What Is Moral Conflict?
The moral positions of anti-abortion and pro-choice activists are sometimes regarded as incommensurable. That is, the parties not only disagree about substantive moral issues, but also approach moral questions in a fundamentally different way. For this reason, the abortion debate is a prime example of a moral conflict. Because parties are unlikely to be willing to compromise their most cherished values, such conflicts are likely to be interminable and intractable.
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Protracted conflict sometimes results from a clash between differing world-views. One group's most fundamental and cherished assumptions about the best way to live may differ radically from the values held by another group.[1] Parties may have different standards of rightness and goodness and give fundamentally different answers to serious moral questions.[2] When groups have different ideas about the good life, they often stress the importance of different things, and may develop radically different or incompatible goals. This can lead to conflict.
Because values and morals tend to be quite stable, people are often unwilling to negotiate or compromise with respect to these topics. Indeed, if the basic substantive issues of the conflict are deeply embedded in the participants' moral orders, these issues are likely to be quite intractable.[3]
A group's moral order is related to its practices, its patterns of thinking, and its patterns of language. As they are socialized, group members learn to center their judgments on values and procedures fundamental to their own common culture.[4] Their moral order provides the set of meanings through which they understand their experience and make judgments about what is valuable and important.[5] These patterns of meaning shape the way that individuals understand facts and issues and help them to develop a sense of identity. Social reality also dictates what counts as appropriate action and sets boundaries on what people are able to do.[6] It even affects the way in which emotions are labeled, understood, and acted upon. Thus, an individual's beliefs, sayings, and actions must be understood within the context of a particular social world.
People from the same culture have more or less equivalent realities and mindsets. Their values, assumptions, and procedures become part of "common sense" for them. However, when two parties that do not share norms of communication [customary patterns and rules of communication] and expectations about behavior must interact, they often clash.[7] Each party may believe that its ways of doing things and thinking about things is the best way and come to regard other ways of thinking and acting as inferior, strange, or morally wrong.[8]
Moral conflict occurs when disputants are acting within different social worlds, according to different meanings.[9] Indeed, one of the reasons groups in conflict have trouble breaking the pattern of interaction between them is that each is caught in its own moral order. When two groups have radically different ways of making sense of human life, it is likely that actions regarded by one side as good and prudent will be perceived by the other as evil or foolish.[10] This is because an action that one moral order deems perfectly acceptable may be regarded as an abomination by a different moral order.
For example, sometimes people distinguish between moral orders built on rights and those built on virtues.[11] Each one is associated with particular forms of society and ways of being human. While a rights-based approach is associated with the Enlightenment and modernity, a virtues-based approach emerges from traditional society. When modernists carry out acts regarded as obligatory or good within their own moral order, "these very acts offend traditionalists."[12] Inter-racial or inter-religious marriages, for example, are seen by many as one outgrowth of inclusivity and tolerance. The freedom to marry anyone is a "right." Traditionalists, however, would see it as evil -- harming their race or religion. Likewise, some traditional religious and political activities, for instance, limiting women's dress, freedom of movement, education, and/or public involvement is seen as abhorrent to modern, Western societies. The freedom to wear what one wants, and do what one wants, with no limitations, is seen as a woman's right. Yet the freedom that women exhibit in Western societies is abhorrent to some very traditional Muslim cultures, in which women's modesty is seen as a virtue. In short, the two groups have clashing conceptions of moral value.
In many cases, culture has a powerful influence on the moral order. Because systems of meaning and ways of thinking differ from one culture to another, people from different cultures typically develop different ideas about morality and the best way to live. They often have different conceptions of moral authority, truth, and the nature of community.[13] For example, some cultures place great moral emphasis on the family, while others stress the importance of individual autonomy. These cultural differences become even more problematic when groups have radically different expectations about what is virtuous, what is right, and how to deal with moral conflicts.[14] Thus, culture wars are often driven by moral conflict.
In some cases, one group may come to view the beliefs and actions of another group as fundamentally evil and morally intolerable. This often results in hostility and violence and severely damages the relationship between the two groups. For this reason, moral conflicts tend to be quite harmful and intractable.
Features of Moral Conflict
Additional insights into moral or value conflicts are offered by Beyond Intractability project participants.
