Haidt’s hope is that his book "will make conversations about morality, politics and religion more common, more civil. . . that it will help us to along.” The key word in that opening statement is “morality” – our political and religious actions and beliefs are determined by what we think are “moral” considerations. And of course if we are convinced that our moral beliefs are well-founded in truth, then it’s difficult to be tolerant of anyone who disagrees with you. Much easier, at worst, to call them evil, at best, misguided or ignorant. Does Haidt succeed is actually making us more tolerant and understanding? For my money, but not too much of it, he does.

Haidt’s approach is generally an evolutionary one. As the human race has historically coalesced into groups, behaviors had to be sorted out and acted upon for the good of the majority. These behaviors are either tolerated or not, depending upon whether they bring about fairness and justice. The discussion is an old one, the same one that raised in Plato’s REPUBLIC. What does a good society, a “moral” society look like. For Plato, this could be determined by reason and so the philosophers are the ones to determine the rules of a just society.

But for the Scottish philosopher, David Hume, writing in l739, “reason is, and ought only to be the slaveof the passions and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” It’s an illusion, then, to think we can reason our way to a just society; the reality is that we always act out of self interest, and then justify our behavior by false rationalizations. A third way of thinking about this was that of Thomas Jefferson who fell between these two positions – sometimes we act rationally, sometimes irrationally.

Haidt uses the metaphor of a rider upon an elephant. The rider is the intellect, the elephant the social forces he is trying to control. The elephant is usually in control, but may respond occasionally to the rider’s commands, creating the illusion that the rider is really in charge. What motivates the elephant, then?

Dropping the analogy, the author explains that through his research (involving extensive questioning of people and then analyzing their responses) he has discovered key values, or “foundations” as he calls them. These include Care, Fairness, Liberty, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. What people believe and act on depends on which foundations they’re concentrating. Liberals focus on fairness and care, and cannot understand why any one would object to trying to insure that every person in a society is treated fairly. Conservatives, on the other hand, are committed to what holds a society together. That mans submission to property constituted authorty, loyalty to others, and traditional values that are “sacred” . Liberty, the last value, is a slippery concept that each side defines in its own way.

There’s something to be said for both sides. Haidt stresses that which side we’re on depends on a subjective life narrative that we create for ourselves, and that in turn depends on our environment and upbringing. We can change our narrative, and our religion and politics, but it requires an imaginative effort, an ability to get inside the heads of the opposite side and at least to become more civil toward them. Usually, though, what happens is that peoples’ minds are “designed for group righteousness. We are deeply intuitive creatures whose gut feelings drive our strategic reasoning.” It is really tough to change those group gut feelings. Is it even possible?

I'd like to say yes, but I'm not sure. Haidt, I’d say, has a faith that once all of this is explained clearly, people will respond in a sensible and civil way toward their adversaries. But doesn’t this imply that “reason” is in the driver’s seat on top of that unruly elephant of “gut feelings”? Is the elephant going to respond? Problematic, but I give Haidt a lot of credit for trying to do something so that , echoing Rodney King’s words, we CAN get along.