"The Righteous Mind" is a collection of Haidt's research into moral psychology, built around the intriguing idea that our moral intuitions are like taste buds, sensitive to different "flavors" of moral category, and that this has shaped many features of our modern culture. Nominally a book on moral psychology, this is is another attempt at understanding the oddities of human nature which fits well in my recent reading (particularly cozy with Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow").

The book begins with Haidt's rider-elephant metaphor for the human mind. It's here that he dabbles in the same arena of motivated reasoning that composed Kahneman's book, as well as research by Dan Ariely and others who've found that we only reason after the fact. It's emotion, which Haidt carefully clarifies as not so much "animal passions" as a type of unconscious cognition, that runs the pair as the unruly elephant. The rider, representing our capacity for reason and rational behavior, serves the elephant. This is Haidt's social intuitionist model of morality, leading to a key premise in the book's argument: strategic reasoning serves our intuitions. The strategic element is important, as there are many instances where we can apply reason "in the moment", but our prevailing ideas and beliefs are for the most part subservient to our unconscious selves, which are in turn highly receptive to our social surroundings.

Once establishing this foundation, Haidt then describes his own time in India away from what he calls "WEIRD" morality -- Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic, all the features we'd expect to find in a first-world nation. He explains how his encounter with the "more diverse" moral system of India led him to formulate the idea that moral receptivity might come in different flavors, much the way that our taste buds can identify salt, sweet, and bitter. A series of experiments in Haidt's lab would appear to vindicate his ideas, indicating that people are indeed receptive to more than concerns of harm and fairness (as are of prime concern in WEIRD nations). Among these include a sensitivity to loyalty, authority, and sanctity or purity, which are largely absent in traditionally liberal moral systems yet remain important among more conservative people.

Here Haidt makes an argument that rankles some, suggesting that conservatives have an advantage in so much as they understand how to speak to a wider range of moral intuitions than do modern liberals. Liberals, comments Haidt, simply don't get it; since conservatives largely share concern with harm and fairness (albeit in different ways), they understand left-wing thinking. Liberals for the most part don't get the conservative emphasis on loyalty, authority, or sanctity.

I anticipated finding problems with this argument; however after reading Haidt's case I find that I'm in large agreement with him. He makes no value judgment, only noting the reality that different people place different weight on the five moral foundations, and those who don't understand this fact are at a disadvantage.

Haidt goes on to perhaps the most controversial part of his argument, centering on the idea of group selection first suggested by Darwin but which fell out of prominence in the 1970s. Haidt nevertheless challenges the case and argues that group selection has indeed shaped our culture and, in what will surprise some, our evolution over the last 50,000 years (I found it interesting that humans apparently do evolve on a much smaller time scale than I'd originally thought). The arguments here read as sound but I have no doubt that those well-versed in evolutionary biology will find plenty to debate.

The ultimate argument of the book is that partisanship of any stripe is probably the wrong way to do things, as we wind up talking past each other and entering a downward spiral of tribalism that serves to polarize rather than unite. The final chapter outlines Haidt's ideas on how both left and right, more purely liberal and traditionally conservative, can bring ideas worth consideration, and we should come at this sort of problem from a position of charity rather than aggression and condescension.

As per my policy, I found plenty to think about here and my review largely focuses on those positives, although as a counterpoint I would like to add these links as elaborating on criticisms I also agree with:

http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co...

http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-...