Well, Lakoff does say that although he tried to be as objective as possible in writing this, greater understanding of the two moral outlooks made him even more of a liberal than he was before.
“It is our knowledge of the world that allows us to choose between worldviews. In each case, there is research bearing on the choice and in each case the answer is the same: There are good reasons to choose liberalism. If I were to be asked to list those reasons and the bases for them very briefly at the outset, each in one or two sentences, here is what that list would be:
Reason 1. The Nurturant Parent model is superior as a method of childrearing.
Reason 2. Strict Father morality requires a view of human thought that is at odds with what we know about the way the mind works.
Reason 3. Strict Father morality often finds morality in harm; Nurturant Parent morality does not.
There are, of course, other real-world reasons to be a liberal. The environment is being seriously seriously threatened right now, and conservative moves to end environmental controls, such as clean-air and pure-water enforcement, will only make things much worse. At present, 70 percent of the wealth in America is owned by 10 percent of the families. That means that 90 percent of the families share only 30 percent of the wealth.”
Lakoff, George. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (pp. 337-338). The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
“But what happens when the people in your community either want to dominate you or feel no affectionate connections to you or to anyone else? The only answer to date has been to do everything you can to build a nurturant community and extend it more and more to others over time. That is difficult and takes a long time and a lot of commitment and a lot of communication. But the nurturance model in general is difficult to follow and just does take a long time and a lot of commitment and a lot of communication. As with childrearing, there are no easy alternatives. But the Strict Father model is no alternative at all.”
Lakoff, George. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (p. 378). The University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.
He also talks about how we have a two-tier economy where in order to support the lifestyle of most of the nation, there has to be a constant base of poorly paid workers and this needs to be addressed, as well as the fact that Strict Father Morality comes directly out of conservative Christian beliefs, which makes them even more difficult to challenge. He does recommend that liberals stop being so defensive and more actively embrace (and understand) the core principles of their belief system. That they should have Liberal Pride where they don't shun the idea of morality but embrace the ways that their beliefs are deeply moral in their own right.
There’s more, but that’s the gist of it. Perhaps I’ll try to write something more coherent about that down the line. Thanks for posing the question.
