The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt

Sep 28, 2012 Eric_W rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: current-affairs, science

"This book is about why it’s so hard for us to get along. We are indeed all stuck here for a while, so let’s at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, . . Politics and religion are both expressions of our underlying moral psychology, and an understanding of that psychology can help to bring people together. My goal in this book is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity....more "This book is about why it’s so hard for us to get along. We are indeed all stuck here for a while, so let’s at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, . . Politics and religion are both expressions of our underlying moral psychology, and an understanding of that psychology can help to bring people together. My goal in this book is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity. We are downright lucky that we evolved this complex moral psychology that allowed our species to burst out of the forests and savannas and into the delights, comforts, and extraordinary peacefulness of modern societies in just a few thousand years. . . I want to show you that an obsession with righteousness (leading inevitably to self-righteousness) is the normal human condition. It is a feature of our evolutionary design, not a bug or error that crept into minds that would otherwise be objective and rational."

I hardly feel qualified to make any kind of judgments on this book having little background in philosophy, especially moral philosophy, so I especially appreciate Haidt's lucid summary of the development of moral philosophy through examples and hypotheticals.

I remember several years ago having a visit from the local anti-abortion denizens, nice people, very concerned about youth, etc. They steered the conversation to abortion, their favorite topic. Being of a liberal and hopefully rational and reasoned mindset myself, I described a book I had recently read,The Facts of Life: Science and the Abortion Controversy by Harold J. Morowitz, James Trefil, a small, excellent analysis of the abortion debate that contains a plea for looking at the issue rationally. I described their suggestion that we need to decide what constitutes "human" and then see when the fetus acquires the capability (cerebral cortex) to be human, etc. etc. To which the response was, "well, I don't believe that." All debate and discussions ceases when that statement arrives. Now, I could have said, well, you old biddy, I don't give a fuck what you believe, I'm trying to find some common ground here." But, my mother having raised me as a good little boy who is always polite to old people, I merely sat there rather stunned. That's the problem. How do you create a discussion of issues when either side can just say, well, I don't believe that.

This is not just a conservative or right-wing problem. Try having a rational or reasonable discussion about the merits of circumcision, climate. autism, raw milk or veganism. I guarantee the true believers will immediately assemble with truckloads of vitriol. We all suffer from what Haidt calls "confirmation bias," that is, our gut tells us what to believe first and then we seek out justifications for that belief.

Haidt's book reaffirms what has become fairly obvious: we divide ourselves into tribes and those tribes consist of like-minded people which we use to validate our intuitive predispositions. His stated goal is to attempt to find a way to bridge the divide between two different moral world views., and to find a way for each side to at least understand the other's perspective.

Both left and right are motivated by the moral foundations of care, fairness, liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. But they differ qualitatively: liberals tend to care more about suffering and violence; conservatives care about harm done to others but not as intensely. Conservatives, on the other hand, place more emphasis on fairness, i.e. getting what you deserve. Both sides value liberty but have differing definition as to what constitutes the oppressor. Similarly, with fairness, each side values it but define it differently: liberals view it from the standpoint of equality while conservatives look to proportionality, i.e. fairness is being rewarded for your accomplishments and if you work harder you should be rewarded proportionally.

The biggest divisions relate to sanctity, authority and loyalty. You can easily guess where the preferences of conservatives and liberals lie. Haidt suggests that liberals will fail to gain wider acceptance until they come to terms with those three moral values and find someway to create their own vocabulary validating them. I would add that liberals will have to be more accepting of groups, particularly religious ones (as much as I despise them,) which serve an evolutionary need to discount selfishness and promote group adherence and benefits.

To some extent that's why I am so puzzled by the right's celebration of Ayn Rand who promoted the antithesis of group-think by celebrating independence and selfishness, i.e. think of yourself first and what benefits accrue to yourself through your actions. She hated coercion both governmental and religious, in particular, yet both encourage group adherence and loyalty.

I just wonder how much of what Haidt says come from his intuitive side (the elephant) and how much from the rational or reasoning part (the rider.)

Here's a quote that struck me: "And why do so many Westerners, even secular ones, continue to see choices about food and sex as being heavily loaded with moral significance? Liberals sometimes say that religious conservatives are sexual prudes for whom anything other than missionary-position intercourse within marriage is a sin. But conservatives can just as well make fun of liberal struggles to choose a balanced breakfast—balanced among moral concerns about free-range eggs, fair-trade coffee, naturalness, and a variety of toxins, some of which (such as genetically modified corn and soybeans) pose a greater threat spiritually than biologically."(less)

20 likes · like · see review

Dec 06, 2012 Richard added it

Recommended to Richard by: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/22/opinion/kristof-politics-odors-and-soap.html

Shelves: cognition, non-fiction, awaiting-review, own

Check out Politics, Odors and Soap by Nicholas Kristof, over at the New York Times. He writes a very enthusiastic little review of yet another book on the intersection of cognition and politics. No big surprise, it's by Jonathan Haidt, who's doing the pioneering research into how the brains of liberals and conservatives are wired in fundamentally different ways. Oh, also see the review in the Wall St. Journal, Conflicting Moralities . The longer, "official" Ney York Times review is at Why Won’...more

5 likes · like · see review

Dec 01, 2012 Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars

*A full executive summary of this book is available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/04/02...

The old saying goes that we are never to discuss religion or politics in polite company. These topics are singled out of course because they tend to be the two that people are most passionate about, and which therefore have the greatest potential to cause enmity and strife. According to the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the fact that we disagree over politics and religion is not necessarily such a ba...more *A full executive summary of this book is available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/04/02...

