The 7 Realities of Political Persuasion

Don Watkins

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Why do people believe what they believe? And what does that imply about how to persuade them? 

One crucial element that’s gotten significant attention over the last decade thanks to the work of people like Jonathan Haidt, Arthur Brooks, Arnold Kling and, to a lesser extent, Yaron Brook and me, is the role of moral values.

In one way or another, all of us have argued that people's political views are shaped by deeper moral values. 

This work has led some to conclude that the key to persuasion is appealing to the values of the audience you’re trying to persuade. 

If you’re trying to persuade conservatives to restrict fossil fuels in order to stop climate change, don’t talk about the need to protect the environment. Talk about the costs climate change will have on their children and grandchildren. 

If you’re trying to persuade progressives to support capitalism, don’t talk about economic progress—talk about how it will lead to greater economic equality and a greener planet. 

If you’re trying to persuade libertarians…okay, no one bothers trying to persuade libertarians. 

One problem with that approach is that it’s disingenuous. Authentic persuasion means persuading others by sharing the ideas that persuaded you—not figuring out ways to manipulate them into agreeing with you. (Which, by the way, doesn’t work.) 

The other problem, for those of us who support freedom, is that some values are antithetical to freedom. 

The great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises insisted that it was wrong to argue with people about ends. Instead, our task was to show socialists and collectivists of all stripes that their means did not match their ends—and that their ends were best achieved by the free market. 

On this point, he was deeply and tragically mistaken. Freedom leads to vast differences in economic outcomes (and economic opportunity). Freedom does not lead to being “green,” i.e., minimizing our impact on the planet. Freedom does not lead to everyone having all the healthcare they want regardless of their ability to pay. 

And yet there’s something right about the idea that we have to appeal to people’s values. After all, what else is there to appeal to? 

So here are what I call the 7 Realities of Political Persuasion—realities that illuminate how to appeal to values without conceding anti-freedom values or disingenuously appealing to your audience’s values.

• Reality 1: A person’s values aren’t automatically consistent with each other. 

• Reality 2: Values are often vaguely defined and even mis-conceptualized.

• Reality 3: People’s values exist in a hierarchy.

• Reality 4: You have to start by appealing to your audience's existing values—but most people value human flourishing in some contexts and on some issues. 

• Reality 5: Because consistently valuing human flourishing means consistently valuing freedom, you can connect with and therefore persuade most people. 

• Reality 6: You can use shared values to disarm non-shared values. 

• Reality 7: There are hidden values at work that work in your favor and against it—and you must be aware of them. 

Reality 1: A person’s values aren’t automatically consistent with each other. 

Even at a political level, most people's values are a grab bag: they want prosperity, security, freedom, low taxes, plentiful jobs, low inflation, a good environment, equality, plentiful Social Security benefits, and on and on. 

And the result is that people often have contradictory political values. To take one obvious example, they want low taxes and limitlessly guaranteed healthcare for everyone.

Whenever people hold inconsistent values, that makes it possible to persuade them. When you point out the inconsistency, you force them to choose between competing values. Or at least to try to argue that they aren’t actually inconsistent. 

But this only gets you so far. 

If you tell a progressive there’s a conflict between low taxes and limitless healthcare for everyone they’ll say: we can fund healthcare through high taxes on the rich and low taxes for everyone else. (Or they’ll bite the bullet and say high taxes are the price we pay for living in a well-functioning society.)

If you tell a conservative there’s a conflict between low taxes and limitless healthcare for everyone they’ll say, usually not in so many words, that what they really want is limitless healthcare for people like them who “paid into the system” and who the hell cares about everyone else.

Reality 2: Values are often vaguely defined and even mis-conceptualized.

One of the things that makes political discussions so difficult is that we mean very different things by key moral values like freedom, equality, or a good environment. Many people, in fact, aren’t clear on what they mean when they appeal to these values. 

On the one hand you have people who believe freedom means freedom from coercion. On the other hand you have people who say you’re not really free if a boss can fire you for voicing opinions she disagrees with. And to make matters even more confusing, they’ll label the boss’s actions coercive. 

Or take equality. Does it mean equality of outcome? Or equal treatment under the law? Or equality of opportunity? Are all these conceptions of equality compatible? And what is equality of opportunity, by the way? Does a white, middle class teen with an average level of intelligence, athleticism, and looks have more or less opportunity than a young Michael Jordan?

