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The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion Paperback – February 12, 2013
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Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns.
In this subtle yet accessible book, Haidt gives you the key to understanding the miracle of human cooperation, as well as the curse of our eternal divisions and conflicts. If you’re ready to trade in anger for understanding, read The Righteous Mind.
- Print length528 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateFebruary 12, 2013
- Dimensions5.2 x 1.16 x 7.95 inches
- ISBN-100307455777
- ISBN-13978-0307455772
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Editorial Reviews
Review
—NPR
“A landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself. . . . Haidt is looking for more than victory. He’s looking for wisdom. That’s what makes The Righteous Mind well worth reading.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“An eye-opening and deceptively ambitious best seller . . . undoubtedly one of the most talked-about books of the year.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Ingenious prose. . . . Beautifully written, Haidt’s book shines a new and creative light on moral psychology and presents a provocative message.”
—Science
“A remarkable and original synthesis of social psychology, political analysis, and moral reasoning.”
—Edward O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University
“Highly readable, highly insightful. . . . The principal posture in which one envisions him is that of a scrappy, voluble, discerning patriot standing between the warring factions in American politics urging each to see the other’s viewpoint, to stop demonizing, bashing, clobbering. . . . Haidt’s real contribution, in my judgment, is inviting us all to sit at the table.”
—Washington Times
“Excellent. . . . An impressive book that should be read by anyone who has the slightest interest in how political opinions are reached.”
—The Daily Beast
“Haidt’s work feels particularly relevant now. . . . Haidt’s perspective can help us better understand our own political and religious leanings.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Jonathan Haidt is one of smartest and most creative psychologists alive, and his newest book, The Righteous Mind is a tour de force—a brave, brilliant and eloquent exploration of the most important issues of our time. It will challenge the way you think about liberals and conservatives, atheism and religion, good and evil. This is the book that everyone is going to be talking about.”
—Paul Bloom, Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor of Psychology, Yale University
“Haidt’s research has revolutionized the field of moral psychology. This elegantly written book has far-reaching implications for anyone interested in anthropology, politics, religion, or the many controversies that divide modern societies. If you want to know why you hold your moral beliefs and why many people disagree with you, read this book..”
—Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University, Author of Zero Degrees of Empathy and The Science of Evil
“A much-needed voice of moral sanity.”
—Booklist
“[Haidt’s] framework for the different moral universes of liberals and conservatives struck me as a brilliant breakthrough . . . The Righteous Mind provides an invaluable road map.”
—Miller-McCune.com
“A well-informed tour of contemporary moral psychology…A cogent rendering of a moral universe of fertile complexity and latent flexibility.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Haidt’s a good thing.”
—The Atlantic
“Jonathan Haidt’s absorbing The Righteous Mind should come with a warning label: ‘contents highly addictive.’ Written in a breezy and accessible style but informed by an impressively wide range of cutting-edge research in the social sciences, evolutionary biology and psychology, The Righteous Mind is about as interesting a book as you’ll pick up this year.”
—The Globe and Mail
“What makes [The Righteous Mind] so compelling is the fluid combination of erudition and entertainment, and the author’s obvious pleasure in challenging conventional wisdom. . . . [Haidt’s] core point is simple and well-made: our morality, much of it wired into brains from birth, at the same time binds us together and blinds us to different configurations of morality.”
—The Guardian (London)
“An important and timely book. . . . His ideas are controversial but they make you think.”
—Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company
“The Righteous Mind refutes the ‘New Atheists’ and shows that religion is a central part of our moral heritage. Haidt’s brilliant synthesis shows that Christians have nothing to fear and much to gain from the evolutionary paradigm.”
—Michael Dowd, author of Thank God for Evolution
“The Righteous Mind is an intellectual tour de force that brings Darwinian theorizing to the practical realm of everyday politics. The book is beautifully written, and it is truly unusual to encounter a book that makes a major theoretical contribution yet encourages one to turn its pages enthusiastically.”
—Christopher Boehm, Professor of Anthropology, University of Southern California, author of Moral Origins
“As a fellow who listens to heated political debate daily, I was fascinated, enlightened, and even amused by Haidt’s brilliant insights. This penetrating yet accessible book will help readers understand the righteous minds that inhabit politics.”
