Among the most difficult norms of our society to explain is the combination of behavioral patterns that, formally speaking, should be mutually exclusive
Maryna Starodubska, cross-cultural interaction consultant, adjunct professor at the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, and author of books
Million-dollar donations to support the military, often without demands for formal reporting, combined with a desire to pay as little tax as possible or to avoid paying taxes altogether. A willingness to share one’s last resources to help even not-so-close acquaintances whose homes have been destroyed, combined with corrupt schemes of a brazenness unheard of even in a country not at war.
A glaring demand for justice, with 56.3% of Ukrainians convinced that justice is not ensured in our society – according to the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine – coexists with impunity for actions serious enough to warrant not only thorough journalistic investigations.
There are three widespread misconceptions that lead to mistaken judgments about our national mentality in general, and about citizen-to-citizen and citizen-to-state interaction in particular.
The first is that there is a “universal human” morality, meaning one that is the same for everyone.
The second is that the same person cannot act altruistically and transactionally at the same time, and that anyone who does so is unreliable and “slippery.”
The third is that we can do perfectly well without all those institutions that are supposedly so “cumbersome” to build and reform, and that a country can rely on “value-driven” and “passionate” people and on “public oversight,” which often degenerates into online “shitstorms” and coordinated public pile-ons.
In reality, the second and third misconceptions stem from the first. If we do not understand that moral priorities differ even among different social bubbles within the same country, we are likely to assume incorrectly that logical explanations will work on people whose moral structure is different. We also underestimate the formative and regulatory role of institutions in directing social behavior through binding normative requirements. That is, provided these requirements do not run counter to the values and norms of the society in which they are introduced. Today, we will focus on the first misconception, while the other two derived from it can be examined in the next post.
Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory teaches us that morality is not monolithic. Like a Lego house, it is built from five “bricks” – moral principles, deep “intuitive navigators” that automatically guide our judgments about what is acceptable and what is not. Morality itself is a set of biological and cultural solutions to problems arising in recurring interactions between individuals and society. It is shaped through the roughly equal influence of intuition, which is “automatic,” and reasoning, which is “controlled.” Each moral principle has polar manifestations, so to speak a “+” and a “–”:
care/harm: protecting the weak and avoiding cruelty, or accepting “justified” harm and the idea that “everyone is on their own”; typical dilemmas: should pain be avoided? Is it acceptable to deliberately cause harm or pain to someone for a “higher purpose”? Would you help a person you are seeing for the first time?
fairness/cheating: equal rights and shared transparent requirements, or status, cunning, connections, and “good contacts”; typical dilemmas: should preference be given to “our own” people or to the most professionally qualified? Is inequality unacceptable or periodically justified?
loyalty/betrayal: loyalty to the group and defending its position, or defending a different opinion; the value of belonging to a group and being validated by it; typical dilemmas: do we protect “our own” under any circumstances? Which is more important – loyalty or fairness and adherence to rules?
authority/subversion: compliance or rebellion, authority as a formal position or as something grounded in people’s perception; typical dilemmas: are obligations fulfilled unconditionally or selectively? Is a leader respected because of status, or because of demonstrated qualities and effectiveness? Are compliant people seen as “weaklings” or respected? Is breaking rules brave and creative, or shameful and unacceptable?
purity/degradation: living “as one should” or as one wants, restraining one’s desires or indulging them; typical dilemmas: does it matter “what people will say” and “what is appropriate right now”? What kind of behavior leads to social exile? How important are external approval and form compared with personal convictions and substance?
In Haidt’s classic framework, there are five moral foundations, and this is the approach embedded in the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, or MFQ, but expanded versions include more. In the screenshots, I used an extended set of principles that includes one more – “liberty/oppression.” This is because for approximately 91% of Ukrainians, freedom is a key value, prioritized over security, equality, dignity, justice, and responsibility by several dozen percentage points, according to the Democratic Initiatives Foundation. Moral principles are “switched on” before rational logic begins to operate and trigger an appropriate reaction: compassion, disgust, anger, shame, outrage, a desire to help or to stay aside, and so on. Only afterward do we find arguments and words to explain or justify what is happening and how we act.
