And that issue often becomes circular. People often have both ethical and factual reasons to take a political position, and they don't clearly split them apart in their mind, each reason propagating to reinforce the other.

I'll take a personal example : I oppose death penalty for many reason, but among them one is ethical (I don't approve of voluntary terminating a human life for ethical reasons) and one is more factual (I believe as a fact, from various statistics, that death penalty does not deter crime). But it requires a conscientious effort from myself (and I didn't always do it, and I suspect many don't do it) to not have each of two reasons reinforcing the other with a feedback loop.