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To further understand moral conflict and deal with it effectively, it is helpful to be aware of its common features.
Misunderstandings
The first general feature is the tendency for each side to misunderstand the words and actions of the other. People from incommensurate traditions may have trouble communicating because they rely on different systems of meaning, norms of communication, and behavioral expectations.
One possibility is that the participants use the same vocabulary but define and use these key terms differently. For example, the word "honor" might mean martial excellence to one party and economic success to the other.[15] But it is also possible that the groups simply rely on radically different vocabularies that stress the importance of different values. If one party regards the key terms used by the other as unimportant, communication between them will be quite strained. All of this contributes to misunderstanding and makes it very difficult for participants to "articulate the logic of the other sides' social world in ways that the other side will accept."[16]
Further misunderstanding and erroneous perceptions may arise because groups often perceive, define, and deal with conflict in different ways.[17] Because of differing cultural frames, many of the words used to describe appropriate behavior during conflict do not reflect the same content from one culture to another. For example, the terms "conflict," "aggression," "peace," "time," and "negotiation" are not value-free. They carry judgments with them and may be used differently in different cultures.[18] Aggression, usually defined as intentionally hurting another person, is a reflection of norms of conduct, and what hurts in one society may not be what hurts in another society. Thus, indicators of aggression may vary.[19] In the Middle East, for example, a direct refusal is considered a hostile gesture. But in other cultures, raising an objection is customary and well accepted. Ideas about fairness and images of justice can also vary among different groups.
Mistrust
The second general feature of moral conflict is that group members tend to develop feelings of mistrust and suspicion toward the other group -- even a sense that the other group poses a danger to their very survival. Given the groups' different values and systems of meaning, actions taken by one side to defuse or resolve the conflict may often be perceived as threatening by the other party.[20] This second party is likely to be stunned and offended by the other's action, and to respond in a negative way. This serves to perpetuate and/or intensify the conflict. Thus, the groups' different conceptions of morality lead to misunderstanding, which in turn contributes to conflict escalation.
Strained and Hostile Communication
Another general feature of moral conflicts is the hostility characteristic of the relationship and the communication between the parties. While sophisticated rhetoric consists of exchanging reasons in a quest to form shared beliefs, the patterns of communication in moral conflicts consist primarily in personal attacks, denunciations, and curses.[21] Slogans and chants replace arguments intended to persuade and inform, and the discourse between the two groups involves many statements about what is wrong with the other group. Thus, opportunities for opposing groups to converse intelligibly and reason together are diminished. When one group is denounced, its members are likely to become defensive, which can contribute to more negative emotions and behavior.
Thus, discourse often moves to sweeping generalizations and abstract principles.[22] For example, groups may appeal to abstract ideals of religion, patriotism, liberty, or "what America is all about" to point out why the actions of another group are morally wrong. In many cases, groups rely on rigidly held social or political beliefs, or ideology, to indicate why their position is morally superior. Such ideology is often accompanied by a sense of urgency about the need for pursuing those ideals.[23]
Negative Stereotyping
Discourse often involves sweeping generalizations about members of the other group. People in moral conflicts tend to invidiously categorize and denounce the personalities, intelligence, and social manners of those with whom they disagree.[24] They may form negative stereotypes and attribute moral depravity or other negative characteristics to those who violate their cultural expectations, while they ignore their own vices and foibles, perceiving their own group to be entirely virtuous. This is what social psychologists call the attribution error.