—Larry Sabato, University of Virginia, author of A More Perfect Constitution
“A profound discussion of the diverse psychological roots of morality and their role in producing political conflicts. It’s not too much to hope that the book will help to reduce those conflicts.”
—Richard E. Nisbett, University of Michigan, Author of The Geography of Thought
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction
“Can we all get along?” That appeal was made famous on May 1, 1992, by Rodney King, a black man who had been beaten nearly to death by four Los Angeles police officers a year earlier. The entire nation had seen a videotape of the beating, so when a jury failed to convict the officers, their acquittal triggered widespread outrage and six days of rioting in Los Angeles. Fifty-three people were killed and more than seven thousand buildings were torched. Much of the mayhem was carried live; news cameras tracked the action from helicopters circling overhead. After a particularly horrific act of violence against a white truck driver, King was moved to make his appeal for peace.
King’s appeal is now so overused that it has become cultural kitsch, a catchphrase1 more often said for laughs than as a serious plea for mutual understanding. I therefore hesitated to use King’s words as the opening line of this book, but I decided to go ahead, for two reasons. The first is because most Americans nowadays are asking King’s question not about race relations but about political relations and the collapse of cooperation across party lines. Many Americans feel as though the nightly news from Washington is being sent to us from helicopters circling over the city, delivering dispatches from the war zone.
The second reason I decided to open this book with an overused phrase is because King followed it up with something lovely, something rarely quoted. As he stumbled through his television interview, fighting back tears and often repeating himself, he found these words: “Please, we can get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out.”
This book is about why it’s so hard for us to get along. We are indeed all stuck here for a while, so let’s at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, each one certain of its righteousness.
###
People who devote their lives to studying something often come to believe that the object of their fascination is the key to understanding everything. Books have been published in recent years on the transformative role in human history played by cooking, mothering, war . . . even salt. This is one of those books. I study moral psychology, and I’m going to make the case that morality is the extraordinary human capacity that made civilization possible. I don’t mean to imply that cooking, mothering, war, and salt were not also necessary, but in this book I’m going to take you on a tour of human nature and history from the perspective of moral psychology.
By the end of the tour, I hope to have given you a new way to think about two of the most important, vexing, and divisive topics in human life: politics and religion. Etiquette books tell us not to discuss these topics in polite company, but I say go ahead. Politics and religion are both expressions of our underlying moral psychology, and an understanding of that psychology can help to bring people together. My goal in this book is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity. We are downright lucky that we evolved this complex moral psychology that allowed our species to burst out of the forests and savannas and into the delights, comforts, and extraordinary peacefulness of modern societies in just a few thousand years. My hope is that this book will make conversations about morality, politics, and religion more common, more civil, and more fun, even in mixed company. My hope is that it will help us to get along.
BORN TO BE RIGHTEOUS
I could have titled this book The Moral Mind to convey the sense that the human mind is designed to “do” morality, just as it’s designed to do language, sexuality, music, and many other things described in popular books reporting the latest scientific findings. But I chose the title The Righteous Mind to convey the sense that human nature is not just intrinsically moral, it’s also intrinsically moralistic, critical, and judgmental.
The word righteous comes from the old Norse word rettviss and the old English word rihtwis, both of which mean “just, upright, virtuous.” This meaning has been carried into the modern English words righteous and righteousness, although nowadays those words have strong religious connotations because they are usually used to translate the Hebrew word tzedek. Tzedek is a common word in the Hebrew Bible, often used to describe people who act in accordance with God’s wishes, but it is also an attribute of God and of God’s judgment of people (which is often harsh but always thought to be just).
The linkage of righteousness and judgmentalism is captured in some modern definitions of righteous, such as “arising from an outraged sense of justice, morality, or fair play.” The link also appears in the term self- righteous, which means “convinced of one’s own righteousness, especially in contrast with the actions and beliefs of others; narrowly moralistic and intolerant.” I want to show you that an obsession with righteousness (leading inevitably to self- righteousness) is the normal human condition. It is a feature of our evolutionary design, not a bug or error that crept into minds that would otherwise be objective and rational.
