I’ve had some interesting conversations with many of you about civility in response to my recent post. One idea that came up a lot was that moral considerations may be the single greatest barrier we face to civil discourse. This is an important matter for qualitative researchers who strive for insightful conversations.

It’s hard to have a civil, respectful dialogue with another person about something on which you completely disagree, particularly if the source of disagreement is a different moral worldview. Understanding someone else’s mindset is hard if it differs significantly from yours, but it gets doubly so when it comes to morality. Morality is our sense of right and wrong. It’s easy for right vs. wrong to morph into good vs. evil. If we disagree, that might suggest that I’m for good and you’re for evil— at which point it’s impossible for us to have a conversation.

Think about some current fraught issues: abortion, guns, covid vaccines. In all these cases, morality is driving opinions and disagreement. And that sorely tests our ability to be civil.

Morality is how we balance the needs of the individual against the needs of the group. Different moral worldviews achieve that balance differently. For instance, while your worldview around one issue might emphasize personal freedom, your views on another might prioritize responsibilities to others.

Another thing that stresses civility is that we often lack the analytical tools and vocabulary to understand fully where another person is coming from. It’s helpful if you can identify the moral framework that informs someone’s POV, and be well versed in the basis of that model, its history, its strengths, and flaws. For more on this, see my post on moral mindsets from about a year ago; it remains one of my most viewed.

Developing a full understanding of a moral mindset that differs profoundly from your own is an act of will and courage. Doing something that might force you to reconsider your own opinion goes against human nature and is emotionally risky. But that’s all in a day’s work for a good qualitative researcher.