that were disguised as morality, like the way purity culture teaches that pre-marital sex is dirty and wrong, or when parents tell their kids things like “good boys don’t cry,” and “good girls don’t get mad.”

All of this is to say that our moral identities were first shaped by our social conditioning, for better or for worse. 

As children, there’s not a lot we can do about this, both because we don’t know any better, and because we don’t really have the power or freedom to reject what we’re taught. But later on, when we’re autonomous and empowered adults, we do have a choice, and we can reject what we’ve learned! Sadly though, a lot of people don’t. 

I think this is at least partly because most people feel like their own moral beliefs are fixed and objective. 

Despite the fact that we all know various people and cultures disagree about what is right and wrong—which would point toward morality being subjective and fluid—most people experience their own moral beliefs as innate, instinctual, and unchangeable. Our beliefs are so entangled with our deepest needs and emotions that they tend to feel like natural and objective facts, which is why it’s nearly impossible to convince someone that their beliefs are wrong!

We also tend to mistake the emotional reaction we feel when thinking about a moral issue as proof that something is objectively good or bad; right or wrong. 

For example, an evangelical Christian might experience a powerful wave of revulsion or anger when they think about gay men or transgender women, and (falsely) interpret this visceral negative reaction as evidence that queerness is unnatural and immoral. Or a vegetarian might feel a similar wave of emotions when they think about eating animals, and again mistake that reaction as proof that vegetarianism is the only moral choice.

These emotional reactions aren’t actually evidence of anything, though. They’re just the natural and normal consequence of an individual thinking about something they believe is immoral.

And this is important to understand: our moral beliefs are inextricably linked to our emotions at least in part because of the way moral disgust works.

Disgust is an emotion that is rooted in our evolutionary biology to help us survive; it’s a hard-wired reaction designed to keep us away from things that could harm or kill us. (Think: how we automatically want to get further away from dead bodies and feces, which carry dangerous pathogens.) 

Historically as humans, nothing has been more important for our survival than our ability to stay connected to other people. We’re wired to treat ostracization from society as a death sentence, and to protect our place in society like our life depends on it, because it did… and in many ways, still does.

It’s for this reason that our moral conditioning, which teaches us a sort of “social code” for what will and won’t be tolerated by our community, gets coded into our brains as life-or-death important. 

Put another way, breaking the “rules” we learned about right and wrong could get us ostracized from society, which means it’s inherently harmful and dangerous.

Disgust's job is to give you such an overwhelmingly unpleasant feeling about anything harmful or dangerous that you innately want to stay far away from it. 

So once you learn that something is immoral, you will automatically start developing a viscerally negative reaction to it. And eventually, seeing (or even thinking about) that thing might make you feel overwhelmingly disgusted, angry, or horrified.  

This reaction is called “moral disgust,” and while it tends to feel innate and instinctual—hence why people often interpret it as “proof” that their moral beliefs are natural and correct—it’s not. 

Moral disgust is nothing but a reaction to our learned beliefs about what is right and what is wrong. Which means that as our moral beliefs change, our emotional reactions will change too. 

I say all this because it’s extremely important to understand that our moral beliefs are subjective, rooted in our social conditioning, and changeable. They’re undeniably powerful and persistent, but they’re not fixed… which means we actually do have the power to change them. 

And in my experience, a positive and healthy moral identity requires us to take a more active and conscious role in examining, choosing, and curating our own moral beliefs. 

We must get curious about why we think something is right or wrong, and whether or not that belief actually aligns with our own core values. 

We must be willing to consider where we learned any given belief, who benefits from us believing it, and who might be harmed by it. 

And when we find a belief that feels outside our own authentic integrity and values, then we must be willing to dismantle and release it. 

Doing this work is an important step in developing a strong, positive, and resilient moral identity. It helps us reconnect to our deepest selves, gets us back into alignment with our core values, restores our sense of integrity, and helps us cultivate a sense of our own power and agency.

In other words, taking an active and conscious role in the curation of our own moral identity will both help us tap back into our ability to thrive as individuals, and give us the tools we need to resist and address the endless stream of moral violations we’re seeing as a society right now. 

Next week I’ll be sharing a personal story to demonstrate what it actually looks like to take an active and conscious role in the curation of your own moral identity, so be sure to stick around for that one! 

In the meantime, I encourage you to get curious about your own moral beliefs!

What identity, behavior, or situation do you feel strongly judgmental about, or have a strong moral disgust/anger reaction to,? Where did that belief come from, who does it benefit and harm, and do you feel like it’s deeply yours, or just something you internalized at some point?

This doesn’t have to be all about the big picture stuff, either! 

Since you’re reading my work, I’m willing to bet that you’ve already done some of this work when it comes to your stance on various social and political issues, but what about the smaller stuff? 

Do you have any “pet peeves” or “hot takes” that are actually moral beliefs in disguise, or you have a strong judgmental reaction to a fairly innocuous trait or behavior in others? 

If so, get curious about why this thing feels morally loaded, and how it impacts you (or others)!

Big hug,

Jessi