Take something as ordinary as pain relief, not during surgery or critical illnesses such as cancer, but in simpler cases when the pain is tolerable. In the United States, pain has to be “managed,” and the approach is that there should be no pain. In Germany, by contrast, pain is seen as part of recovery, so if it is tolerable, it will not necessarily be completely “suppressed.” In the first case, the morally appropriate approach is for the patient not to feel pain – care expressed through high expectations of comfort and a perception of medicine as a service. In the second case, it is considered perfectly moral not to treat tolerable pain – care expressed through avoiding harm from excessive medication use and through a perception of medicine that is more scientific and protocol-based than service-oriented. Because of different mentality-based values, the principle of “care” is implemented in diametrically opposite ways in a specific situation.
That is why different social bubbles, citizens, and institutions within the same country, as well as members of the establishment in different countries, look at the same events through different “moral lenses” and often reach opposite conclusions, while deeply convinced that they are acting “according to conscience” or “in the interests” of a group or society. The manifestations of different moral principles in society are studied using the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, and available research from different countries shows that these principles guide mass behavior differently from country to country and also vary significantly within countries, including depending on whether citizens hold more conservative or more liberal views. At the same time, moral foundations are not ready-made moral systems, although they do limit the kinds of moral orders a society can create. Some societies build their moral order primarily on one or two foundations, while others use all five. In other words, there is no single “universal human” morality even within one country, let alone across different countries.
For example, in Ukraine, the core moral foundations in Haidt’s terms are “loyalty,” “care,” and “fairness.” However, when the well-being of “our own” is at stake or when people interact in conditions of low trust, the first two are often prioritized over the third. Seventy-seven percent of Ukrainians believe that the integrity of public officials can be improved by severely punishing those officials who accept bribes. Yet only 19% believe citizens who give those bribes should also be punished, according to the Rating Sociological Group. Fairness would imply punishing all participants in a corrupt transaction proportionately, but for most Ukrainians the institution of the state is perceived as “alien” and often “hostile,” which helps explain this unequal attitude.
At this point, it is worth synchronizing the concepts of “morality” and “national culture,” or mentality, so as not to become confused. National mentality directs moral reasoning by encouraging and prioritizing certain moral foundations, determining their relative weight, and shaping rules and norms that regulate emotions and support social coordination. In other words, it is national mentality and the values underlying it that determine which set of moral foundations, and in what proportions, will develop in a society. If that society is politically, ethnically, and culturally diverse or polarized, the same “mix” of moral foundations begins to function differently for different social groups.
For instance, in the United States, liberals tend to be guided by the principles of “care” and “fairness,” whereas conservatives lean more heavily on “loyalty,” “authority,” and “purity.” Therefore, in debates over same-sex marriage, liberals focus on reducing stigmatization, meaning reducing “harm” and increasing “care,” as well as on equal rights, meaning “fairness.” Conservatives, by contrast, focus on traditional family norms, meaning “loyalty,” church teaching, meaning “authority,” and chastity, meaning “purity.” Or consider Russia, where a moral foundation skewed toward “harm” helps explain the normalization of violence in every aspect of society, from the family to the military – a feature characteristic of all authoritarian regimes, including supposedly “good” ones.
Recall the strict laws of Lee Kuan Yew, who by definition was a dictator, albeit a benevolent one. In Polish society, the liberal part is guided by a mix of “fairness,” meaning the rule of law and equal rights, and “harm,” meaning protection against threats and betrayal. The conservative part combines “loyalty,” meaning protecting the nation from unfriendly external influences and interference, “authority,” meaning following leaders’ decisions, and “purity,” meaning zealously defending the moral order and one’s position against encroachment.
Let us consider four “sketches” from our present-day reality that illustrate moral foundations “at work,” so to speak. These are illustrative examples that do not contain “good/bad” judgments, do not call on anyone to take either “side,” and are not an illustration of my personal beliefs.
1. Citizens vs. the state. Deeply rooted public distrust among Ukrainians toward most state institutions is compounded by appeals to different moral foundations manifested in our national mentality. Official institutional rhetoric relies on “authority” and “loyalty” – “there is a law,” “there is an order,” “we must unite,” “the state has the right to demand.” But because most citizens do not perceive the state as caring, Ukrainians see the state as a “bad authority” that violates fairness while demanding loyalty. According to reSCORE, on a 10-point scale of social cohesion, Ukrainians give the lowest scores to “the government cares” at 3/10 and “the government is accountable” at 3.1/10. By contrast, the most productive horizontal communities operate according to the principles of “care” and “fairness,” where “one of our own” will not be abandoned, will be supported, and “will not be stabbed in the back.” In successfully decentralized communities where a sense of being “in the same boat” emerged between citizens and local government, trust in the latter increased by 17% – without any change in the level of trust in the central government, according to KSE.