For example, disputants may attribute the "strange" behavior of foreigners to undesirable character traits, such as moral depravity or lack of intelligence, rather than realizing that their seemingly inappropriate acts are simply a matter of cultural difference.[25] Because parties are typically unable to give rich accounts of the moral order of the opposing group, they are likely to attribute whatever the group does to its stupidity, evil nature, and overall moral depravity. Groups with radically different conceptions of morality may feel stunned and offended by the actions or words of the other group and denounce those actions or the group as a whole.[26]
Non-negotiability
These belief systems pull together fundamental assumptions and global viewpoints that are in general not up for compromise.[27] Strict adherence to ideology can make it particularly difficult for individuals to approach those with differing worldviews with an open mind. They come to see the conflict entirely in win-lose terms. They may even get to the point that the goal of harming the other becomes more important than helping oneself.[28]
Effects of Moral Conflict
Not surprisingly, moral conflict often has harmful effects. Participants in moral conflict often behave immorally, even according to their own standards of behavior, because they believe the actions of their enemies force them to do so.[29] If a group is regarded as morally depraved, its members may come to be regarded as less than human and undeserving of humane treatment. The demonization or dehumanization of one's opponent that often occurs in moral conflict paves the way for hateful action and violence. It often leads to human rights violations or even attempts at genocide, as parties may come to believe that the capitulation or elimination of the other group is the only way to resolve the conflict.[30]
Why Moral Conflict is Intractable
Because of its deep-roots, moral conflicts tend to be intractable and long-lasting.[31] Parties to such conflict often have great difficulty in describing the substantive issues in shared terms. Because they are arguing from different moral positions, they disagree about the meaning and significance of the important issues.[32] This makes negotiation or compromise extremely difficult in and of itself.
Resolution becomes even more difficult when parties disagree not only about substantive issues, but also about which forms of conflict resolution are morally right, aesthetically preferred, and politically prudent.[33] Parties may have very different ideas about how to gather information, arrive at a conclusion, make a decision, and deal with uncertainty.[34]
Over the course of conflict, the original issues often become irrelevant and new causes for conflict are generated by actions within the conflict itself. This is because in moral conflict, when groups try to act consistently with what they believe is morally good and just, they "prove" to the other side that they are fools or villains.[35] Thus, the means by which the parties seek resolution often just provoke further conflict. As the conflict continues, substantive issues are largely forgotten and "the other side's means of dealing with the conflict is itself the force that drives the interactions among the various conflicted parties."[36] Thus, moral conflicts are self-sustaining.
Parties involved in moral conflict also tend to have great difficulty in imagining a win-win resolution of the conflict at hand. The substantive issues are often a matter of rigidly held moral beliefs, based in fundamental assumptions that cannot be proved wrong.[37] These fundamental moral, religious, and personal values are not easily changed, and people who adhere to a particular ideology may very well be unwilling to compromise their world-view. Instead, as noted earlier, they may engage in diatribe, a rhetorical strategy that discredits adversaries by characterizing them as evil or morally inferior.[38] Such characterizations often lead to subversion, repression, and violence. Because rational discourse has become useless, each party may try to force the other side into compliance.[39] The conflict is likely to escalate and become more protracted as a result.
Also, those involved in moral conflict may regard perpetuation of the conflict as virtuous or necessary. They may derive part of their identity from being warriors or opponents of their enemy and have a stake in the continuation of the conflict because it provides them with a highly desirable role.[40] In addition, because struggles over values often involve claims to status and power, parties may have a great stake in neutralizing, injuring or eliminating their rivals. They may view any compromise about their most cherished values as a threat to their very identity and a grave evil. Indeed, moral conflicts often stem from a desire to safeguard basic human needs such as security and social recognition of identity. On some occasions, the continuation of a conflict may seem preferable to what would have to be given up if the other party were accommodated.[41]
Unfortunately, those enmeshed in moral conflict may be unable to discern the effects of conflict, even if those effects themselves threaten the basic human needs that were at issue. Because moral conflicts tend to be intractable and have great potential for violence, we must search for new ways to manage them.
Dealing With Moral Conflict
What can be done when parties are faced with moral differences that seem to be intolerable?
Changing the Stories
In some cases, each party can heighten its understanding of the other's world-view through new forms of communication. Some suggest that moral conflict be viewed as a particular form of communication and pattern of interaction. At various points in a moral conflict, people have the ability to handle their conflict differently.[42] One way in which people can change the pattern of conflict is by telling different stories about what they are doing. By using narratives and story-telling to communicate they can enrich the views that each side has about the other, often revealing commonalities in the midst of all the differences.
