Morality & Principles
Why we do the right thing. And why we say we did the right thing.
By Andrew Burmon
Upper Middle 's Morality & Principles survey examined how affluent professionals decide what is right and wrong — and where they believe those convictions came from.
The survey focused on the distance between what this group professes about morality (openness, a reluctance to judge) and the small, firm set of instincts that add up to a firm set of first principles.
The findings suggest that the Oat Milk Elite are far less relativist and tolerant than they imagine and far more committed to the protection of individual liberty than they let on.
Septuagenarian churchgoers from Dallas and twenty-something atheists from Brooklyn don't disagree on much.
Notions of right and wrong don't fracture along the predictable faultlines.
Asked what makes something feel morally wrong, respondents across demographics chose the same top two answers: "that someone got hurt" (41%) and "that something was unfair" (52%).
A plurality (43%) called people "a bundle of contradictions." Fewer said good (16%).
Way fewer said evil (2%).
On the basics, they share a premise — at least among the majority (78%) who described themselves as moral.
There was, however, one exception.
Asked if there is such a thing as a "moral billionaire," respondents split.
Among those worth under $100,000, few (10%) said yes; nearly half (48%) said no.
For those with more than $2.5M in net worth, the numbers flipped.
More than a third (35%) said yes and far fewer (12%) ruled it out (the holdouts largely worked in nonprofits).
Some 62% of respondents working in finance said a moral billionaire could exist even though only 50% of people working in finance claimed their work makes the world a better place.
The wealth gap on moral billionaires appears to be a product of identification.
Those who live more off capital than labor sympathize more readily with those who have far more of it.
Wealth is a moral faultline.
The only one.
Most of the Upper Middle readers surveyed (58%) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement (in the form of a question) "Who am I to judge how others live?" Ostensibly, that makes them relativists: morality as cultural, contextual, maybe merely personal.