2. Volunteers and civil society. These clusters of our society largely continue citizens’ prioritization of moral foundations – unequivocally “care” and “fairness.” They are also among the most trusted social institutions in Ukraine, at approximately 80–85% in different years, according to the Razumkov Centre. Here, fairness is understood as a balance between self-sacrifice and benefit rather than formal transparency, as fairness is understood, for example, in English- and German-speaking cultures. Recall the scandal involving the “Hospitallers,” whose core donors were not interested in additional reporting because, in their eyes, the principles of care and sacrifice, including those embodied by the battalion’s leader, remained intact. By contrast, the work of institutionalized foundations, such as those of Serhiy Prytula, Come Back Alive, and others, is perceived through the lens of “loyalty” – why I donate, whom specifically I trust, usually a well-known person affiliated with the foundation – and “fairness” as accountability, meaning the possibility to verify where the money was spent.
3. Ukrainians who stayed and those who left. According to CAT-UA, in 2025 the level of hostility among Ukrainians toward different social groups declined, while the only major “social” target of hostility was “those who left Ukraine,” and the main object of criticism was “the government.” A KIIS survey showed that 54% would “treat differently” those who return from abroad, 52% would “have problems” with such Ukrainians, and 36% would regard them as traitors. Meanwhile, 79% are convinced that when making official decisions, public servants are guided fully or partly by personal benefit, according to the Rating Sociological Group.
In the case of those who left versus those who stayed, there is a conflict in the prioritization of “loyalty” and “care,” as well as different interpretations of “fairness.” Those who stayed prioritize “loyalty”: “real patriots do not run away,” “only those who are in Ukraine now truly support the country.” Those who left prioritize “care”: “no one is obliged to sacrifice their mental health or their children indefinitely,” “protecting children from bombing is also a moral duty.” Then, on both sides, the other moral foundations are brought in as well, such as “authority”: “do not teach us from abroad how to live here!”, “we support Ukraine financially and volunteer!” Or “purity”: “those who left are fugitives and traitors!”, “I feel guilty that I live abroad in relative safety.”
4. Mobilization. A number of moral foundations come into play here. They range from “loyalty” and “authority” among volunteers – “everyone must obey the law,” “defending the country is a duty, not a choice” – to “fairness” among those who entered military service after receiving a summons – “the law must be obeyed,” “the rules are the same for everyone.” Deep and entrenched distrust of the state undermines the principle of “fairness” among some citizens: “why does one person receive a summons and another does not?”, “why can someone pay to ‘get out of it’?”, “why do certain people, who supposedly should not, receive exemptions?”, “the state will not provide what is needed and will not care for me if I lose my health.”
Here the principle of “care” also enters the picture, but with a negative sign, meaning “harm,” because most Ukrainians generally do not perceive the state as caring or accountable. Hence the tendency to list everything the state “failed to provide,” “failed to do,” or “failed to ensure.” According to 40% of Ukrainians, “an exchange in which everyone thinks only about their own interests” best describes interaction between the state and society in Ukraine, according to the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Appeals to patriotism and duty do not work on the share of citizens who hold this belief because they fear the state as an institution and do not trust it.
Morality is an extremely complex subject to study. Moral foundations operate so differently across cultures that when the MFQ is used, its wording, interpretation, and substantive content have to be calibrated. From a practical point of view, however, it is worth remembering that our society has a demand for “fairness,” but functions primarily through “loyalty” and “care” – within circles of trust.
Outside those circles, we tend toward “subversion,” meaning breaking rules and “hacking the system,” and toward “liberty” in our specific interpretation, meaning overthrowing authorities we dislike and acting as we find convenient without restrictions. These moral “lenses” should therefore be taken into account not only in communication, but also in the design and implementation of decisions and reforms.
Moral foundations also operate differently at the level of individual organizations and projects when values are being shaped, organizational culture is being developed, performance management systems are being designed, and change is being implemented. In most of our projects at TLFRD and TLFRD Baltics, we have to deal in one way or another with conflicts between different “moralities,” and not only in multicultural teams, but also in Ukrainian ones.
I am sincerely grateful to those of you who have read this far because, despite simplifying it as much as possible, the text still turned out to be far from easy.
Source: nv.ua