Our righteous minds made it possible for human beings—but no other animals—to produce large cooperative groups, tribes, and nations without the glue of kinship. But at the same time, our righteous minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will always be cursed by moralistic strife. Some degree of conflict among groups may even be necessary for the health and development of any society. When I was a teenager I wished for world peace, but now I yearn for a world in which competing ideologies are kept in balance, systems of accountability keep us all from getting away with too much, and fewer people believe that righteous ends justify violent means. Not a very romantic wish, but one that we might actually achieve.
WHAT LIES AHEAD
This book has three parts, which you can think of as three separate books—except that each one depends on the one before it. Each part presents one major principle of moral psychology.
Part I is about the first principle: Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning. If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas—to justify our own actions and to defend the teams we belong to—then things will make a lot more sense. Keep your eye on the intuitions, and don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They’re mostly post hoc constructions made up on the fly, crafted to advance one or more strategic objectives.
The central metaphor of these four chapters is that the mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning—the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes—the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior. I developed this metaphor in my last book, The Happiness Hypothesis, where I described how the rider and elephant work together, sometimes poorly, as we stumble through life in search of meaning and connection. In this book I’ll use the metaphor to solve puzzles such as why it seems like everyone (else) is a hypocrite and why political partisans are so willing to believe outrageous lies and conspiracy theories. I’ll also use the metaphor to show you how you can better persuade people who seem unresponsive to reason.
Part II is about the second principle of moral psychology, which is that there’s more to morality than harm and fairness. The central metaphor of these four chapters is that the righteous mind is like a tongue with six taste receptors. Secular Western moralities are like cuisines that try to activate just one or two of these receptors—either concerns about harm and suffering, or concerns about fairness and injustice. But people have so many other powerful moral intuitions, such as those related to liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. I’ll explain where these six taste receptors come from, how they form the basis of the world’s many moral cuisines, and why politicians on the right have a built- in advantage when it comes to cooking meals that voters like.
Part III is about the third principle: Morality binds and blinds. The central metaphor of these four chapters is that human beings are 90 percent chimp and percent bee. Human nature was produced by natural selection working at two levels simultaneously. Individuals compete with individuals within every group, and we are the descendants of primates who excelled at that competition. This gives us the ugly side of our nature, the one that is usually featured in books about our evolutionary origins. We are indeed selfish hypocrites so skilled at putting on a show of virtue that we fool even ourselves.
But human nature was also shaped as groups competed with other groups. As Darwin said long ago, the most cohesive and cooperative groups generally beat the groups of selfish individualists. Darwin’s ideas about group selection fell out of favor in the 1960s, but recent discoveries are putting his ideas back into play, and the implications are profound. We’re not always selfish hypocrites. We also have the ability, under special circumstances, to shut down our petty selves and become like cells in a larger body, or like bees in a hive, working for the good of the group. These experiences are often among the most cherished of our lives, although our hivishness can blind us to other moral concerns. Our bee-like nature facilitates altruism, heroism, war, and genocide.
Once you see our righteous minds as primate minds with a hivish overlay, you get a whole new perspective on morality, politics, and religion. I’ll show that our “higher nature” allows us to be profoundly altruistic, but that altruism is mostly aimed at members of our own groups. I’ll show that religion is (probably) an evolutionary adaptation for binding groups together and helping them to create communities with a shared morality. It is not a virus or a parasite, as some scientists (the “New Atheists”) have argued in recent years. And I’ll use this perspective to explain why some people are conservative, others are liberal (or progressive), and still others become libertarians. People bind themselves into political teams that share moral narratives. Once they accept a particular narrative, they become blind to alternative moral worlds.