Reframing
Third parties can sometime help the disputants to redefine or reframe their conflict, focusing more on attainable interests and less on non-negotiable positions or negative stereotypes. They can also help parties to seek mutually beneficial outcomes rather than competitive, win-lose outcomes. Even if the moral differences cannot be eliminated, sometimes the parties share interests or needs. All sides, for example, have a need for security, and increasing the feeling of security of one side does not diminish the security of the other side, as is commonly believed. Rather the opposite is generally true: the more secure one side feels, the less it feels a need to attack the other side; hence the more secure the other side is likely to feel. Therefore, reframing the conflict as a problem (at least in part) of security can sometimes help to get the parties to focus on something they can achieve together rather than on their non-negotiable differences.
Dialogue
Similar to story-telling, dialogue is a process of in-depth communication that allows parties to get to know each other better and to find commonalities with the other side. Although there are many forms and contexts of dialogue, all seek to replace the ubiquitous "diatribe" of moral conflicts with respectful communication, empathic listening, improved understanding, and respect. In some cases, these new forms of communication may help parties to see that their moral disagreements are less deep and fundamental than they previously thought. However, in other cases, the substantive issues will truly be beyond compromise.
Some suggest that in these sorts of cases, parties must strive to develop a space for citizenly public discourse.[43] Even though the parties have radically different world-views and do not agree about the relevant issues, they can nevertheless reach an agreement about how to contend with moral and political differences in a constructive way. In other words, they can come to an agreement about how to disagree. They can thereby find a way to manage their conflict in a way that minimizes the costs to both parties.
[1] W. Barnett Pearce and Stephen W. Littlejohn. Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Inc., 1997), 49.
[2] Otomar J. Bartos and Paul Wehr. Using Conflict Theory. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 41.
[3] Pearce and Littlejohn, 50.
[4] Paul R. Kimmel, "Culture and Conflict," in The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, eds. Morton Deutsch an Peter T. Coleman. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2000), 456.
[5] Pearce and Littlejohn, 51.
[6] ibid, 54.
[7] Kimmel, 453.
[8] ibid, 457.
[9] Pearce and Littlejohn, 55.
[10] ibid, 50.
[11] ibid, 59.
[12] ibid, 60.
[13] ibid, 70.
[14] ibid, 62.
[15] ibid, 68.
[16] ibid, 68.
[17] Guy Oliver Faure, "Conflict Formation: Going Beyond Culture-Bound Views of Conflict," in Conflict, Cooperation, and Justice, eds. Morton Deutsch, Barbara Bunker, and Jeffrey Rubin. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995), 39.
[18] Faure, 41.
[19] ibid, 42.
[20] Pearce and Littlejohn, 68.
[21] ibid, 75.
[22] ibid, 70.
[23] David P. Barash and Charles P. Webel. Peace and Conflict Studies. (California: Sage Publications, 2002), 233.
[24] Pearce and Littlejohn, 74.
[25] Kimmel, 457.
[26] Pearce and Littlejohn, 73.
[27] Barash and Webel, 234.
[28] Pearce and Littlejohn, 73.
[29] ibid, 73.
[30] ibid, 68.
[31] ibid, 68.
[32] ibid, 71.
[33] ibid, 69.
[34] Kimmel, 459.
[35] Pearce and Littlejohn, 69.
[36] ibid, 69.
[37] Barash and Webel, 234.
[38] Pearce and Littlejohn, 118.
[39] ibid, 119.
[40] ibid, 70.
[41] ibid, 70.
[42] Pearce and Littlejohn, 77.
[43] ibid, 104.
Use the following to cite this article:
Maiese, Michelle. "Moral or Value Conflicts." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: July 2003 <http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/intolerable_moral_differences/>.
Sources of Additional, In-depth Information on this Topic
Additional Explanations of the Underlying Concepts:
Online (Web) Sources
Glaser, Tanya. "Moral Conflict -- Summary." University of Colorado Conflict Research Consortium, 1998.
Available at: http://www.beyondintractability.org/booksummary/10444/.
This page is a summary of Moral Conflict by W. Barnett Pearce and Stephen W. Littlejohn. Pearce and Littlejohn seek to develop new, more productive ways of expressing moral difference and managing moral conflicts. By moral conflicts the authors mean "situations in which the social worlds or moral orders of the participants are incommensurate." Their primary approach is via communication theory, but the authors draw on fields ranging from moral philosophy to the sociology of knowledge.
