Abstract

The events of the Bunkerville standoff and the Malheur wildlife refuge occupation were both important confrontations with the government by the western land rights movement. Participants in and responders to the events engage in distinct moral judgments and rationales. Utilizing cultural schema analysis and moral foundations theory (MFT), I explored the differences in rationales and judgments made by participants and responders in their explicit, public moral discourses of both events. My analysis indicates that responders and participants defined and utilized the same moral foundations, but in distinct ways. Participants were more diverse in their invocation of moral foundations while responders centralized on judgments/rationales centered on harm/care and authority/subversion. I argue that the insights of content differences in construction/usage of moral foundations are a key contribution to the literature and usage of MFT. I further argue that future research on moral judgments utilizing MFT should endeavor to specify the moral and rational content of how moral foundations are employed, rather than simply documenting their distributions.

Degree

PhD

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Psychology

Rights

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