(A note on terminology: In the United States, the word liberal refers to progressive or left- wing politics, and I will use the word in this sense. But in Europe and elsewhere, the word liberal is truer to its original meaning—valuing liberty above all else, including in economic activities. When Europeans use the word liberal, they often mean something more like the American term libertarian, which cannot be placed easily on the left- right spectrum. Readers from outside the United States may want to swap in the words progressive or left- wing whenever I say liberal.) In the coming chapters I’ll draw on the latest research in neuroscience, genetics, social psychology, and evolutionary modeling, but the take- home message of the book is ancient. It is the realization that we are all self- righteous hypocrites:
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? . . . You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye. (Matthew 7:3–5)
Enlightenment (or wisdom, if you prefer) requires us all to take the logs out of our own eyes and then escape from our ceaseless, petty, and divisive moralism. As the eighth- century Chinese Zen master Sen-ts’an wrote:
The Perfect Way is only difficult
for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike;
all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference,
and Heaven and Earth are set apart;
If you want the truth to stand clear before you,
never be for or against.
The struggle between “for” and “against”
is the mind’s worst disease.
I’m not saying we should live our lives like Sen-ts’an. In fact, I believe that a world without moralism, gossip, and judgment would quickly decay into chaos. But if we want to understand ourselves, our divisions, our limits, and our potentials, we need to step back, drop the moralism, apply some moral psychology, and analyze the game we’re all playing. .
Let us now examine the psychology of this struggle between “for” and “against.” It is a struggle that plays out in each of our righteous minds, and among all of our righteous groups.
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; Reprint edition (February 12, 2013)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 528 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307455777
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307455772
- Item Weight : 1.1 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.2 x 1.16 x 7.95 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Jonathan Haidt is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and then did post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago and in Orissa, India. He taught at the University of Virginia for 16 years before moving to NYU-Stern in 2011. He was named one of the "top global thinkers" by Foreign Policy magazine, and one of the "top world thinkers" by Prospect magazine.
His research focuses on morality - its emotional foundations, cultural variations, and developmental course. He began his career studying the negative moral emotions, such as disgust, shame, and vengeance, but then moved on to the understudied positive moral emotions, such as admiration, awe, and moral elevation. He is the co-developer of Moral Foundations theory, and of the research site YourMorals.org. He is a co-founder of HeterodoxAcademy.org, which advocates for viewpoint diversity in higher education. He uses his research to help people understand and respect the moral motives of their enemies (see CivilPolitics.org, and see his TED talks). He is the author of The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom; The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion; and (with Greg Lukianoff) The Coddling of the American Mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting a generation up for failure. For more information see www.JonathanHaidt.com.
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Customers find the book provides valuable insights into human nature and helps them understand how we think. They describe it as an engaging read with clear explanations of complex ideas in a balanced way. The message is accessible and useful for wide audiences. Readers appreciate the author's style and visual appeal, which makes the book interesting and easy to understand.
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Customers find the book insightful and helpful for understanding human nature. They appreciate the compelling concepts and valuable insights into how we think. The book is well-researched, reasoned, and written with citations from various studies.
"...I would definitely recommend it to political psychology students; but I'm not sure that I would want to use it as the primary text for teaching the..." Read more
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2012This is an unusually difficult review for me to write, because I have somewhat mixed feelings about this book. I wanted to love it; and I actually did end up loving it a whole lot, but not quite as much as I was hoping to for some reason. I'm a political scientist with a background in sociology and a strong interest in psychology; so, as you might imagine, I've always had a fascination with social psychology in general and political psychology in particular. I haven't yet had the opportunity to teach a course on political psychology; but I've wanted to for some time now. I devour everything I can get my hands on that deals with the underlying psychology of political affiliation, political decision making, and political violence. In the course of my study of the subject I have encountered the work of moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt on several occasions (if you search online you can find videos of him giving talks on his subject of expertise; and he also has a website -- YourMorals.org -- that deals with his work); and I've been intrigued and impressed with his unique approach to understanding political affiliation, as well as with his calls for greater civility and a willingness to compromise in the political arena. So, when I saw that he had written a book on political psychology, I simply had to read it. I began reading with very high hopes. Not only was I expecting this book to unlock the mysteries of why some people are "conservative" and others are "liberal"; but I was also hoping that this would be the ideal text to assign my students if I ever taught a course on political psychology. Haidt's book lived up to my hopes and expectations in some ways, but not in others. I would definitely recommend it to political psychology students; but I'm not sure that I would want to use it as the primary text for teaching the subject.