Reframing the Debate: The New Silent Majority. 2004.
Available at: http://www.aworldofpossibilities.com/details.cfm?id=156.
An interview with Lawrence Chickering, Celinda Lake, and George Lakoff. Perceived moral differences, amplified by power-driven politicians and conflict-driven media are threatening to divide and conquer Americans.
Lankard, Bettina A. "Resolving Ethical Dilemmas in the Workplace: A New Focus for Career Development." , 1991
Available at: http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9220/focus.htm.
This article examines ethical and value conflicts, and gives recommendations on how these types of conflicts can be resolved in the workplace.
Hattingh, Johan. "Unmasking Ideology: Moving Beyond the 'Grand Narratives' of Capitalism and Socialism." Track Two, Vol.7, No.2 , April 1, 1998
Available at: http://ccrweb.ccr.uct.ac.za/archive/two/7_2/Article11.html.
This article examines the role ideology and its narratives play in the creation and perpetuation of protracted conflicts.
Currie, Cris M. "When Interest-Based Bargaining Is Not Enough." ,
Available at: http://www.mediate.com/articles/currie3.cfm.
The author examines two recent works, one readily available and the other relatively inaccessible, that attempt to shed some light on the complex subject of seemingly intractable human conflict, Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide by W. Barnett Pearce and Stephen W. Littlejohn (Sage Publications, 1997), and When the Parties Bring Their Gods to the Table: Learning Lessons from Waco, a 1998 doctoral dissertation for George Mason University by Jayne S. Docherty.
Offline (Print) Sources
Faure, Guy Oliver. "Conflict Formation: Going Beyond Culture-Bound Views of Conflict." In Conflict, Cooperation, and Justice: Essays Inspired by the Work of Morton Deutsch. Edited by Deutsch, Morton, ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, January 1, 1995.
The author notes that the methods of dealing with conflict vary considerably from one society to another and that different cultures have different standards for appropriate conflict behavior. This contributes to misunderstandings and makes moral conflicts self-sustaining.
Kimmel, Paul R. "Culture and Conflict." In The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice. Edited by Deutsch, Morton and Peter T. Coleman, eds. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2000.
This article describes how our social meanings and realities are constructed within the context of our particular culture, and suggests that differing systems of meaning among various cultures may lead to moral conflict and miscommunication. However, we can learn to become more aware of differing cultural values through education, training programs, and overall increased cultural awareness.
Gutmann, Amy and Dennis Thompson. Democracy and Disagreement: Why Moral Conflict Cannot be Avoided in Politics, and What Should be Done About It, Reprint Edition. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, April 1, 1998.
This book argues that a better kind of discussion is needed to address the deep political and moral disagreements that pervades U.S. society. Democratic societies should engage in substantive deliberation over serious moral issues in order to achieve "mutually acceptable" conclusions (Harvard Crimson, January 12, 1998).
Bartos, Otomar J. and Paul Wehr. "Development of Incompatible Goals." In Using Conflict Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press, January 1, 2002. Pages: 29-49.
In chapter 3, the authors describe the development of incompatible goals in conflict. Because members of separate groups seldom interact across their group's boundaries, their cultures become different. Groups that are separated from each other tend to develop different cultures that may advocate incompatible values. Different cultures and types of community tend to develop different value systems, different social structures, and different ideas about what the
'good life' looks like. This gives rise to incompatible goals, which is a central cause of conflict.
Thompson, Dennis and Amy Gutmann. "Moral Conflict and Political Consensus." Ethics 101:1, October 1, 1990.
The authors explore the principles of neutrality and impartiality, which are often invoked by liberals to determine which issues are the appropriate subjects of public policy. They argue that reliance on such principles tends to insulate the political process from moral conflict, and that this is not always appropriate. In addition, they propose some new principles of accommodation to manage moral disagreement with regard to those issues that should be part of the public agenda.
Lukes, Steven. Moral Conflict and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
The author examines value pluralism and moral conflict, their implications for political thinking and practice, and their consequences for how we are to think about equality, liberty, power, and authority. In the final section of the book, he explores how important political moralities influence the world we live in.
Pearce, W. Barnett and Stephen W. Littlejohn. Moral Conflict: When Social Worlds Collide. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, April 1997.
