Even religious fundamentalists ground moral judgments in utilitarian harm-based reasoning

Evidence

One group that initially appears to be an exception includes those who hold fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and who do believe in sin. But I suggest that they are also prone to the utilitarian groundings of morality that seems to be the bedrock for the rest of us. As a test, ask a fundamentalist why some particular action is wrong. The initial answer may be some variant of “Because the Bible pronounced it a sin.” However, if one continues to ask why God, Christ, or the Bible pronounced it a sin, answers will be forthcoming, and in my experience are based on causing harm to others or to self. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4040

Categorization

• QUESTION: Testable claim: probing why people say an act is wrong typically bottoms out in harm-based reasoning, even for professed moral absolutists.
• XREF: connects to: Sacred values engage deontic rule processing, not utilitarian cost-benefit calculation — Scott Atran and Jeremy Ginges, Sacred Values and Cultural Conflict, 89