I really did love this book; but as I was reading it I kept getting the nagging feeling that something about it was just a bit off -- something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Now I don't want to leave the wrong impression; so I want to say up front that this is a wonderful, well-written, thought-provoking book that everyone ought to read. I've given it five stars because I genuinely believe it's worthy of the highest possible rating. Haidt's theory of political affiliation is original -- one might even say radical -- flying in the face of much of the conventional wisdom within the social and behavioral sciences; but if you are willing to consider Haidt's argument with an open mind, it actually makes a whole lot of sense. So, when I say that something about this book felt a bit off to me, please don't interpret this as a criticism of Haidt's theory, his approach to the subject, or his writing style. This is a book that you really ought to read, and that you will probably enjoy. That said, I still felt slightly dissatisfied after reading it; but it was hard to say exactly why.
After some reflection, I think that my dissatisfaction was due to three things. First, I felt that Haidt's argument was a bit anticlimactic. Haidt spends most of the book laying the foundations for his theory of political affiliation; and the theory he finally presents is, at least in my view, quite compelling. But, after all that setup, I was expecting more of a discussion of how this theory can be applied to help us understand why different people hold such radically differing views on such a wide range of political issues. But Haidt skimped on the application of his theory. The main insight that Haidt gives us into why some people are liberal while others are conservative or libertarian is that a combination of nature and nurture has predisposed some people to build their morality primarily on just three core principles -- care, liberty, and fairness -- while predisposing other people to build their morality on six principles -- care, liberty, fairness, loyalty, authority, and sanctity -- and still others to build their morality on a single principle -- liberty. As I'm sure you've guessed, those in the first group become liberals, those in the second group become conservatives, and those in the third group become libertarians. This is certainly an important insight; but I was hoping for more. For example, I wish Haidt had given us a bit more insight into how the three liberal values shape liberal policy positions, how the six conservative values shape conservative policy positions, and how the lone libertarian value shapes libertarian policy positions. He did briefly discuss some of the differences between liberal, conservative, and libertarian views of the economy; but he didn't really have all that much to say about the myriad other policy issues that liberals, conservatives, and libertarians routinely fight over -- e.g. abortion, equal pay, gay marriage, affirmative action, collective bargaining, voter access, immigration reform, taxes, entitlements, gun control, civil liberties, criminal justice, drug laws, military spending, the conduct of foreign policy, the appropriate use of military force, etc. Haidt's theory does provide a framework that can help us to understand why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians might take different positions on these issues; but he doesn't spell it out for us issue by issue. I really wish he had. I think it would have been very useful, and would have made his excellent book even better.
Second, while I admired his efforts to treat liberals, conservatives, and libertarians with equal respect, and not to treat conservatism as if it were some sort of mental disorder (as many political psychologists are wont to do), I ultimately felt that he went a little too far in his efforts to be "fair and balanced", and ended up glossing over some of the biggest moral failings on the right (e.g. sexism, racism, homophobia, religious bigotry, jingoism, xenophobia, demagoguery, anti-intellectualism, and science denialism) in the interest of portraying conservative values as being just as legitimate as liberal values. Besides, the conservatism that Haidt found worthy of praise was old-fashioned Tory conservatism -- a cautious, genteel, intellectual form of conservatism based on the ideals of serious thinkers like Edmund Burke, who mainly just wanted to preserve society against the sort of chaos that often accompanies radical change -- which bears little resemblance to the "red meat" conservatism that prevails on the American right today. So, when Haidt advises us to pay attention to what conservatives have to teach us about what it takes to maintain a healthy, functioning society, he's really talking about old-school conservative intellectuals of the center-right, like George Will and Colin Powell, not the dogmatic culture warriors of the far-right, like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. In fact, Haidt has relatively little to say about the conservatism represented by the evangelical Religious Right or the Tea Party movement, where ideological zeal often manifests itself as an ugly form of demagoguery. It's almost as if he wants to sweep this under the rug so he can sell the idea that mutually respectful civil discourse and bipartisanship are actually possible in this day and age. I think this book would have been better if Haidt had stuck to trying to explain partisanship rather than trying to find a cure for it.
