the righteous mind jonathan haidt review

He describes humans as “90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee.” Each of us generally acts towards our own self interest, but occasionally our “hive switch” is turned on and we act in the way that’s best for the group. The case for a universally correct moral standard, in Haidt’s view is quite weak.įinally, the last section, and perhaps the one I found most interesting, talks about humanity’s tendencies towards group behavior. Some actions that seem morally repugnant (like eating your dog after it got hit and killed by a car) are actually somewhat difficult to explain in a consistent moral framework. More importantly, Haidt draws on his own experience observing different cultures in India to argue that different moral systems make sense for different societies and different times. Liberals tend to focus on the care/harm and fairness/cheating axes while conservatives draw from all six. Here he uses the metaphor of a tongue with six taste receptors. The second piece of the book argues that human morals are aligned across six “moral foundations:” care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression.

Although we often claim to be forming our opinions based on a fair reading of the evidence, I think most of us can admit to sometimes simply looking for evidence that conforms to our preconceived judgements. In other words, in political and moral arguments, we usually come to the answer before we figure out the reason. Since the rider (the rational part of our brain) can do little to actually steer the elephant (our intuition), instead he just makes post hoc justifications for the elephants actions. In the first section, Haidt argues that “intuition comes first, strategic reasoning second.” To illustrate this point, he compares human thought to a small rider trying to guide a large elephant. The book is a plea to “disagree more constructively,” to set aside our differences and find points of commonality, and, even when we do come to find irreconcilable moral or political disagreement, to recognize that the other side has value.Ī series of metaphors guides the structure of the book.

Jonathan Haidt, in his excellent book The Righteous Mind, offers a counterpoint to this mindset. We definitely still like to argue against people who disagree, but the goal of those arguments seems to be more about winning than about learning. More and more in our political discourse, it seems that many of us are forgetting the value of disagreement.

The righteous mind jonathan haidt review