The old saying goes that we are never to discuss religion or politics in polite company. These topics are singled out of course because they tend to be the two that people are most passionate about, and which therefore have the greatest potential to cause enmity and strife. According to the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, the fact that we disagree over politics and religion is not necessarily such a bad thing. For him, though, the current wrangling between political and religious (and non-religious) factions has gotten rather out of hand, as it has recently reached such a pitch in the West (and particularly in America where Haidt resides) as to be threatening the very fabric of our nations.

Now, according to Haidt, at least some of the enmity and strife between people of different political and religious stripes is caused by a failure to understand precisely where these beliefs ultimately come from--as well as a failure to understand how one's opponents understand their own beliefs. In an effort to remedy this situation, and to bring a degree of civility back into the ongoing debate, Haidt sets out to supply just these understandings in his new book `The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion'.

According to Haidt, understanding political and religious beliefs begins with an understanding of the human moral sense as it was laid down by evolution over the past several million years. For Haidt, the moral sense actually consists of (at least) six moral modules, each of which evolved to answer a specific challenge that our ancestors faced in the environment in which our species evolved. Briefly, the six moral modules are 1. The Care/Harm Module; 2. The Fairness/Cheating Module; 3. The Loyalty/Betrayal Module; 4. The Authority/Subversion Module; 5. The Liberty/Oppression Module; and 6.The Sanctity/Degradation Module.

While all of us come prewired with the six moral modules, each of them stands to be either amplified or quieted as well as somewhat modified by a host of internal and external factors. The internal factors include our personality and its development, while the external factors include the environment in which we are raised (including our cultural milieu), and the particular experiences that we have--the latter of which help to shape, among other things, our view of human nature, which itself influences our view of what a good society consists in. It is these internal and external factors--which differ for all of us--that explain the plurality of moral and political views and ideologies across cultures, as well as within the same culture across individuals.

In addition to the six moral modules, Haidt maintains that human beings have also evolved an overlay of group-oriented sentiment or `groupishness' sometime in the past 140,000 years, and as recently as in the past 10,000 years. This `groupishness', Haidt claims, not only explains some of our moral and political sentiments, but also helps explain our attraction to religion, and other

group-oriented pursuits, such as our fondness for teams, clubs and other such organizations. While our groupishness is particularly adept at binding us to the organizations of which we are a part, it also sets us against those who are a part of opposing groups, and makes it especially difficult for us to identify with them and to appreciate their point of view. The end result is that people not only have opposing viewpoints when it comes to morality, politics and religion, but they are often even unable to appreciate (or truly understand) the viewpoints of their rivals--hence why politics and religion are such flashpoint topics.

For Haidt, though, once we come to understand where our political and religious views are ultimately coming from, it should be easier for us to appreciate the views of our opponents, which should help us to see that they may in fact have something to offer to the debate. And indeed, when it comes to politics, Haidt maintains that both the left and the right do have something to contribute to the matter, and that the best solution to the political problem requires borrowing insights from both sides.

The book showcases a very thorough and comprehensive understanding of where our moral, political and religious beliefs ultimately come from, and an informed and nuanced approach to the political and religious debate. There is much to be learned here and I highly recommend the book. A full executive summary of the book is available here: http://newbooksinbrief.com/2012/04/02...(less)

4 likes · like · see review

Oct 31, 2012 Carlo rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: psychology, religion, politics, non-fiction

This was an interesting read and though I disagree with Haidt in many crucial points, such as the role of reason in our lives, he presents in this book challenging ideas which cannot be taken lightly.

However, I believe Haidt deliberately ignored the role of education, and though he acknowledged the good role discussions play in removing personal biases when people pursue their goals and agendas, he ignored it in his theory of the Moral Foundations. Discourse and education can play a huge role i...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jun 10, 2012 wally rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: haidt

this is the 1st from haidt for me...i believe he was talking to bill moyer this morning on pbs? another told me about the hour show, about the book, here i am.

subtitled; why good people are divided by politics and religion

a quote on a white page:

i have striven not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, not to hate them, but to understand them.
--baruch spinoza, tractatus politicus, 1676

from the contents page
part i intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second
1. wher

2 the intuitive d...more

3 likes · like · see review

Sep 14, 2012 Michael Burnam-fink rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, academic

Haidt is much better psychologist than political philosopher, and this book is both monumental and dangerously flawed.

On the good side: Haidt draws broadly from research in psychology, anthropology, and biology to develop a six-factor basis for morality (Care/Harm, Liberty/Oppression, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation), and show that moral judgement is an innate intuitive ability accompanied by post-hoc justifications. Morality serves to bind non-rel...more Haidt is much better psychologist than political philosopher, and this book is both monumental and dangerously flawed.

On the good side: Haidt draws broadly from research in psychology, anthropology, and biology to develop a six-factor basis for morality (Care/Harm, Liberty/Oppression, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation), and show that moral judgement is an innate intuitive ability accompanied by post-hoc justifications. Morality serves to bind non-related groups, i.e. society, together, and moral skills have been favored by various evolutionary mechanisms over human history. This theory is, frankly, really good and really well developed.

Haidt then goes on to show that Liberalism draws from only the first three moral factors while Conservatism draws from all six. This explains both the differences between liberals and conservatives, and why conservatives beat the stuffing out of liberals at the polls. This is also incontrovertible.

But Haidt is unwilling to follow his theory to its ultimate question: Can a democratic political system that privileged the rights of the minority procedurally sustain decision-making based on all six moral factors? Care/Harm, Liberty/Oppression, and Fairness/Cheating are universal factors; everybody uses them, and we mostly agree on when they are upheld or violated. Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, and Sanctity/Degradation are intrinsically provincial factors; they're different for every culture, and every individual.