And third, although I found Haidt's argument quite compelling, there are certain aspects of it that might alienate some readers, causing them to simply reject Haidt's conclusions out of hand without much critical thought. The last thing I would ever want to do in a classroom is to alienate any of my students so they stop listening to what I have to teach. So I'm more than a little reluctant to assign a highly controversial text that many students will likely have a knee-jerk reaction against. Why might this book be controversial? For one thing, Haidt's theory draws heavily on evolutionary psychology, which is rejected by many on both the right and the left. Many progressives decry evolutionary psychology as "politically incorrect" because it argues that much of human behavior -- including such things as gender differences, xenophobia, and aggression -- may be innate parts of human nature that can never be changed by social engineering. Many conservatives, on the other hand, reject evolutionary psychology because they don't believe in Darwinian evolution at all. So Haidt's use of evolutionary psychology may be enough to cause some readers to reject his argument outright. In addition to this, he bases much of his argument on the evolutionary principle of "group selection" -- a theory that has been pretty firmly rejected by biologists for several decades now, but which Haidt argues ought to be reconsidered. But perhaps the most controversial part of Haidt's argument is his treatment of religion. Haidt himself is an atheist; so he makes no pretense of actually believing that any religion is "true". He looks at religion purely from a psychological and sociological perspective in an attempt to figure out what function religion has played in human society throughout history. Yet he forcefully rejects the anti-religious fervor of the so-called "New Atheism" popularized over the past decade by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens, among others, with its assertion that religion is a dangerous "meme" -- a "virus of the mind" -- that is inherently harmful to human wellbeing. Haidt devotes an entire chapter to refuting the New Atheists' claims about religion, arguing that religion has actually been a force for good in the world which serves to strengthen social bonds and discourage individual selfishness, and that religion is actually a product of natural selection. So, his treatment of religion is unlikely to win Haidt any friends from among either the devoutly religious or the fervently irreligious. And, on top of all this, Haidt defends conservative values that many liberals find abhorrent, arguing that they are just as vital to the wellbeing of society as are liberal values. So, suffice it to say that this iconoclastic book is liable to alienate many different people for many different reasons. Haidt butchers a lot of sacred cows in these pages. So, I suspect that plenty of folks will simply reject everything that he has to say out of hand. While I am an advocate of open-minded critical inquiry, I'm also a pragmatist. I know that many of my students are not going to be as open-minded as I would like them to be; so, as an educator, I have to be sensitive to this if I want to help them learn. A little controversy in the classroom can be healthy; but too much can derail the entire lesson plan. I wouldn't want the class to get sidetracked by debates over tangential issues that are not directly relevant to the subject I'm trying to teach. So, if I were to teach a course on political psychology, I would be a bit hesitant to use this book as the main text for fear that students would get too distracted by some of its more controversial elements. However, I would consider using this book as a supplemental text, and would definitely put it on the recommended readings list.
Anyway, these three problems are relatively minor, and do not detract from the overall quality of the book. They simply leave me ever-so-slightly dissatisfied, perhaps because my expectations were unreasonably high. I would certainly recommend Haidt's book. I really do feel that it deserves to be read and talked about. There's no doubt in my mind that it deserves a five-star rating. But I'm afraid that the five stars I give it will have to come with an asterisk.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2013What's in your head, zombie?
Hey, hey, hey. What's in your head,
In your head,
Zombie, zombie, zombie?
-- The Cranberries
"Righteous Mind" is my second book by Haidt. Both books I place in a short stack of books that when I was finished with them, my life actually seemed different. After Happiness Hypothesis, it was changed for the better. After "Righteous Mind," it seemed to have taken me down a peg or two. But, that's OK, it was still a great read.
"Righteous Mind" is sort of a "Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)" meets politics. For those not familiar with "Mistakes Were Made," it is a book that shows how insanely easy it is to manipulate people, along with the fact that most people always think they are right. If anything goes wrong, most people start pointing fingers, because if everyone thinks they are perfect, how could they be the ones that made the mistake?
Just how easy is it to manipulate people? Just releasing a good smell or a bad smell before interacting with people can heavily influence the way the interaction will go. If it is a good smell, the interaction will be more positive. If it is a bad smell, the interaction will lean negative. Or, you could have the best business plan in the world, and blow an important meeting to discuss it, because you shook hands wrong ("The Charisma Myth," by Olivia Fox Cabane).
