jonathan haidt the righteous mind review

Haidt’s view of morality is functional, not prescriptive. He advises people “talk to the elephant” when persuading others and provides a clear set of moral foundations to use as reference when trying to understand a different group and its belief system.

Ultimately, Haidt is interested in fostering more productive conversations among political groups and understanding how people arrive at their ideas of right and wrong. Haidt states that morality “binds and blinds” (313), meaning that we are given the opportunity to have a transcendent experience via group membership but this same group membership can keep us from seeing the validity in other groups’ moral matrices, which may simply hinge on other moral foundational “taste buds.” Groups offer a sense of a moral matrix and rules for maintaining it.

They serve significant functions, including activating a “hive switch” that allows the individual to connect to something larger and universal, transcending the lone self.

Different cultures and groups determine their moral matrices based in part on whether they are sociocentric-emphasizing the importance of the group and its cohesiveness-or individualistic-fighting for the supremacy and rights of the individual above all.įinally, Haidt suggests that groups, including political or religious ones, are not necessarily problematic. The liberal moral matrix emphasizes Care and Fairness whereas the conservative moral matrix focuses on additional moral taste buds such as Authority, Sanctity, and Loyalty. It is difficult to change anyone’s mind, including our own, unless we talk to the elephant.Īfter presenting this view of the elephant and the rider (larger intuitive knowledge and secondary rational knowledge), Haidt explores the moral foundations, which he calls “taste buds,” that he believes are common across all cultures and groups, though different moral matrices emphasize different foundations. Reason is not the slave of emotion in Haidt’s view, but it is certainly secondary. The rider also has the job of acting as a press secretary, explaining the presidential verdicts of the elephant. The elephant is in control, though it is steered by the rider, which is the rational mind. He creates the metaphor of the moral mind, one that makes judgments instantly based on feelings and bodily sensations, as the elephant. He asserts that emotion and intuition carry far more weight in our judgments than reason does. Haidt’s understanding of the mind runs counter to the typical rationalist beliefs of Western philosophy.

Jonathan haidt the righteous mind review