A moral order for a pluralistic society which takes the latter three factors seriously must either force people to uphold a morality they do not believe in, or segregate people based on their different interpretations of morality. Perhaps I'm particularly sensitive to such concerns because I'm a liberal Jew, but forcing false beliefs on and/or ghettoizing people seems profoundly wrong. Conversely, giving a Moral Minority the ability to gum up the works whenever they feel their rights are under attack is killing good governance.

Where conservatism fails is that we are no longer living in separate communities. It's one global economy, one atmosphere, one water cycle, one oil supply, etc. Haidt faults liberalism for damaging American moral capital in the 60s and 70s, but he doesn't explain how conservatism can become big enough rule the globe. (less)

12 likes · like · see review

Jun 11, 2012 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, meridian, religion

Jonathan Haidt's look at the psychology of why politics and religion are so divisive - and getting more so - is fascinating.

For all of our vaunted reasoning powers as human beings, we actually are more accurately described as creatures of intuition. Dr. Haidt outlines dozens of studies that have shown that our initial "gut" reaction comes first and then our reason works to find justifications for our reaction. Linking this to politics, he says that "part of what it means to be a partisan is that...more

1 like · like · see review

May 29, 2013 Xing rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the most thought-provoking and 'confrontational' reads I've had in a while. Haidt dives into the psychology behind conservative/liberal thinking: evolutionary trends as well as present-day circumstances that predispose people, via nature and nurture, to view the world with different degrees of suspicion or trust, compassion or criticism, and in-group or out-group solidarity.

I spent most of the book flitting between acceptance of his description and explanations (they make extremely good...more

like · see review

May 08, 2013 Audrey Zhang rated it 4 of 5 stars

I first read about this book in a NY Times article. It was during the 2012 republican primaries and I was getting increasingly annoyed at how unpalatable each candidate was. The article, which was really just a synopsis of this book, restored my inner peace. While it did not help me understand and accept opposing political views, it helped me, for a short while at least, become a more tolerant person.

Then came the 2012 presidential election and a series of mass-shootings - debates on fiscal matt...more

like · see review

May 05, 2013 David Carver rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Haidt proposes that American society suffers because its polarized camps have separated on the level of intuition and moral reasoning, not impartially formed rational belief, which means that solving the problem comes down to altering indirect and emotional levels of interaction instead of convincing or persuading through mere rationality (which, he posits, serves the intuitions anyway). I don't know enough about psychology, philosophy, or evolutionary theory, the three main fields he cites, to...more

like · see review

Apr 22, 2013 pjreads ♫ rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to pjreads ♫ by: Tasha Webb

Shelves: non-fiction, thought-provoking

4 stars because there is some valid and important science in this book in spite of Part I.

I disagree with many conclusions in Part I. Haidt cites studies which do support the limited (and important) conclusion that moral judgments are intuitive, emotional reactions and are usually justified by rationalization. His exaggerated conclusion and elephant-rider metaphor erroneously view the passions as monolithically one-directional and reasoned choice as practically non-existent.

Proposed moral founda...more

like · see review

Apr 21, 2013 Rachael rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed reading this. It was fast and easy, and full of provocative content. Haidt has some fascinating insights into human psychology and evolution. I gained insight into many areas, and I agree it's good to understand how we think if we are going to seek the truth. It's good to know, for instance, how our moral intuitions drive us, and how our justifications for our moral judgments are typically ad hoc. I have more to say about that later. I also agree that it's useful to try to understand h...more I enjoyed reading this. It was fast and easy, and full of provocative content. Haidt has some fascinating insights into human psychology and evolution. I gained insight into many areas, and I agree it's good to understand how we think if we are going to seek the truth. It's good to know, for instance, how our moral intuitions drive us, and how our justifications for our moral judgments are typically ad hoc. I have more to say about that later. I also agree that it's useful to try to understand how other people think, even if we disagree with them, in a way that doesn't rely on casting them as morons or perverts at the outset.

First, a minor issue. I found his driving metaphor of the elephant and driver annoying more than illustrative. Really, in most places he used it, it was unnecessary. But, onto the substantive critiques.

His expedition into evolutionary theory was more distracting than insightful. The case he brought forth for group evolution isn't possibly, in a single chapter of a popular science book, going to establish that case. That is born out in the handful of examples he brought to bear for his case. He should stick to stuff that he has the serious evidence for (and that is also his area of expertise, anyway).

His confusion, though, is greatest in his constant conflation of descriptive vs normative accounts. He insists, explicitly, that he is simply doing descriptive work in his book, but that is belied in many areas, particularly his conclusion, in which he offers a normative course based on his descriptive account. He goes so far as to suggest that those who disagree, which are going to include many serious metaethicists, are fundamentalists. I'd have a lot more respect for his judgments that way if he were upfront about it, but I get the impression that he doesn't fully realize what he is doing. If he makes his normative case by hiding it as a merely descriptive one, he can avoid having to do the hard philosophy which would be required to defend his case. This way, he has his cake and can eat it too. It's unfortunate. He could have stuck to a purely descriptive work and the rest of us could have used that as data to help us build a more informed ethic. Instead, he uses it as a Trojan horse to sneak in his own ethic without having to explicitly defend it. The only defense he has is an appeal to how things actually are, which is clearly a logical fallacy. If he wants to accuse me of being a fundamentalist for thinking that in the end, there are a handful of moral principles which are true about the world, he will have to engage the actual arguments. People in other cultures, or my neighbors, can have wildly wrong intuitive physical instincts, that says nothing about the truth of the matter. In this case, just because people often value his Sanctity category doesn't mean that they *ought* to. His vague attempt at making a utilitarian case for that wasn't nearly strong enough to support the notion.

