When two tribes go to law: The Moral Foundations Theory and the Brexit negotiations

Complex negotiations are done by people and are often carried out in pursuit of culturally ingrained ideas such as international unity or national sovereignty. As such, they may be subject to the sorts of adaptive biases and reasoning heuristics that are present at the level of individual or collective decision making. The following commentary applies an influential model of intuitive ethics, The Moral Foundations Theory, to the Brexit negotiations. This framework suggests that moral intuitions reflect five adaptive psychological systems shaped by our evolutionary history. Focusing on the three most relevant foundations of Fairness/cheating, Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion, I explore how both parties’ red lines and priorities are consistent with this criterion. In doing so, I hope to provide insight into how innate cognitive biases can inform legal processes with wide-ranging ramifications.