Why Do They Vote That Way?: from The Righteous Mind (A Vintage Short)

by Jonathan Haidt

All political movements and parties are morally motivated. (That doesn’t mean that they are all morally right or equally right; it just means that their motives are, in part, to improve society as they understand it.)

You can’t understand complicated social or political issues until you have listened to people who do not share your own preconceptions. (Each side or “team” has pre-structured the issue for its members in ways that guarantee that they will be blind to some aspects of the problem.)

Principle #1: Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning comes second.

We then make up reasons slowly and laboriously, in order to justify our initial intuitive judgment.

The human mind is not a blank slate, and evolution gave us a “first draft” of the moral mind, but culture and life experience edit that draft.)

Republicans understand moral psychology. Democrats don’t.

Sic semper tyrannis (“Thus always to tyrants”).

The difference seems to be that for liberals—who are more universalistic and who rely more heavily upon the Care/harm foundation—the Liberty/oppression foundation is employed in the service of underdogs, victims, and powerless groups everywhere.

American conservatives, therefore, sacralize the word liberty, not the word equality.

Punishing bad behavior promotes virtue and benefits the group. When the threat of punishment is removed, people behave selfishly.