Alright, about religion. I agree with him on most points, surely the social web and the 'umbrella of meaning' as Christian Smith puts it, matter a great deal to the success of religions. However it is also the case that beliefs matter, and beyond the fact that they are shared by fellow participants in the religion. Religious beliefs can actually be, by themselves, the source of behavior and meaning, as New Atheists imply (and I often disagree with New Atheists). Here's an example, the creationist vs evolution debate. If someone truly believes that God created the world in 6 literal days about 10k years ago, that fact alone will cause adherence to their religion. If they think that unless you believe that Jesus is your Lord and Savior you will go to hell, that will cause adherence to their religion. These incorrect factual beliefs about the world will simply make this form of evangelical Christianity true about the world, just like it's true that it's currently raining outside. As Durkheim emphasized the social *functional* role that religion played to the exclusion of other elements, so had Haidt reduced religion to a functional role and in so doing failed to understand a rather large part of what it actually *is*. *One* role religion plays in the lives of believers is as a social glue, absolutely, but it can be incredibly encompassing, and have global effects on the lives of participants, including their noetic structure.

This is something that Haidt, as a self professed WEIRD liberal has failed to gain serious insight into.(less)

like · see review

Apr 21, 2013 Bob Price rated it 5 of 5 stars

Are all conservatives heartless individuals that want to oppress poor people and take everything for themselves? Are liberals just peace loving hippies that want to take people's wealth and share with lazy people who won't work for themselves? This pretty much sums up the state of politics in America these days.

This book helps us understand that politics need not be like this. Whether you agree with him or not, Jonathan Haidt has written an important book in The Righteous Mind.

Haidt, a professo...more

like · see review

Apr 18, 2013 Ranga Kamaladasa rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

I had great expectations for this book after watching the author give an introduction in the Colbert report. However, the book didn't hold up to it's name. These are some of grudges I have against this book:

1.) The author doesn't tackle conservative vs. progressive morals. He tackles left wing vs. right wing morals.

This is a typical blunder made by the average American. And I would've overlooked it, as the book is geared towards an American audience. But the author is a professor in moral psych...more

like · see review

Apr 14, 2013 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wouldn't like to hang out with the person who disagrees with Jonathan Haidt. The man's so rigourously reasonable and balanced that it would be hard to dispute him without looking like a guy ranting on the subway. But that's the result of evidence-based research: his evidence, other scholars' evidence, and the evidence of my own experience. He's convinced me, and we don't share political beliefs.

The Righteous Mind is superbly organized and a model for how to walk readers through a complicated a...more

like · see review

Apr 05, 2013 Jim rated it 2 of 5 stars

incredibly ambitious, occasionally enlightening, but ultimately a failure.

haidt takes on an enormous project - characterizing human moral sentiments, explaining how social and political behavior is enlightened by this understanding, contrasting his understanding of those sentiments with rationalism, charting how those sentiments may have evolved, and suggesting how we as a society might do better. he goes 2/5 (he nailed the first two). his characterization of human morality is interesting, compe...more

like · see review

Mar 31, 2013 Don Munsil rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Haidt summarizes and analyzes his ongoing research into how people make moral decisions, and what the differences in moral reasoning are between liberals and conservatives and between religious and secular people. He's remarkably nonjudgmental about the different reasoning styles, and I think there's something in here for everyone. His goal is to help people understand the way people arrive at their moral choices, in the hopes that this can lead to better negotiation and finding common goals.

One...more Haidt summarizes and analyzes his ongoing research into how people make moral decisions, and what the differences in moral reasoning are between liberals and conservatives and between religious and secular people. He's remarkably nonjudgmental about the different reasoning styles, and I think there's something in here for everyone. His goal is to help people understand the way people arrive at their moral choices, in the hopes that this can lead to better negotiation and finding common goals.

One surprising finding that came from his research is that conservatives are much better at predicting the moral reasoning of liberals than vice-versa. Haidt thinks it's because conservatives share the moral principles of liberals (fairness, liberty, and protection of the innocent) and then add three more that liberals find unimportant (heirarchy, loyalty, and sanctity or purity). Liberals tend to see heirarchy, loyalty (think patriotism or tribalism) and sanctity as suspicious because of their association with jingoism, xenophobia, witch hunts, etc. Haidt suggests to liberals that whatever they may think about those views, a large part of their fellow humans do care about them. And conservatives need to understand that liberals' suspicion of heirarchy, loyalty, and sanctity are based on real worry about what happens when those instincts are taken to extremes.

And he also points out his research shows that liberals intuitively do care about heirarchy, loyalty, and purity, but consciously repress those instincts. Again, he's not saying that's right or wrong, just that it is present in our moral reasoning.

All in all, it's a fascinating and thought-provoking book that really has helped me understand people with different social and political views and find more points of agreement. I think it is inarguably true that if you want to successfully introduce a different way of thinking to someone, you need to understand their point of view as well as your own, and this book absolutely helps with that.(less)

like · see review

Mar 25, 2013 Gypsy Lady rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Very thought provoking. As Bill Moyers wrote about this book "the ideas are controversial but they make you think".

The Righteous Mind
Introduction
xvii
“Can we all get along?” That appeal was made famous on May 1, 1992, by Rodney King, a black man who had been beaten nearly to death by four Los Angeles police officers a year earlier.

