Jonathan Haidt

In The Righteous Mind, psychologist Jonathan Haidt answers some of the most compelling questions about human relationships: Why can it sometimes feel as though half the population is living in a different moral universe? Why do ideas such as 'fairness' and 'freedom' mean such different things to different people? Why is it so hard to see things from another viewpoint? Why do we come to blows over politics and religion? Jonathan Haidt reveals that we often find it hard to get along because our minds are hardwired to be moralistic, judgemental and self-righteous. He explores how morality evolved to enable us to form communities, and how moral values are not just about justice and equality - for some people authority, sanctity or loyalty matter more. Morality binds and blinds, but, using his own research, Haidt proves it is possible to liberate ourselves from the disputes that divide good people. 'A landmark contribution to humanity's understanding of itself' The New York Times 'A truly seminal book' David Goodhart, Prospect 'A tour de force - brave, brilliant, and eloquent. It will challenge the way you think about liberals and conservatives, atheism and religion, good and evil' Paul Bloom, author of How Pleasure Works 'Compelling . . . a fluid combination of erudition and entertainment' Ian Birrell, Observer 'Lucid and thought-provoking ... deserves to be widely read' Jenni Russell, Sunday Times

Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

The Righteous Mind

Noah Syrkis

Some great mental models for morality, loses a star for slapdash distracting arguments and insertions of the author's own political leanings on occasion.

Quinn Tenorio

This book has been on my list for a while. After reading Blink and Talking to Strangers from Malcom Gladwell, I can say that they are very similar writers and thinkers. I thought Haidt was much more academic which is nice, but at times the book dragged. I was still interested in the topics and kept going. However, I couldn't help but feel that the book was quite dense with information, and at times made me not want to pick it up again.

Jaden Nelson

An enjoyable, interesting book that outlines:
- effects of social class, education, and various factors of upbringing on decision making and the way people choose how they morally and ethically judge things
-how people reason and intuit things in their life
-moral domain changing within different cultures
-how people justify their conclusions
-the book could be easily summarized, but the anecdotal evidence was nice to read and helpful in understanding the nuances of the main points
-flaws at the core of the moral tendencies of liberals and conservatives
-emotions precede reason when making decision; the "reasons" we produce during a decision are usually just things we have thought up to justify what we have already decided.
More is described in the book, but I don't care to note it all. I would recommend, but if you are getting a little bored, just skip past some of the more anecdotal parts.

Sarah Schumacher

Be warned that this book is massive, but so good. For anyone wanting to understand the divisiveness of the current political climate, this is a must read. He does a good job of explaining how we use intellect to justify our preconceived notions, then lays out the moral framework those notions originate from.

For anyone reading certain other reviews, I felt he was respectful and fair throughout the book.

Faith Ho 

Incredibly thought provoking (and I daresay transformative) book. Haidt writes clearly, informatively (not one of those non-fic books that talk abt the same thing for 200 more pages than they should) and has excellent (!!) use of metaphors. Loved the summaries at the end of each chapter. 

On a personal note, this led me to reflect a lot on not just *********why********* the world & myself respond to certain things but even more so how such findings can lead us to creating a less polarised, more understanding world. 

A Chaotic Summary (anchored by metaphors): 

PART I: The Elephant & The Rider 
We are driven by the elephant (intuition) and the rider (reason) obeys the elephant. Thus intuition comes first & reasons come later to support the elephant. → no human by themselves is completely open minded (even if educated; that only means they are better at finding justifying reasons). Rationalism (as primarily proposed by Kant and Mill) is a delusion. 

PART II: Morality is 6 Taste Receptors 
Much of research has been focused on WEIRD people (Western, educated, industrialised, rich & democratic) which is not representative of the whole world. Humans’ morality is like a tongue with 6 taste receptors — everyone is able to “sense” each of these different moralities but based on personal development & context they develop different moral matrices (i.e. the importance they place on each of these 6 kinds of morality). They are: care/harm, fairness/cheating (more to do with proportionality), loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, sanctity/degradation, liberty/oppression (more to do with equality)
+A long section on how morality came about through evolution, which TBH I didn’t fully grasp/agree with (evolutionary theories, especially those not of physical transformation, are hard to prove) but I appreciated the discussion. 

