Private Morality
Sometimes, change does happen quickly, as attitudes to individual liberties demonstrate
In our last edition, we looked at some data from the World Values Survey and European Values Survey, measuring how attitudes to transgressions – from cheating on tax to dodging a fare – had changed over time.
You can find that article here, but – spoiler alert – they haven’t changed much. We find it hard to justifying people breaking society’s rules, and the vast majority of us would condemn someone who’d claimed benefits they weren’t entitled to, accepted a bribe or avoided paying a fare on public transport. All of these are deemed ‘unjustifiable’ by more than 80% of the UK population (and have been viewed that way every year the question has been asked). The only exception to this is cheating on tax, which used to be a little more acceptable (only 76% saw it as unjustifiable in 1981) but is now right up there with bribery (91% in 2022).
These data paint the picture of a nation that is unforgiving and inflexible, relentless sticklers for the rules, jobsworths and curtain twitchers. The defenestration of Boris Johnson is perhaps an example of our unwavering commitment to playing the game fair. See also: Alex Carey and Jonny Bairstow at Lord’s the other week.
Rapid progress on social tolerance
But the same suite of questions also provide some remarkable data that suggest we’re becoming increasingly open, tolerant and permissive. These other questions measure attitudes to homosexuality, abortion, divorce, suicide, drug taking and assisted dying. In each of these, we are more accepting than we were 20-30 years ago. In several cases, the change is huge.
If you’re reading this in email, the chart looks better (and is interactive) if you click on it
First of all, the question. It is not a nice question. While it seems like the right phrasing to describe fare-dodging or tax-cheating in terms of its justifiability (implying in the question a degree of moral ambiguity) that same wording seems inappropriate or offensive in the context of something like homosexuality or divorce. Perhaps the fact the question is so jarring in 2023 is a mirror of the trends in the chart. However, the existence of such a question, asked in a consistent way to a representative sample of the population for 40 years is a gift in terms of understanding how attitudes are changing.
Secondly, the trends are utterly compelling and unambiguous. Each of them shows a substantial, usually continuous decline. In some cases, what was once a widespread view is now confined to a small fringe. In most cases, the majority is now the minority. It doesn’t just apply to aspects of our identity, like homosexuality, but also to behaviours, like soft drug taking, which was viewed as unjustifiable by 90% of people in 1990 but 66% of people in 2018. It applies to events, like divorce, which are reasonably common, and to currently prohibited activities, like assisted dying (referred to as euthanasia in the data).
And, thirdly, most of that progress has happened since 2009. In 1981 a majority (60%) of the population said that homosexuality was unjustifiable, and a slightly smaller majority (52%) said the same of abortion. In the 28 years to 2009, those proportions had dropped by 23% and 11% respectively – slow, steady, slightly underwhelming progress.
But in the 13 years since 2009, trends in tolerance have accelerated – not slow progress but rapid change. Between 2009 and 2022 (not, we should note, a decade widely viewed as one of remarkable social progress) the pace of change quickened. The proportion viewing homosexuality as unjustifiable dopped by another 24%, and the proportion saying the same of abortion dropped by 23%.
Individual Liberty vs Social Rigidity
Taking all of these measures in combination we can create a simple index that measures our tolerance of individual liberties. We have become massively more liberal over the past 40 years.
There’s a clear contrast here between our steadfast intolerance of the rules we explored last time – around benefits or tax-cheating, dodging a fare or claiming a bribe. These can be bracketed as ‘social rules’ – they govern how we act in relationship to money, or institutions, or services and what we expect of people in positions of power. The second set are much more individual, they are about the things we choose to do in our own lives, with our own lives. They are about who we are as people and the choices we make. Our attitudes here have changed very quickly, and positively. We are much more tolerant.
If you’re reading this in email, the chart looks better (and is interactive) if you click on it
Even in 1981 we were less judgemental about ourselves and more likely to give people leeway for their personal choices. But the trends since then are remarkable. Alongside an acceleration of tolerance in individual behaviours there is a slight tightening in our judgement of people we deem to be acting selfishly.
The paradox in these trends is compelling. We’re more tolerant, and more judgemental. We’re more accepting, and less forgiving. More permissive and more strict. Open and closed minded at the same time. Perhaps it’s simply that we’ve caught up with (and overtaken) what John Wolfenden famously wrote in his report that recommended, in 1957, that homosexual acts be decriminalised: that there ‘must remain a realm of private morality and immorality which is, in brief and crude terms, not the law's business’.
The majority of us now accept that it isn’t our business either. We’re far too busy checking to see if someone’s fiddling their tax returns to care.
What does this mean?
More to come. The progress towards greater social tolerance evidenced here is not the end result. Nor should we accept it to be. The data from 2022 suggest that a little more than one in eight people believe that homosexuality is unjustifiable. Around one in six would say the same of abortion and one in four of casual sex. Those are smaller proportions than previous years, but still damningly high numbers.
There was no golden age. It’s tempting – particularly when times are tough – to view the past as preferable to the present. The data here suggests that is resoundingly untrue. We are not free from prejudice now, but we were more prejudiced in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.
Sometimes, change happens fast. Between the 1980s and 2009, on most indicators change was quite slow. But in almost all of these measures, the magnitude of change between 2009 and 2022 was greater than the period 1981-2009.
We are becoming more individualistic. We are far less likely to condemn people for the decisions they make in their own life about their own life. But this is happening in isolation: the rules of society still matter just as much (perhaps even a little bit more) than the rules we apply to ourselves.
Followers vs. leaders. In the 1960s the Wilson-led Labour government enacted a wave of social reforms. Homosexuality and abortion were legalised, divorce was made much more accessible. Many of these changes were counter to public sentiment at the time (indeed, the Macmillan government of 1957-63 didn’t act on the Wolfenden report for fear of a backlash). In 2013, when same-sex marriage was legalised in the UK, a narrow majority supported it. Campaigns for drug reform and assisted dying often receive wide support, but only outside parliament. The public used to lag behind the law – now they are ahead of it.
An apology to regular readers: this edition contained no boring charts and described a pretty fast change, rather than a slow one. But it seemed like a necessary corollary to the last edition. Normal service will be resumed next week…