Many Americans feel as though the nightly news from Washington [D. C.] is being sent to us from helicopters circling over the city, delivering dispatches from the war z...more

like · see review

Mar 01, 2013 Billie Pritchett rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jonathan Haidt's Righteous Mind argues that people are divided politically and religiously because of their predisposition to value some of the categories that make up human beings' moral foundations over others. According to Haidt, there are six moral foundations: care-harm, liberty-oppression, fairness-cheating, loyalty-betrayal, authority-subversion, and sanctity-degredation. Care-harm relates to the degree to which a given action would provide care for someone or harm them. The liberty-oppre...more Jonathan Haidt's Righteous Mind argues that people are divided politically and religiously because of their predisposition to value some of the categories that make up human beings' moral foundations over others. According to Haidt, there are six moral foundations: care-harm, liberty-oppression, fairness-cheating, loyalty-betrayal, authority-subversion, and sanctity-degredation. Care-harm relates to the degree to which a given action would provide care for someone or harm them. The liberty-oppression category is about the degree to which an action or policy would maximize freedom or create oppression. Fairness-cheating is about whether or not people's actions are fair. The loyalty-betrayal foundation relates to the degree to which an action will make for more loyalty within a group or society or not. The authority-subversion foundation is about the degree to which an action will respect or provide proper deference to an authority or subvert it. And finally, sanctity-degradation relates to whether or not some action will maintain some sense of perceived purity.

After research conducted compiled the statistics on people who claim to be either liberals, conservatives, or libertarians, Haidt fund that the liberal moral matrix values care for victims of oppression most of all, and of the moral foundations, the most important is care-harm, followed by liberty-oppression rated as half as important, and fairness-cheating half as important as liberty-oppression; not many liberals value the foundations related to loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Libertarians' most sacred value is individual liberty, and the most overwhelming foundation favored is liberty-oppression with a distant second (by about one fourth of the liberty-oppression foundation) fairness-cheating. It was revealed the conservatives' value preserving the institutions and traditions that sustain a moral community most and along the six dimensions value each about equally.

To check out more information on this research or to find out where you rank, you can go to YourMorals.org. To read an article that summarizes better than this review, you can read Steven Pinker's Moral Instinct published in The New York Times Magazine.(less)

like · see review

Feb 10, 2013 Ross Blocher rated it 3 of 5 stars

Before I talk about content, I've got to say this cover design is not professional-quality. When I downloaded the book I thought it was some sort of placeholder image. If you're going to place a rip on the cover, make it look like a real rip and have some variety in the typeface. Anyway, not to judge a book by it's cover... I digress.

The Righteous Mind has a lot of really good insights alternated with some less-convincing ones, but it's goal is noble: to help soldiers in the political wars find...more Before I talk about content, I've got to say this cover design is not professional-quality. When I downloaded the book I thought it was some sort of placeholder image. If you're going to place a rip on the cover, make it look like a real rip and have some variety in the typeface. Anyway, not to judge a book by it's cover... I digress.

The Righteous Mind has a lot of really good insights alternated with some less-convincing ones, but it's goal is noble: to help soldiers in the political wars find ways to see eye to eye.

Haidt begins with a metaphor he has introduced in previous works: we are not so much pure, rational agents as much as we are small, rational agents riding atop large, powerful elephants of intuition. I found this generally to be apt and well-supported (though I think Daniel Kahneman contributed more to the topic and with more supporting evidence in Thinking Fast and Slow). Our intuition responds first and powerfully, and our rational selves provide justifications for those gut reactions, or deliver small course corrections. He spends maybe a bit too much time aligning thoughts on intuition and reason with Hume, Glaucon, Jefferson, Kant, etc... and at times it takes a lot of work to follow which perspective he's actually advocating. Regardless, the point was made: we can understand our cultural competitors when we remember they (and we) are riding upon elephants of intuition.

Next Haidt introduces an analogy in which morality is likened to taste receptors. There are six vectors of moral consideration that he delineates: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. Just like we can't expect that everyone the world over will share the same tastes in cuisine, we similarly should expect a variety of moral "tastes". Through extensive surveys on his website, yourmorals.org, he has found that liberals are primarily motivated by the care/harm spectrum and fairness, whereas conservatives share a broader mixture that is less focused on care/harm, but is also driven by consideration of liberty, loyalty, authority and sanctity. Libertarians primarily care about liberty/oppression, with a dash of fairness/cheating. By describing these motivations, he hopes to help us understand a bit of where the other guy is coming from. He also warns against attempts to state objectively that any one moral consideration is the only moral litmus test. He calls WEIRD (White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) any attempt to focus solely on care/harm as the only moral framework.

In case one is skeptical that sanctity, authority, or loyalty to a group should really figure into moral calculations - and I remain skeptical after reading this book - Haidt launches into a long defense of religious morality and honor cultures, pointing out the advantages of, in many cases, advancing the needs of the group rather than the needs of the individual. He points to his time in India as an eye-opening experience that began his conversion from die-hard liberal into something more of a centrist. Continually he states that "morality binds and blinds us" (I got really sick of that phrase) to suggest that by nature we form insular groups and are wary of outsiders, so we need to embrace that impulse on some level. He also makes another animal analogy, saying (over and over) that we are 90% chimp and 10% bee, to describe us as having a hivish/groupish nature that has helped us survive in the past millennia. To this end he wastes a lot of time promoting group selection, and in doing so completely loses me. Biological sciences are not Haidt's specialty, and he would have done better to leave them alone. There's a reason group selection has been abandoned for over three decades; because groups aren't replicators. Plain and simple. All the phenomena he describes are perfectly well explained by individual selection, gene pools, and even memetics. I don't know why he feels the need to justify group selection.

Haidt's defense of religion ignores the belief content of religions completely, and he spends a lot of time attacking the "new atheists" who focus only on the stated beliefs of religious texts and religious believers. It's a defense that I'm sure religious people wouldn't take kindly to - they largely believe their beliefs are objectively true; not just a good evolutionary strategy to be provide community. (And surely there are ways to create communities without requiring belief in the unproven or unprovable.) It reminds me of The Life of Pi (I've seen the movie, not read the book yet), which claims to be able to make its listeners believe in God, simply because God is a better story than believing in cold, hard reality. Similarly, I think it's a justification that believers would not readily embrace.