PART III: Humans are 90% chimp, 10% bee 
Humans operate on dual levels: as an individual & as part of a larger group. Being part of this larger group is associated with transcendalism, and can occur through the “hive switch”: things such as nature, hallogenics, raves. Society is more Durkheimian (everyone wants to be part of groups; but not universally, more Parochially i.e. within certain groups) than totally individualistic (where everyone just does what they most want to do). 
Politics: Often go either side due to dispositional traits, characteristic adaptations & life narratives. Democrats focus more on care/harm and liberty/oppression, while Conservatives follow all five, and Libertarians overwhelmingly on liberty/oppression. 
Religion: ***not*** an evolutionary aberration (as suggested by New Age Atheists e.g. Dawkins) but a strengthening of societies & an evolutionary adaptation to better survival.

Gavin

Descriptively true (moral psychology is indeed more diverse than most philosophy or art recognises, and it is difficult to understand most of the world without recognising this). But not normatively.

Jimmy Cerone

Presents a groundbreaking investigation into the origins of morality at the core of religion and politics, offering scholarly insight into the motivations behind cultural clashes that are polarizing America.

Maddie

Really insightful read into moral psychology, which are the foundations of our belief systems. Highly recommend!

Kathy Jedrzejczyk

Interesting read. Brought some things to my attention which I hadn't really been aware of before. However, I don't feel like I came away from it ready to have a good dialogue with the opposing political party. I feel like I know now why we disagree, but I still disagree strongly...

Cindy Lieberman

Haidt is a moral psychologist - apparently that’s an actual sub-discipline- with a background in philosophy. He takes us back to foundational questions about morality in order to build an understanding of how we got here (meaning our current state of divisiveness) and what we might do to change things. It won’t be a surprise to learn that it won’t be easy, external influences aside. A worthwhile listen.

Ethan Hussong

Overall an excellent book. We love to pretend that we know everything about "the other side" but this really helped to clarify why people think, feel, and react the way that they do about particular topics. The points made a lot of sense and I hope will provide an opportunity for myself and others to be more patient in conversations that touch on "political" topics.

Some of the critical points the author made about the New Atheist movement completely characterized the argument in parts that weren't even needed to make the point he was working towards, otherwise I would have given it 5 stars. The author claims that the New Atheists standpoint is that no good can possibly come from religion. That simply isn't true and there are a handful of easily accessed references from Hitches and Harris were they both clearly state that it isn't that no good comes from religion, but that you can have the positive pieces of religion for clearly good reasons without needing to bring in mysticism into the equation. Their stance is that being good to someone should be something that we all do because it's the right thing to do from a objective stance, not because we believe that a deity wants us to in order to gain favor.

Claudia

main takeaway - liberals have a three foundation morality - care, liberty, and fairness, whereas conservatives use all six in their approach to morality (+ loyalty, authority, sanctity), which can help to explain the conservative advantage for polling. i think haidt provides a great overview of how morality/psych fields have changed over the past decades and a great framework for understanding morality, but he falls short in demonstrating how his ~ new found empathy for social conservatives in India ~ translates into increased understanding + finding ‘middle ground’ for the role tradition/hierarchy tends in conservative politics. i get that he's not a political scientist/philosopher but the whole 'can't we just get along' and 'lets just live with it' is quite disappointing for a person in this field of research. also, if conservatism appeals to a wider audience (in the sense that it appeals to a broader scope of moral foundations) then why has it failed to reach a wider following? why do conservatives value authority as a moral foundation but fight against govt regulation? if both sides are right, are conservatives 'more right' than liberals because they their views (supposedly) draw from a wider scope of moral foundations? how influential are morality foundations in forming our political views when compared to something like our social class?

Max Bodach

Excellent understanding of the moral psychology of politics. Gave me many insights and more empathy for ideological opponents

Omar Fernandez

If you ever thought to yourself "that sounds true, but it feels wrong so it must be missing something" you understand what's at the heart of this book. A few key things I learned or reiterated: 

1) People make up their minds first using intuition and their gut. Then they build rationalizations to explain their feelings. Rarely will they change their original position, rather they will look for arguments that confirm their initial position. 

2) People's intuition may be wired differently to respond to different ideals, which explains why their intuition and gut reactions diverge. The author spends a lot of time talking about 3 aspects more conservative people tend to weigh more heavily: loyalty, authority, and sanctity. He goes into the research behind these factors. 