"Righteous Mind" builds a great case that there are certain foundations that appeal to the majority of people. We will say that there are five to six of these areas. Haidt claims that Democrats only focus on two to three of these areas, while Republicans focus on five to six of these foundations. In that respect, Republicans have a broader appeal than Democrats, because they cater to more "tastes."
Haidt also shows how, not only do Democrats have this narrow focus, but that they are so opposed to the expanded foundations, there is no chance of compromise. So there really is no chance of unity between the two parties or America; nor is there any real chance for Democrats to expand their core base of supporters.
I've often tossed around the notion that some books are so important that they should be used as textbooks in high schools. Outside of a few gross examples used for their moral shock value, this book really should be read by students in every school in America.
For one, it is a great counter-argument for books such as Dawkins, "The Selfish Gene." It also shows, with research to back it up, how something can be beneficial to groups of people, even though *you* don't really understand it or that it may go against "science." In fact, I think Haidt understands a lot more about religion than a lot of religious people. If you read between the lines, I thought he came close to making one of the best arguments for intelligent design that I think I have ever read, and it was written by a self-described liberal atheist.
With all that said, I think Haidt totally missed one thing. While he shows that people that know moral ethics are no more moral than anyone else, what would have really made the book more interesting to me is if he took a page from Martha Stout's, "The Sociopath Next Door." What if sociopaths are using the foundations Haidt speaks of, simply to manipulate people?
I'm going to quote Deepak Chopra:
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One of the peculiarities of modern life is that people violently disagree over religious beliefs, and then go on to lead similar lives. Niche's famous remark that God is dead, should be changed to God is optional. If the government kept round the clock surveillance on those who felt they were abiding by divine law, and those who never gave a thought to living by God's rule book, I imagine that sum total of virtue and vice, love and hate, peace and violence, would look exactly the same. If anything, the balance of intolerance and lovelessness would probably tilt to the most loudly religious people in any society.
-=-=
I'm going to alter the quote slightly, for the way I would imagine it if it were written for "Righteous Mind":
-=-=
One of the peculiarities of modern life is that people violently disagree over political beliefs. Niche's famous remark that God is dead, should be changed to God is useful to manipulate people. If the people kept round the clock surveillance on Republicans, who felt they were abiding ethically, and Democrats who never gave a thought to living by ethics, I imagine that sum total of virtue and vice, love and hate, peace and violence, would look exactly the same.
-=-=
I think Haidt totally misses another reason there can be no compromise between Republicans and Democrats. Yes, Republicans do appeal to a broader range of "tastes" than Democrats, but that they do so simply to get votes.
Yes, the same does go for Democrats, as well, but their narrowed scope lowers the hypocrisy meter a tad. While the two parties have consistently moved the country in the same direction, one of them continually harps on the fact that they are more moral. Consistently, the words coming out of the Republican party's mouths said they would do something different, yet they failed to do so, time after time.
On some level, Haidt was cynical, but on another level, he takes politics at their face value. Perhaps he was afraid of what he would find if he dug too deep?
Anyway, as Deepak says, "One of the peculiarities of modern life is that people violently disagree over religious beliefs, and then go on to lead similar lives." It's really kind of sad that no matter how similar we are, we divide over things that lie mostly between our ears. They don't come into play in the real world that often, and rarely really even affect us as we go about our day to day business.
The sum total of virtue and vice, love and hate, peace and violence, are all pretty much the same, yet we all seek out our hive of clones, because that is what makes us comfortable.
On some level, I think Haidt is right on the money. But on some level, it makes me sad that simple thoughts bouncing around in our heads can so easily divide us, sometimes even violently. After all, considering how easy it is for a sociopath to manipulate people, wouldn't it be bad if someone were dividing us on purpose by putting thoughts into our heads to do just that?
What's in your head, zombie?
Top reviews from other countries
Martin ThuinReviewed in Mexico on April 23, 20235.0 out of 5 stars Actually helpful in real life.