Much of the rest of the book is devoted to showing some good ideas on both the liberal left and the conservative right, explain a bit of how we got into our present situation and the historical trends that set it up.

There are good insights to be had here, but I would be reluctant to recommend this book to anyone. Haidt relentlessly tells us what he's about to say, says it, reviews it part-way, says some more, and then summarizes at the end. And then revisits it later. I can see how this works well as a study technique, but it makes for a book twice as large as its actual content, and I have no ability to skim, so I ended up reading the same things repeatedly. At least tne benefit of that is that his final conclusion pages made it easy to summarize the book for this review.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Feb 05, 2013 Simcha Wood rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind is a remarkable and timely book. Drawing on extensive research in social psychology, Haidt explores the role of moral intuition in shaping the way we think about the world and how it can lead equally good people to come to such differing conclusions about what is right and wrong.

The first part of the book is devoted to the three principles that Haidt believes to inform moral psychology. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this section is Haidt's argument, b...more Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind is a remarkable and timely book. Drawing on extensive research in social psychology, Haidt explores the role of moral intuition in shaping the way we think about the world and how it can lead equally good people to come to such differing conclusions about what is right and wrong.

The first part of the book is devoted to the three principles that Haidt believes to inform moral psychology. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this section is Haidt's argument, backed by a considerable body of evidence, that when it comes to morality, reason truly is a slave to the passions. Haidt makes a compelling case that our ideas about right and wrong begin as intuitions and that reasoning only comes in as a post hoc rationalization to explain to ourselves and others why it is that we believe what we do.

The book then explores the various moral foundations (Haidt numbers these at six) that shape our moral landscapes. It is the differing emphases placed on these foundations that, in Haidt's view, explain many of the differences in the way conservatives and liberals view the world. Though Haidt proclaims himself to be a secular liberal, his analysis of these moral foundations is largely objective, eschewing judgment in favor of description (indeed, he goes so far as to make a case, based on actual research, that conservatives and moderates are better at understanding the moral landscape of liberals than liberals are at understanding that of non-liberals).

The book concludes with an examination of what it is that makes humans groupish - that is, why it is that, unlike most animals, we are able to suppress our own selfish drives in order to work to benefit the groups to which we feel allegiance. Haidt argues for multilevel selection, that human evolution is now driven not just by individual selection but by group selection as well (Haidt makes a strong case for reviving at least some aspects of the formerly discredited role of group selection in evolution).

This last section then focuses on the ways in which groupishness shapes our religious and political affiliations and offers various arguments for why some moral landscapes are more effective than others at strengthening and improving the likely survival of some groups over others.

This book should appeal to readers from across the political spectrum, and is an all-too-rare example of a book about politics, religion, and morality that is not written simply to preach to a particular choir. It is also a much needed reminder, as we head into another political season, that our political and religious divisions need not be viewed in simple Manichaean terms.(less)

like · see review

Jan 26, 2013 Drew Johnson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great book providing framework to understand how people are so divided. It is a natural condition to obsess over righteousness but that inevitably leads to self righteousness. Our morality makes us human but also leads us to moralistic judgements and self righteousness that polarizes people and compromises rationale thought and leads to false narratives.

Reason is used primarily to persuade and justify rather than to discover. Reason is like a press secretary justifying a presidential decision....more
Great book providing framework to understand how people are so divided. It is a natural condition to obsess over righteousness but that inevitably leads to self righteousness. Our morality makes us human but also leads us to moralistic judgements and self righteousness that polarizes people and compromises rationale thought and leads to false narratives.

Reason is used primarily to persuade and justify rather than to discover. Reason is like a press secretary justifying a presidential decision.
If we value truth we should stop worshipping reason. Everyone grows blind when talking about their sacred objects.

Reason is the rider and intuition and institutional thought (liberal/conservative, religous/athiest) are the elephant and the elephant generally goes where it wants to. Or said another way, moral reasons are the tail wagging the intuitive dog. The mind is divided into two parts: the rider (controlled process) and the elephant (automatic process) and the automatic process usually overrides the rider.

Moral Foundation Theory includes six dimensions: Care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, liberty/oppresion. Liberals primarily emphasize care/harm, liberty/oppression, and fairness/cheating while conservatives utilize all six.

There is a great deal of evidence that religions help groups cohere, solve free rider problems, and win the darwinian competition for group level survival. Creating Gods who can see everything and hate cheating and oath breaking is a a good way to reduce cheating and oath breaking.

By many different measures, researchers have concluded religously observant Americans are better neighbors and citizens than secular Americans. They are more generous with their time and money especially in helping the needed and they are more active in community life. It is more because of religous belonging than religous belief.

Looking at religion as a set of beliefs about supernatural agents is very different than viewing it as an approach to belonging and group level darwinian selection.

Every community is exposed to two dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition on the one hand or dissolution, through the growht of individualism and personal independence that makes cooperation impossible.

In 1976 only 27 percent lived in landslide counties (20 percent margin); in 2008 it was 48 percent.

(less)

like · see review

Jan 22, 2013 Marvin chester rated it 1 of 5 stars

On page 88 the author writes: "As an intuitionist , I'd say that the worship of reason is itself an illustration of one of the most long-lived delusions in Western history: the rationalist delusion."

Apparently he hasn't noticed that reason has taken us to the moon, given us longer and healthier lives, allowed us to travel the world, to communicate with loved ones over vaste distances, even allowed his book to exist ...

The author is a dim witted charlatan and spends the rest of the book making a...more On page 88 the author writes: "As an intuitionist , I'd say that the worship of reason is itself an illustration of one of the most long-lived delusions in Western history: the rationalist delusion."

Apparently he hasn't noticed that reason has taken us to the moon, given us longer and healthier lives, allowed us to travel the world, to communicate with loved ones over vaste distances, even allowed his book to exist ...