3) The author makes a sort of plea to show that there is value on both sides of the liberal/conservative narrative. He tells conservatives to appreciate the value of government in dealing with 'externalities' or side effects that corporations wouldn't deal with when unregulated. The author also asks liberals to appreciate the detrimental effects of pushing for change, particularly as it relates to 'moral capital', that is, the benefit that a group has when they have a shared set of values/culture. A push for diversity often reduces moral capital, which can be costly to groups. 

Going back to point #1, I'd be remiss not to point out that after reading the book I find that it rings true, but that it must be missing something because a few things don't feel right. I suspect that the morality matrix the author talks about with ~6 different ideals is likely incomplete or unfairly making it feel that every ideal is as important as the rest. I feel that reality is more nuanced than that, and the categorization may just be an academic exercise we'll learn more about over time. 

However, I think that it deserves a solid 4 stars for asking everyone to rethink their positions about those on 'the other side'. They aren't dumb or uninformed, they may just have different ideals they value more. As such, any appeals to change should focus on those ideals and how they are helped/threatened.

Hooman Askari

This is a good book. Easy to read and east to follow. Recommend it.

Jeni Enjaian

I found this book fascinating from the beginning. I first put the book on my to-read list after listening to a "Make Me Smart" episode where Kai and Molly interviewed Haidt. I found him articulated and well-reasoned. He did not disappoint in his narrative.
To glean everything possible from this book would require several reads at a much slower pace complete with copious annotations. Yet this density did not deter a reader in search of lighter reading of the text. I still gained a lot of food for thought. I found it fascinating to read how Haidt explained morality and righteousness without God. (Yes, he talks about religion in one chapter but I do not reference that.) If God does not exist, Haidt, in my opinion, has the most logical and reasonable answer. That being said, the food for thought came in analyzing how Haidt sought to explain human capability for morality and righteousness.
The one thing that kept me from rating this book with five stars, came from the chapter on evolution. Here Haidt deviated from the philosophical into the biological, something he obviously knows a thing or two about but something that is not his speciality or the primary focus of the book. This chapter felt out of sync with the rest of the book.

If you are up for a challenge, I definitely recommend this book.

Nathan Griffin

Parts of this were interesting. Like most books like this it just sort of turned into a litany of surveys and psych experiments.

Also lol at all the salty reviews that basically prove one of his main points

Bad Girl Bex

I really enjoyed this book. It even changed my mind about a couple of things. Which is a really impressive feat, me being the stubborn, pig-headed arse that I am. I would recommend this book to everyone. Because it allows for all of us, no matter where we may sit on political compass/spectrum tests, to see what motivates the 'other side' and is a means to encouraging dialogue. The first step is to find a way to see your opposition as human. If you can understand where they're coming from, you're halfway there. 

The book didn't change my political leanings...but it did get me to think more on some issues...to the point of revising my opinion. It's well written; casually conversational in tone, very much simplified for the lay reader and full of interesting personal anecdotes that revolve around Haidt's work in the field of evolutionary psychology. 

A very timely tome, which should be mandatory reading - inasmuch as anyone can ever really call for something like reading to be made mandatory...you know what I mean. Buy it and read it. Buy a copy for your teenagers. Give a copy to your politically active friends and family. 

I'm definitely going to read 'The Happiness Hypothesis' and 'The Coddling Of The American Mind' also by Haidt now.

Varun Khatri

I have always found it frustrating to see how the political left and right have viewed each other. As someone that considers himself a moderate leftist, I have particularly been bothered by people on the left that think the right is greedy, ignorant, inherently racist, etc. This book not only explained why this is so wrong but also confirmed a lot of gut feelings that I have had about moral views. All three central metaphors laid out by Johnathon Haidt, a liberal himself, lay out a very compelling case about how we humans moralize. The first part explained to me why we are so strongly stuck to our moral beliefs as well as how we get to them. The next part broke down the elements that make up an individual’s moral compass, while the final part explained the groupishness that comes with morality. I cannot recommend this book enough as it’s give me hope for a non bipartisan world where opinions on the left and right exist to balance each other out.

Ilia Markov

This is a very good book, also a very serious one and it can be hard to follow if you're listening to it.

It follows the origins and basic tenets of morality and helps you understand why we believe what we do and why others look so different from us.

The Righteous Mind Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

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