Moral Conflicts are passionate and difficult to resolve. Responses that are normally effective, such as explaining, persuading, and compromising, can make matters worse and drive people further apart in such conflicts. Moral conflicts occur when incommensurate social realities come to clash. In an original synthesis of communication theory and their own research, W. Barnett Pearce and Stephen W. Littlejohn describe a dialectical tension between the expression and suppression of conflict that can be transcended in ways that lead to personal growth and productive patterns of social action.
Bohman, James. "Public Reason and Cultural Pluralism: Political Liberalism and the Problem of Moral Conflict." Political Theory 23:2, January 1, 1995.
Moral conflicts are often difficult to resolve because the parties lack a reasonable, common basis for settling their disagreements. Standard liberal solutions, modeled on religious liberty and tolerance, are not enough to resolve these deep moral disagreements. In fact, democratic arrangements may turn out to worsen the difficulties associated with cultural and moral pluralism. When parties do not debate issues from the same moral and political framework, they are caught in 'deep' conflict. Bohman discusses the problem of 'irreconcilable' moral values and explores what sort of role rational deliberation might play in resolving moral conflict.
Brown, Marvin T. The Ethical Process: An Approach to Controversial Issues . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, August 19, 1998.
This work "offers a detailed methodology for dealing with controversial issues. The method helps to explore the reasons for different positions, and to evaluate them by ethical standards. In the process, it provides opportunities for mutual understanding and learning. By integrating the more traditional emphasis in ethics on rationality with the more recent emphasis on relationships, The Ethical Process invites participants to jointly explore the basis and the value of their disagreement through the creation of "argumentative dialogues." By going through this process, groups can learn how to use disagreement as a resource for making better decisions."--Online abstract
Barash, David P. and Charles P. Webel. "The Ideological, Social, and Economic Levels." In Peace and Conflict Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, January 1, 2002. Pages: 233-261.
In chapter nine, the authors discuss how conflicting ideologies drive conflict and provide impetus for war. An ideology is pattern of beliefs upon which social and political actions are explained or justified. Such sets of beliefs are often characterized by a number of rigidly held propositions to which a group might appeal to gain support for its actions. Groups arguing from different moral positions tend to have different ideologies.
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Examples Illustrating this Topic:
Online (Web) Sources
Ross, Kelly L. "Abortion." Proceedings of the Friesan School , 1996
Available at: http://www.friesian.com/abortion.htm.
Abortion is an issue that evokes very strong emotions and judgments. These positions are often formatted in such a radical way that those who oppose them are regarded as terribly immroal. The author wishes to examine the extent to which arguments used on both sides of the debate are untenable and unreasonable. Such arguments serve to demonize the opposition and irrationalize the whole debate.
Berlet, Chip and Margaret Quigley. "Behind the Culture War to Restore Traditional Values." , 1995
Available at: http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/culwar.html.
The authors maintain that ultra-conservative, hard right forces are attacking democratic values in the United States. Their comments about backlash politics, roots of the culture war, theocracy, and white supremacy reveal some of the value conflicts that currently face U.S. society.
Durgin, Leslie. Confrontations Over Homosexual Rights: A One-Year Retrospective on Colorado's Amendment 2 and Similar Controversies in Other States.
Available at: Click here for more info.
This paper is an edited transcript of a panel discussion that took place on November 6, 1993 for the Intractable Conflict/Constructive Confrontation Project. It addresses the documentary video, entitled "The Great Divide" that examines the debate over civil rights for gays and lesbians as an issue of moral conflict.
Marco, Anton N. Same-sex Marriage: Should America Allow Gay Rights Activists to Cross the Last Cultural Frontier?. Christian Leadership Ministries.
Available at: http://www.femdomale.com/samesex/marriage/index.html.
This paper attempts to provide a public policy analysis of the issue of gay marriage. It includes background material on the history of gay rights and same-sex marriage as legal issues. The author then presents various considerations both in favor of and against same-sex marriage and argues that it should not be legalized.
Fowler, Anne. "Talking With the Enemy." Boston Globe , January 28, 2001
Available at: Click here for more info.