The author is a dim witted charlatan and spends the rest of the book making a convincing case of it. Calling his subject moral psychology he pretends to offer us universal truths when, in fact, he is dealing only with parochial matters; currently fashionable political concerns in the U.S. As if he discovered it, he dwells repeatedly on the well recognized phenomenon that opinions are rarely reached through reason but rather the reverse; once held, reasons are found to justify and defend opinions.

In the matter of moral prejudices emotion governs reason. More accurately, it governs rationalization rather than reason. The author confuses the two. But, since emotions dominate, he concludes - as many before him did - that to change opinion you must make your appeal emotionally; giving credence to the moral standing of opposing opinion. To change opinion you must perceive and appreciate the moral stance behind opposing opinion. Good advice but hardly original. To demonize your opponent cannot bring about peace and compromise. For political liberals that means recognizing that conservatives are not without morality.

To unveil conservative morality he parces morals into five, later morphing into six, categories. This strikes me as a scheme as good as any other. I can imagine parsing it otherwise, though. As to his demonstrating his thesis with graphs I am highly suspicious of his results. No error bars are given. No details on the data. Nor on the randomness of his sampling nor even does he list the questions he used. (He does mention some of them.) Considering that close to a third of his 420 pages is devoted to addenda - mostly chapter notes - a few details of his investigations could have been included. Such a mountain of notes often reveals, not scholarship, but rather a desire to impress untutored readers. So I discount his research. The essential thing that it does is to grant morality to conservative thinking. A good gesture towards peaceful accord.

There. I've spared you the pain of reading 318 confused and poorly written pages with over 100 of addenda. Lucky you.
(less)

5 likes · like · see review

view all 5 comments

Jenn I found page 88 problematic too. He says rationalists are deluded. He follows that with an assertion that people who reason well aren't any more moral...more
Mar 20, 2013 09:43am

Xox The premise that people are irrational, unreasonable emotion bag of blood is really putting everyone down. Thanks for the review. Didn't save me in ti...more
Apr 07, 2013 11:04pm

Jan 03, 2013 Don rated it 5 of 5 stars

Finally finished this after picking it up intermittently over some months. Lack of commitment more my fault than the books, mostly due to having read so much about it by Arnold Kling and Donald Boudreaux both of whom I admire greatly. As Kling writes, this book is about "the hypothesis that our capacity to think about moral and social problems evolved from an ability to rationalize our actions. Thus, our capacity to rationalize our moral and political beliefs is much greater than we realize; con...more

like · see review

Jan 01, 2013 The other John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: borrowed, curiosity, science, sociology

This is a book of moral psychology which looks at the question "why good people are divided by politics and religion." The typical answer, of course, when we're not demonizing the other side, is that our opponents are just poor, ignorant dupes. But if you take the time to notice the thoughtful, well educated people on both sides of many issues, you soon realize that accusations of ignorance don't hold water. Professor Haidt offers a different solution. His first thesis is that when it comes to d...more This is a book of moral psychology which looks at the question "why good people are divided by politics and religion." The typical answer, of course, when we're not demonizing the other side, is that our opponents are just poor, ignorant dupes. But if you take the time to notice the thoughtful, well educated people on both sides of many issues, you soon realize that accusations of ignorance don't hold water. Professor Haidt offers a different solution. His first thesis is that when it comes to decisions, especially moral decisions, we think with our hearts first and then use our rationality to, well, rationalize the decision we just made. He likens the relationship of our rational and intuitive minds to a person riding an elephant. Our rationality is not without its influence, but if the "elephant" wants to go in a different direction, our rationality is stuck going along for the ride. Professor Haidt's second point is that a human being's moral sense has a number of "foundations", or areas of life on which we judge. Things like care vs. harm, loyalty vs. betrayal. His research has turned up six moral foundations, and he demonstrates how people give different priorities to different foundations. When we encounter someone operating with a different set of priorities, we have a hard time understanding how they are thinking, or if they indeed are thinking at all. The final section of the book looks at humanity as social beings--how our groups affect our thinking and behavior. He makes the case that groups like our religious communities or political parties are not something from which we need to evolve, but rather are integral to being human.

I really enjoyed the book. Professor Haidt writes well and livens up the book by intertwining the story of how his thinking on the topic evolved. I did struggle a bit with the numerous times he explained how our minds, communities and religions evolved over the millennia--it's hard to read when you keep rolling your eyeballs. But even those parts had their interest, as I contrasted his explanations of morals that we so often explore in Bible class.(less)

like · see review

Dec 15, 2012 John Brown rated it 5 of 5 stars

After this year's presidential election I emailed my sister, a smart, super-competent, true-blue, bleeding-heart, save the weeds and snails, liberal, who volunteered to do campaign work for Hilary Clinton in Colorado during the 2008 Democratic primaries and, of course, voted loudly for Obama.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked. "How can anyone who doesn't have a carrot for a brain want more of the same? I don't get it. Obama? How can so many Americans be that gullible? I'm totally baffled." And that p...more

4 likes · like · see review

Dec 06, 2012 Miriam Downey rated it 5 of 5 stars

You can find my full review here: http://mimi-cyberlibrarian.blogspot.c...

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt has changed my view of the world, more than anything I have read recently. In three sections, Haidt, who is a professor of Moral Psychology, builds a case for why it is important to “understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, each one certain of its righteousness.”

