Morality policy researchers have long grappled with the difficulty of determining objective or empirical criteria for classifying policies with moral content. A newer, but related, critique has suggested that we cannot classify morality policies by their substantive content, because policy debates employ moral frames for strategic purposes. This paper joins this debate by using Moral Foundations Theory to conduct quantitative content analyses of the supporting and opposing arguments in Voter Guides that accompanied referenda on enacting (1) the death penalty, (2) same-sex marriage, (3) physician-assisted suicide, (4) Official English, (5) recreational marijuana, (6) medical marijuana, (7) abortion funding bans, (8) tribal gaming, (9) minimum wage increase, (10) Right to Work legislation, and (11) property tax limits. MFT quantitative content analysis shows that frames with ostensibly instrumental arguments hold moral content. Our findings endorse the argument that researchers should differentiate between pure and mixed morality policies and other non-morality policies with decidedly less moral content.

中文翻译：

---

用道德基础理论对公共政策进行分类

长期以来，道德政策研究人员一直在努力解决确定对具有道德内容的政策进行分类的客观或经验标准的困难。一项更新但相关的批评表明，我们不能根据其实质性内容对道德政策进行分类，因为政策辩论出于战略目的而使用道德框架。本文通过使用道德基础理论对选民指南中的支持和反对论点进行定量内容分析，这些论点伴随着关于颁布（1）死刑，（2）同性婚姻，（3）医生协助的公民投票而加入这场辩论。自杀，(4) 官方英语，(5) 休闲大麻，(6) 医用大麻，(7) 堕胎资金禁令，(8) 部落游戏，(9) 最低工资增加，(10) 工作权利立法，以及（ 11) 财产税限额。MFT 定量内容分析表明，表面上带有工具性论点的框架包含道德内容。我们的研究结果支持这样的论点，即研究人员应该区分纯道德和混合道德政策以及其他道德内容明显较少的非道德政策。