Whenever political values are vague and potentially contradictory, there’s an opportunity for persuasion. 

For example, much of the green movement’s influence depends on its vague notion of a “good” environment. They start by telling us that if we want clean air and water, we should support being green. But then they go on to oppose anything that impacts untouched wilderness. 

You can get a lot of mileage by clarifying that you believe in an environment that’s good for human beings—one where we use development and technology to create the resources we need to thrive while minimizing natural and manmade environmental threats. But you oppose the idea that we should strive to minimize all impacts on nature in the name of preserving untouched wilderness. You’re pro-development and anti-pollution—not anti-development. 

Clarifying concepts alone is sometimes enough to persuade someone of your position—particularly if they are generally sympathetic with your broader worldview. But that’s the exception rather than the rule. 

Clarifying concepts is usually a crucial starting point for persuasion rather than an end point. 

Reality 3: People’s values exist in a hierarchy.

Politics is like any other sphere of human concern: we have things we want to achieve, and have to figure out the best way to achieve them. We have ends (values) and we seek out means that will achieve those ends. 

For example, to even have a society requires a basic amount of safety and predictability (ends). And so most people support a government that passes laws against things like theft and murder and creates institutions like the police and court system to enforce them (the means). 

To persuade someone to adopt a certain means, you first need agreement on the ends. 

If you shared literally no ends—no values—in common with someone, if they desired nothing you desired, persuasion would be impossible. Arguing over whether the police were the best way to protect us from thugs wouldn’t make sense if you were talking to a nihilist who wanted to see civilization burn.

But ends exist in a hierarchy. The reason we value certain ends, in most cases, is because they are a means to a further end we value even more. 

To take a non-political example. Your end might be to put on your shoes, so you adopt an appropriate means: trudging across my hallway until you get to the shoe rack. But the reason you value putting on your shoes is to go for a run. So really your end is going for a run and putting on the shoes is just a means. But the reason you value running is to stay in shape. And the reason you value staying in shape is because you want someone to sleep with you from time to time. And the reason you value that is because sexual enjoyment is a core component of living a fulfilling life—of human flourishing—which you regard as an end-in-itself. 

The lesson: Every value is both an end—a goal we’re seeking—and it’s a means we adopt because we believe it will lead to some higher end, culminating a value we regard as an end-in-itself. 

So now take it to politics. I’m an advocate for freedom. But freedom isn’t an end-in-itself. I value it because I see it as a necessary means for human flourishing. 

So if I met a Communist who was really intent on convincing me to reject freedom, we would at least have grounds for a discussion if they said, “Watkins, I’m with you: my goal is human flourishing, but actually I think a dictatorship of the proletariat is the key to human flourishing.”

If someone holds a political value you disagree with and they don’t regard that value as an end-in-itself, you can persuade by appealing to some higher value you do agree on. 

Reality 4: You have to start by appealing to your audience's existing values—but most people value human flourishing in some contexts and on some issues. 

Here’s a schematic of a pro-freedom hierarchy of values—at least from my (Objectivist) perspective. 

I’m leaving a bunch of things off this chart, obviously. But what I want to highlight is the fact that our policy preferences are tied to our personal values—and that we share many personal as well as political values with the vast majority of people. 

One of the points Ayn Rand makes in Galt’s speech is that Galt’s code is new and radical—and yet familiar. “Do not say that my morality is too hard for you to practice and that you fear it as you fear the unknown. Whatever living moments you have known, were lived by the values of my code. But you stifled, negated, betrayed it.”

If you hold a morality that consistently promotes human flourishing, then the vast majority of people will share important values with you. In some form, at some times, in some contexts they want to live, be happy, be prosperous. They just aren’t consistent. 

By getting agreement that our ultimate goal should be human flourishing, which is something they do value, at least in part, you are getting a commitment to an entire structure of values you can help illuminate for them. 

Reality 5: Because consistently valuing human flourishing means consistently valuing freedom, you can connect with and therefore persuade most people. 

On certain issues, it makes sense to connect with people directly on a shared ultimate value like human flourishing. 

Mainly that’s true for energy and environmental issues where the alternative of humanism vs. anti-humanism is extremely clear cut, obviously related to the policies under discussion, and where disagreements over other political values (equality, individualism/collectivism) are more remote. 

But for many issues, “human flourishing” is too remote and doesn’t get to the foundational disagreement. For example, if the subject is healthcare, individualism vs. collectivism and even egoism vs. altruism are more salient value alternatives. 