Haidt begins with the premise that “Intuition comes first, strategic reasoning second.” He believes that...more

like · see review

Dec 03, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Just as partisan politics seems to have reached new heights of ugliness Jonathan Haidt brings us this brilliant work bringing the field of moral psychology into the 21st century. Haidt walks us through the work he and his colleagues have done confirming how morality is based on emotion based intuitions rather than rationality. He joins a raft of scientists who are overturning the old enlightenment ideas of reason based morality from Kant to Kohlberg. Haidt then explains the six different moral i...more Just as partisan politics seems to have reached new heights of ugliness Jonathan Haidt brings us this brilliant work bringing the field of moral psychology into the 21st century. Haidt walks us through the work he and his colleagues have done confirming how morality is based on emotion based intuitions rather than rationality. He joins a raft of scientists who are overturning the old enlightenment ideas of reason based morality from Kant to Kohlberg. Haidt then explains the six different moral intuitions Care/Harm, Liberty/Oppression, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion and Sanctity/Degradation and their emotional underpinnings. Haidt then does us the great favour of understanding the dichotomies of political thought and their underpinnings in the moral intuitions. Liberals he explains rely heavily on the first two or three moral intuitions, while conservatives are more evenly balanced across all the moral intuitions. Conservatives may seem uncaring and oppressive to Liberals, while Liberals are completely lacking in loyalty, respect for authority and sacred institutions, values. Haidt perspectives are refreshing and enlightening. He even takes some time to illuminate the political category of libertarianism (lower care, higher liberty). He explains the power of social groups from group based evolutionary forces to the powerful psychological effects of group bonding which promote greater efficiencies through social cohesion. I agree with Haidt's conclusion that the greatest weakness of the left is that it tends to overreach, change too many things too quickly and inadvertently reduce the stock of moral and social capital. Conservatives on the other hand often fail to notice certain kinds of victims, fail to limit certain powerful interests and fail to see the need for change. Haidt proposes that both of these forces are needed to maintain balance although too often they tend to see themselves as locked in a Manichean struggle of good vs evil.(less)

1 like · like · see review

Nov 28, 2012 Breakingviews rated it 4 of 5 stars

Review of "The Righteous Mind" and Bruce Schneier's "Liars and Outliers" by Martin Langfield

Without trust, society splits into warring tribes and parasites prosper. The financial crisis of 2008 is a powerful example of what can happen when individuals or small groups set their own gain above the common good. Meanwhile, the U.S. debt debate shows how political polarization can lead to potentially crippling paralysis.

People are moral creatures, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes in “The Ri...more Review of "The Righteous Mind" and Bruce Schneier's "Liars and Outliers" by Martin Langfield

Without trust, society splits into warring tribes and parasites prosper. The financial crisis of 2008 is a powerful example of what can happen when individuals or small groups set their own gain above the common good. Meanwhile, the U.S. debt debate shows how political polarization can lead to potentially crippling paralysis.

People are moral creatures, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes in “The Righteous Mind.” Citing brain research, evolutionary psychology and the social sciences, Haidt says successful societies use a shared sense of morality to bind citizens to the common good. In a broad sense, religion has been a highly effective tool for building social cohesion and trust. Security expert Bruce Schneier, who charts similar ground in his book “Liars & Outliers,” largely agrees.

Yet people’s moral reactions - feelings of disgust at cheaters and freeloaders, for example - can serve to blind and well as bind. Conservatives may be working from a different moral palette to the one used by the political left. The result, Haidt writes, can be a dialogue of the deaf. Some groups - “Occupy Wall Street” protesters or Obamacare supporters, for example - are motivated by concerns about fairness and sympathy for victims and underdogs. Meanwhile others - like social conservatives and free-market enthusiasts - have a broader set of concerns.

Conservatives, Haidt says, are not immune to questions of fairness, protecting the weak and fighting oppression. But they are also motivated by moral concerns that barely register - or may even be considered immoral - on the left.

Sections of his book could almost have been titled “How a left-leaning academic atheist came to see that conservatives are not just plain wrong.” Haidt lists the “conservative” moral concerns as: loyalty and betrayal; authority and subversion; and sanctity and degradation. Taken to an extreme, these moral motivators can trigger highly tribal and divisive behavior, as seen in controversies over abortion, flag-burning, or excesses in the U.S. response to the attacks of 9/11.

Yet Haidt notes conservatives have an innate ability to appeal to a broader cross-section of people over such concerns, and a cohesive society should address them all. His book is, in part, a plea for Americans on the polarized left and right to understand how each side thinks and reacts in moral terms. Rebuilding trust will serve the common good.

If Schneier agrees with Haidt about the usefulness of moral pressure in keeping groups cohesive and cooperative, he also makes the salutary point that it is impossible - and undesirable - to produce completely compliant societies.

No home, computer system or society can be made entirely safe from attack or subversion, he writes, and trying to do so can end up being counter-productive. Individuals who secede from the values of the society around them may be parasitical - think of self-interested financiers flogging bad mortgages in the 2008 financial meltdown. But they may equally be catalysts of necessary change, as in the Arab Spring or campaigns against slavery. In a police state, as in a failed state, trust is dead, Schneier says. To be healthy, every society needs a few defectors.(less)

like · see review

Oct 14, 2012 Bank rated it 5 of 5 stars

My daughter gave this book to me for my birthday , perhaps with the goal of facilitating my intellectual understanding of different cultures , especially here in the USA . Jonathan Haidt has a phD in organizational psychology and uses the approach of a moral and organizational psychology matrix of each culture to explain their belief systems . His review off the works of history's most learned anthropologists, economists, and psychologists , all go into the basic idea that cultural mores have ev...more

like · see review

title link	preview: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion
avg rating	preview: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion Goodreads rating: 4.08 (2575 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11324722-the-righteous-mind?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1351393217l/11324722.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11324722-the-righteous-mind?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt[/url]

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (7)

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

About Jonathan Haidt

Books by Jonathan Haidt

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About The Righteous Min...

Quotes from The Righteous Mind: Wh...