“We need to develop better theories of why the other side believes what they do. Having an accurate theory includes recognizing if somebody is a psychopath — but also recognizing that psychopaths are rarer than we think.” — Audun Dahl

If you’re not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative at forty, you have no head. While this sounds like an annoying cliché (especially to people under forty), it does recognize that our moral views change. But, as the Cornell psychologist Audun Dahl argues in his new book Between Fixed and Fickle: Why Our Moral Views Keep Changing, the most interesting question is why our moral principles always seem in flux. Why people who say cheating is wrong cheat. Why people who say violence is wrong turn a blind moral eye to their own insurrections.

Dahl is a psychologist, not a moralist. He is not interested in what we should believe, but in what we think we believe. His central finding is that human morality is neither fixed nor fickle. People change their moral views when they believe they have good reasons to — reasons they can, indeed, articulate. The problem isn’t hypocrisy per se. It’s that we struggle to understand why the other side believes what it does. In morally polarised societies like contemporary America, we over-attribute psychopathy to political opponents. Most Republicans and most Democrats do have genuine moral commitments. But they are just different principles, applied to parallel moral hierarchies. Rather than morality perhaps, we need more empathy. Don’t judge. Understand.

Five Takeaways

• Two Kinds of Moral Change. Situational: people act against principles they espouse — the person who says cheating is wrong and cheats. Historical: Jefferson proclaims inalienable rights while enslaving hundreds. Both reflect competing principles in conflict, not the absence of moral concern.

• Morality Emerges by Age Three. By around age three, virtually all children develop an intrinsic concern with how we ought to treat others. Not taught as an external rule — it emerges. A uniquely human characteristic. No other animal acquires it.

• We Over-Attribute Psychopathy to the Other Side. Republicans and Democrats both significantly over-estimate the other’s moral depravity. Dahl’s prescription: develop better theories of why the other side believes what it does. Psychopaths exist — but are rarer than we think.

• Jefferson, Epstein, and the Exceptions. Jefferson: competing moral principles applied with different weights in different contexts. Epstein: the genuine absence of moral concern concealed behind respectability. Both are real. The second is rarer.

• Elbow Room. Dahl’s two wishes: better understanding of the other side, and more room to act on principle rather than survival. Mantel’s Cromwell: in a world where survival consumed everything, principled action was impossible. Each new generation’s restless moral energy is what abolished slavery. It is what drives change still.

About the Guest

Audun Dahl is Associate Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and the author of Between Fixed and Fickle: Why Our Moral Views Keep Changing (Harvard University Press, April 2026).

References

Between Fixed and Fickle by Audun Dahl (Harvard University Press, April 2026): hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674292086
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall trilogy

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Chapters:

00:00:31 The Churchill/Adams quote: liberal at 20, conservative at 40
00:02:30 Two kinds of troubling moral change: situational and historical
00:03:10 Jefferson’s Declaration and his enslaved people
00:04:40 What is a moral view?
00:06:11 Why do we have morality? Nietzsche vs Kant
00:07:30 Morality emerges by age three
00:09:00 Trump and narcissistic personality
00:09:54 Psychopaths: how rare are they?
00:10:30 Over-attributing psychopathy to the other political side
00:11:48 The Epstein exception
00:20:00 Situational moral change
00:40:00 Roald Dahl and immoral teachers of morality
00:46:43 The Hilary Mantel/Cromwell closer
00:49:27 Two wishes: better theories, more elbow room