Forum Post: Are Occupy Wall Street and the National Organization for Women Moral?

Are Occupy Wall Street and the National Organization for Women Moral? The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest feminist organization in the country. They were founded on June 30, 1966 by a group of women (and men) at a conference in Washington DC. They started for the purpose of equal rights for women and women alone, and have expanded to involve six core issues: lesbian rights, economic justice, the end of violence against women, constitutional equality, abortion and reproduction rights, and the promotion of racial diversity, with the emphasis on women but purpose for all. NOW forms task forces to take on the issues they want to change—be it by boycotting, marching, bringing attention to an issue or rallying to the way things work. An example of this is how in the 1970’s, NOW organized a “Women’s Strike for Equality” to celebrate the 19th amendment. There were actions in over ninety cities in forty of the United States—the most prominent being a march of fifty thousand women on Fifth Avenue. The moral foundations theory, created by Jonathan Haidt, contains 5 core values held by humans: fairness and reciprocity, harm and care, in group and loyalty, authority and respect, and purity and sanctity. In fairness and reciprocity, the view of what is fair really depends on people’s political viewpoint; conservatives believe that if the opportunity is equal than it is fair. Liberals believe that an equal outcome is fair. For example, in a business, anyone can be CEO. A liberal says that that is unfair because only the CEO gets the top product, and not everyone does. A conservative says that anyone had the chance to be the CEO, and the CEO earned his place, therefore it’s fair that he makes more money. Harm and care calls to the human ability to feel the pain of others. People who value this moral foundation tend to put high value on the virtues of kindness and nurturing. In-group and loyalty embodies patriotism, and more of an idea that what’s better for everyone is better for the individual. Authority and respect relates to the human tendency to lead and follow; if you don’t have respect for the leader you don’t get anywhere. Purity and sanctity relates to the common dislike of disgust, and religious beliefs play the most into this foundation. There is a sixth considered foundation of liberty and oppression. The foundations that apply to NOW are fairness/ reciprocity and harm/care. NOW wants equality for all in both the outcome and the opportunity, focusing on women, and more currently, homosexuals and people of different ethnicities. Their actions, like starting the first take back the night movements and trying to end the violence against women, show that they hold care as a high virtue because they try and stop harm. OWS wants equality above anything else; they want an equal financial outcome for everyone. Harm and care play in mostly due to the fact of Occupy Wall Street being mainly liberal, and liberals tend to value this foundation. The third related foundation is the honorary one of liberty and oppression; liberty is a high value is OWS. Liberals see OWS as fair because of their want for equal outcomes for all, like with equal tax percentages. Conservatives disagree due to their value on the equal opportunity. The views of fairness for NOW are harder to judge because they value both the outcome and the opportunity.
Harm and Care are important to these groups, but perhaps not enough to define their morality on. People with a high value on authority and respect may view NOW and OWS as immoral because by protesting, they are defying their authority, and showing a lack of respect. A person with a looser value of authority and respect might not view them as moral because it does not fall on the spectrum of things they consider moral. People with high importance on in-group and loyalty might not see NOW as moral simply because this moral foundation isn’t as strongly tied to NOW. People who believe in this issue may find it immoral because they put a strong emphasis on women, and as a country women are only part of the group, this means they are not being loyal to the whole group. People with this as a value might view OWS as moral because they focus on the whole group and not just a part, or may not consider its morality because it’s not a factor. People with high value on purity and sanctity would find NOW immoral because they issues they involve themselves in aren’t always considered pure. An organization fighting for lesbian rights, among other things, is not “pure” in the slightest. People with this view may not find OWS moral simply because it does not relate much to purity, and they base their moral beliefs on weather things are pure or not.