I read a lot of factual books and most of the time I sort of know where the book is heading. This time not, it gave me new insights and tools to better understand people I don't understand. My only reservation is that it's written from a very American perspective. The kind of broader morality that Haidt attributes to the conservatives, I also see within the far left in Europe, where authority, loyalty and sanctity play an important role. It would have been interesting to read Haidt's perspective on that. Excellent book. Highly recommended.
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glorfinnielReviewed in Germany on February 7, 20245.0 out of 5 stars Warum gute Menschen sich gegenseitig für dumm und böse halten
Schade, dass es dieses großartige Buch nicht längst auf Deutsch gibt. Ich stimme nicht mit allem überein, aber es würde uns in der aktuell extrem polarisierten Lage sehr helfen. Obwohl mir etliches schon klar war, habe ich doch noch einiges daraus gelernt. Der Psychologie-Professor Jonathan Haidt zeigt uns darin, belegt durch etliche Studien, warum wir ALLE glauben, selbst die Weisheit mit Löffeln gefressen zu haben und Menschen am anderen Ende des politischen Spektrums für dumm, bösartig oder gar beides halten. Nur, wer ist denn dann wirklich dumm und bösartig? Eigentlich kaum jemand. Dieses Buch zeigt uns, dass die menschliche Moral auf mehr als einer Säule beruht und wir je nachdem, welchem politischen Lager wir uns zurechnen, lediglich verschiedenen Säulen den Vorzug geben. Es zeigt, dass sowohl Linke wie Liberale als auch Rechte moralisch denken und ihre guten Argumente wie auch ihre blinden Flecken haben. Wir sollten unsere politischen Grabenkämpfe deshalb weniger als einen Kampf zwischen Gut und Böse definieren, bei dem es letztlich nur darum gehen kann, die jeweils andere Seite zu besiegen und, konsequent zu Ende gedacht, zu unterdrücken oder gar auszulöschen. Vielmehr sollten wir sie als den Austausch konträrer Meinungen und Interessen, die sich gegenseitig ergänzen und korrigieren können - wie Yin und Yang - betrachten. Denn genau so war Demokratie eigentlich gedacht: Als friedlicher Ausgleich widerstrebender Interessen.
Angel CousillasReviewed in Spain on February 4, 20245.0 out of 5 stars A PERFECT LECTURE FOR SUPPORT TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD
It's a good complement with other books about the society. Very interesting.
JefferyReviewed in Canada on May 7, 20215.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating read
This is arguably one of the best books I have read all around. Although this book delves deep into psychology and psychological theory, it is written for any layperson. As someone with an undergrad in psychology, I remember reading quite a few of the experiments narrated in this book and can say Jonathan does a tremendous job distilling them and presenting them in simple terms. No concept is left unexplained and every idea presented is clearly linked to another, creating a long chain of interconnected concepts. Additionally, Jonathan makes sure that every point he makes is backed up with solid evidence, usually from 3 different perspectives. Each point is addressed with supporting evidence, a critical point-of-view, and then something in the middle of the two extremes. To me, this removed any doubt that his intentions were noble and as close to impartial as one can be.
Each chapter ends with a clearly defined "In Sum" section. This helps identify the key points if they weren't explicitly clear to the reader. This was extremely helpful for me as I usually take notes while I read any significant book.
To add to the overall feel of the book, I would recommend setting up an account on yourmorals.org (this is presented in the book). It certainly will help the reader with self-knowledge and help place themselves within the context of the book. This is important as the book attempts to help resolve polarization, therefore, knowing where you stand is helpful.
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Olivier F.Reviewed in France on October 18, 20235.0 out of 5 stars Une belle découverte
J’avais commencé à écouter la version audible de cet ouvrage. Son écoute m’a passionnée par l’exposé de la démarche de ce scientifique qui partage aussi ses doutes, ses succès, ses échecs, ses découvertes. Deux dimensions dans cet ouvrage: sur le contenu et sur la vie intellectuelle de son auteur de son intérêt pour la philosophie à son doctorat, ses premiers postes de chercheurs, ses collaborations internationales, etc. Avec une rare authenticité et presque un « roman policier » ou l’auteur nous amène à rechercher les indices (ici des évidences expérimentales) pour découvrir la vérité scientifique.



















