Building Blocks of Righteous Foundations
Have humans always been irrevocably divided? Is difference inevitable, simply a function of human nature? These are expansive questions, difficult to consider and challenging to attempt to address. One has to employ a structure, a disciplinary framework, to even ponder them. Jonathan Haidt, a professor at NYU, enthusiastically has made moral psychology a relevant tool for these kind of imponderable issues. In his 2012 tome, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, Haidt goes big. It is an engaging, encyclopedic, and provocative read.
The Righteous Mind is organized into three sections. The first explores the power and prevalence of emotion in making moral judgements. Haidt weaves his personal history, experiments, and the works of others into a compelling argument. It is reminiscent, yet from a somewhat different perspective, of the seminal found in Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. Emotions are often at the very foundation of how we make judgments, a fact that critical thinkers have explored for centuries. Disgust, for example, can drive out reason. Haidt notes that time and reflection dull the power of emotion, giving space to more deliberate reason.
The second section is meatier and more expansive. Drawing from contemporary politics, a wide range of experiments, interdisciplinary thinkers and personal reflection. Haidt spells out a theory of moral decision-making. He posits a framework of six continua: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, and liberty/oppression. Individuals tend to make moral decisions through these, and we tend to prioritize one or more of these. Haidt’s research suggests that American liberals tend to prioritize judgements on the care/harm and fairness/cheating continua. Conservatives in the US are more likely to use other continua. Global exploration – Haidt spent time in India – shows how different cultures prioritize different values and, subsequently, the frameworks for moral judgements. Adding to the complexity, class has a powerful impact.
Haidt does not claim that his continua are determinative. Rather, they are posited as a potential, or probable structure for further investigation. His research and insights are important, for they can give us better ways of asking questions by interrogating the questions themselves.
Group behaviors, from competition to the hive effect, figures prominently in the third section of the book. Here Haidt is less assured, wondering about evolutionary effects and the possibilities for societal interventions to improve group understanding. Throughout the work, Haidt relies on metaphors to explain these complicated concepts. The elephant and the rider for emotions and reason is an example that is woven throughout.
The Righteous Mind is a book for contemplation, discussion, and more discussion. It is not determinative. Nor does Haidt suggest that it offers all the answers. Nonetheless, give it time and all manner of downstream questions will come to mind. I thought about, for instance, the power of communication – how different people receive, digest and understand information – in this complex framework. If we are relative certain regarding the questions we’re asking – and the questions behind the questions – then what remains to be considered is the information in the hopper to be judged. There is a great deal in Haidt’s book as he moves across disciplines and time, much to consider. And as Haidt has written many other well-received books, I anticipate more reading and mulling.
David Potash
Leave a Reply