So how do we handle these situations? I used to think the solution was to go up the value hierarchy. To say, “Well, if you value human flourishing, then you should value individualism, and if you value individualism you should value egoism, and now that I’ve given you a new moral philosophy, let’s talk about healthcare.” 

But, okay, that’s pretty stupid. 

In many cases, you can connect with a person’s existing values by talking about the shared personal values you see your policies as supporting and their policies as undercutting. 

You champion fossil fuels because you think they’re vital for keeping us prosperous, healthy, and safe. 

The point isn’t to avoid mentioning freedom or higher level values. The point is that you start with shared personal values and bring in higher level values only when necessary to clarify the issue under discussion. 

Here’s an example I’m partially stealing from Alex Epstein that captures this approach. Imagine someone says they’re trying to decide on their future. They want to pursue a career as a hip hop artist but their parents are pressuring them to work in the family business. 

You could start by saying, “Wouldn’t you agree we should be selfish rather than selfless?” But if the person is struggling with this choice they almost certainly wouldn’t agree to that. 

But what if you said instead, “Don’t you think it’s wrong for someone to ask you to be miserable?” That’s something most people would agree with, even though if you took altruism straight, it definitely is not wrong to ask people to be miserable. You’re connecting with them over a selfish value.

Most people hold many selfish values. Which means that most people are potentially persuadable. 

Reality 6: You can use shared values to disarm non-shared values. 

So what about cases where a person holds something like equality or being green as a value? 

Well, if that really is a fundamental value to them—if they truly believe that we should cut down the successful or that we should never cut down a tree to improve human well-being—then you can’t persuade them. There’s no deep pro-life values to appeal to.

But often people see anti-freedom, anti-life values as the necessary means to pro-life values. By clarifying the concepts involved and then appealing to their pro-life values, they can be persuaded to rearrange their value hierarchy and embrace pro-freedom policies. 

For example, I’ve found that in the inequality debate, when people speak about equality what they usually mean is fair treatment. But if you push them on what’s fair—a person getting what they earn or depriving people of what they earn and giving others the unearned in order to equalize?—most people will go with the former. 

It may take a lot of work to convince them that freedom leads to people getting what they earn, but it’s possible. Whereas if they remain committed to equality as a value, you’ll get nowhere.  

Reality 7: There are hidden values at work that work in your favor and against it—and you must be aware of them. 

Final point. Lurking under the surface of any discussion are hidden values. These are values that aren’t likely to come up explicitly, and usually don’t need to come up explicitly, but that are good to be aware of.

Some of these present opportunities. For example, most people value clarity, and on many issues—even ones where they have strong views—they lack clarity and often even know they lack it. They have unresolved questions or a murky understanding of the issue. 

If you can bring their confusions to the surface and give them clarity, you can make a lot of progress even if the specific point you’re clarifying is relatively small. 

For example, Alex Epstein often talks about how he’ll start off conversations about fracking by asking in a friendly way, “How well could you explain what fracking is?” And the fact is, most opponents of fracking have only the foggiest idea. Just by bringing that to the surface and giving an illuminating explanation, Alex is able to make them more open to being persuaded because he has established himself as a source of clarity. (He also establishes himself as a greater authority on the issue, which is another hidden dynamic at work.)

On the negative side, one of the most important hidden values at work is tribal identity. People’s views about climate change aren’t isolated policy views, but part of their political identities. To be a “climate change believer” is a signal to the world (and more importantly their tribe) that they are pro-science. To be for Medicare-For-All is to signal they’re compassionate. To be against immigration is to signal they’re pro-American. 

In my experience, arguing against tribalism directly (or, worse, accusing someone of tribalism) is seldom effective. Instead, the best approach is to simply engage in rational persuasion via clarifying explanations that appeal to shared values. 

But being aware of the role of tribal identity can help you understand why some people seem to resist your arguments in the moment...even when they have no coherent counter-argument. Shouting that they’re evading and being dishonest isn’t helpful, because in the best cases what’s actually going on is they know you might be right and they’re afraid of the enormous impact changing their mind would have on their life. 

And it's okay they feel that way. 

What will happen is that your argument will stick with them and over time they’ll process it along with the implications of going against their tribe. They’ll go on a journey and wrestle with the fear of rejecting their tribe’s dogmas and months or years or a decade later you’ll get a note saying, “Hey, remember that conversation we had way back when? It changed my life."

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