For six years, leaders on both sides of the abortion debate have met in secret in an attempt to better understand each other. This piece explores what they have learned and provides insight into dealing with irreconcilable beliefs about morality and value.
Conflict Research Consortium Staff. "When Values Conflict: Essays on Environmental Analysis, Discourse, and Decision - Book Summary." University of Colorado: Conflict Research Consortium.
Available at: http://www.beyondintractability.org/booksummary/10584/.
This summary of When Values Conflict, edited by Laurence Tribe, Corinne Schelling and John Voss, provides a good overview of the essays included in the book. These address the issue of value conflicts in environmental disputes, and the need to integrate such "fragile" values as beauty and naturalness with "hard" values such as economic efficiency in the decision making process.
Offline (Print) Sources
Judges, Donald. P. Hard Choices, Lost Voices: How the Abortion Conflict as Divided America, Distorted Constitutional Rights, and Damaged the Courts. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 1993.
Abortion is without a doubt one of the most intractable moral conflicts in the United States. In this work, the author charges that the abortion conflict has divided society and distorted constitutional rights. In this book he takes both sides of the debate to task. To do this he compiles sociological, medical, historical, and legal information and applies this to his argument.
James L. Nolan, Jr., ed. The American Culture Wars: Current Contests and Future Prospects. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, October 1996.
This edited volume features examples of various conflicts surrounding value and culture within the United States. It includes pieces about the battle over public school reform, the abortion debate, the debate over multiculturalism, and the controversy over homosexuality.
Tribe, Lawrence, ed. When Values Conflict: Essays on Environmental Analysis, Discourse, and Decision. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co., August 1976.
When Values Conflict is a collection of essays each of which addresses the issue of value conflicts in environmental disputes. These authors discuss the need to integrate such "fragile" values as beauty and naturalness with "hard" values such as economic efficiency in the decision making process.
Click here for more info.
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Audiovisual Materials on this Topic:
Offline (Print) Sources
6000 A Day: An Account of a Catastrophe Foretold . Directed and/or Produced by: Brooks, Philip. First Run Icarus Films. 2001.
This film explores how values and morals influenced governments, NGO's, and prominent leaders' decisions, on what they should do about the AIDS crisis. It then examines how these decisions impacted the international spread of AIDS. Click here for more info.
Isle of Flowers. Directed and/or Produced by: Furtado, Jorge. First Run Icarus Films. 1990.
This film begins with a glib look at life on a Brazilian island, but soon turns sober as it examines the morals, values, and attitudes the wealthy have about poverty, when we see people feed their pigs and then give what is left to the poor. Click here for more info.
Last Summer Won't Happen. Directed and/or Produced by: Gessner, Peter and Tom Hurwitz. First Run Icarus Films. 1968.
Shot in 1968, one year after the Summer of Love, this is a critical yet sympathetic examination of the anti-war movement in New York City. Click here for more info.
Live Free or Die . Directed and/or Produced by: Lipschutz, Marion and Rose Rosenblatt. First Run Icarus Films. 2000.
In a quiet New England town, a local doctor's decision to carry out legal abortions as part of his practice, sets off reverberations throughout the community.
Click here for more info.
New School Order. Directed and/or Produced by: Reticker, Gini. First Run Icarus Films. 1996.
This film focuses on US school boards as a means to show case how moral and value's issues are influencing social policy. Click here for more info.
Oskar and Jack . Directed and/or Produced by: Sandig, Frauke. First Run Icarus Films. 1996.
This film looks at identity and culture through the eyes of identical twins who were separated shortly after birth and raised in different environments - one as an Orthodox Jew, the other as a Nazi.
Click here for more info.
Procedure 769: Witnesses to an Execution. Directed and/or Produced by: van Howijk, Jaap. First Run Icarus Films. 1995.
In 1978 Robert Harris was convicted of murdering two teenage boys in San Diego. This film takes a look at capital punishment by talking with a number of people who witnessed his execution. Click here for more info.
The Abortion Pill . Directed and/or Produced by: Lipschutz, Marion and Rose Rosenblatt. First Run Icarus Films. 1997.
This film gives voice to both sides of the abortion conflict, as it focuses on the moral and factual issues associated with legalizing RU486, the abortion pill. Click here for more info.
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