43 pages • 1 hour read
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2: “There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Beyond WEIRD Morality”
In an attempt to understand how and why moral rules are established in groups, Haidt presents two very different communities to examine. First, Haidt looks at the community in which he includes himself. As an affluent, liberal-minded American in possession of advanced academic degrees, Haidt is a member of WEIRD society. WEIRD is defined as Western, educated, industrial, rich, and democratic. As a member of this society, Haidt looks at moral dilemmas via a very specific set of concerns.
He shares this very specific set of concerns with the University of Pennsylvania students who serve as his research subjects. For Haidt and the Penn students, ethics of autonomy and harm avoidance are paramount. This guides how they decide if a situation is right or wrong—are someone’s rights being violated? Is someone being harmed (physically, psychologically, or perhaps politically via disenfranchisement)? Harm and fairness govern all their moral verdicts.
However, when Haidt ventures beyond the borders of WEIRD society, he comes to see what outliers WEIRD society members really are in the larger world. His most eye-opening experiences occur while he is staying in the small Indian city of Bhubaneswar. Haidt reports being treated very well and coming to feel great affection for his hosts. This affection—from the elephant part of his mind—leads him to want to better understand the moral underpinning of Bhubaneswar society.
Some aspects of Bhubaneswar society (an unWEIRD society) truly trouble him. Servants are not to be thanked, he is repeatedly reminded. Women should serve silently and obediently, without looking men in the eye. Individuals should bathe and drink from visibly polluted water held to be sacred. To Haidt, all of these facets of Bhubaneswar culture are vexing, because clearly the rights of some individuals are being ignored, and psychological or physical harm (bathing in contaminated water due to cultural mandate) is occurring. However, Haidt realizes that this is an opportunity to step outside his WEIRD ethics and become a moral pluralist.
Haidt comes to see that what guides the moral decisions of this Indian community is an ethics of community rather than the ethics of autonomy prized in WEIRD society. This ethics of community may require that some individuals be blocked from doing what they want in order to enhance the unity of the overall community. By the end of his stay in Bhubaneswar, Haidt reports that he “could see the beauty in a moral code that emphasizes duty, respect for one’s elders, service to the group and negation of the self’s desires” (102). These ethics of community have their own rationale, just as the ethics of autonomy do.
Haidt comes to better understand this ethics of community closer to home, viewable in conservative religious groups for whom a vertical order of social space (running from a perfect God at the top to demons at the bottom) governs decision-making. Haidt also observes a clearer emphasis on community rules and norms among lower-income Americans he surveys at a McDonald’s in Philadelphia, not far from the University of Pennsylvania. These Americans who do not belong to WEIRD society do not go to the same lengths as his Penn student subjects to justify individualistic values and choices.
The main takeaway for Haidt after looking at these disparate communities is that societies operate in their own particular moral matrices. As Haidt states: “[m]oral matrices bind people together and blind them to the coherence, or even existence, of other matrices” (110). It is imperative that people learn to identify their own moral matrix, though. In doing so, they can become able to see that other moral frameworks or moral truths can be valid.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind”
In this chapter, Haidt identifies and evaluates common “taste buds” of mortality. These taste buds, Haidt posits, work as receptors that guide our sense of right and wrong in various situations. Haidt identifies five common taste buds that individuals use to make sense of a complex situation. A complex blend of factors—including cultural background, religious orientation, and genetic predisposition—determine which tastes appeal to us most strongly and command our attention most fully.
The taste buds identified by Haidt are care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. In addition to pinpointing these innate common receptors, Haidt notes some time-tested triggers that activate these “taste buds” in individuals. Characteristic emotions and relevant virtues are also noted for each (i.e. caring and kindness for care/harm and obedience and deference for authority/subversion).
In addition to exploring the taste buds of morality, Haidt presents the two different dimensions of cognitive style. These two ways of understanding relationships and social situations govern how individuals make moral decisions. Those who excel as systemizers are good at making rational decisions and understanding rules that govern behavior. Those who excel as empathizers are skilled at connecting on a personal and emotional level. According to Haidt, utilitarianism and similar Western philosophies aimed at ethical behavior tend to emphasize systemizing often at the expense of empathizing. A blend of these two skills is preferable.
Chapter 7 Summary: “The Moral Foundation of Politics”
In this chapter, Haidt wrestles with the idea of innateness. He posits that the brain is innately tuned to certain triggers. This innateness is not “hard-wired,” however. Instead, Haidt stresses the plasticity of the mind. The individual is primed to respond to certain foundations of human experience. However, the degree to which any individual responds to a certain trigger is flexible. Some moral foundations resonate strongly with one individual or group. A different individual or group may be more profoundly drawn to a different trigger or moral foundation.
Haidt then demonstrates what these five moral foundations look like in action, what purposes they serve, and how they are commonly viewed on the right and the left sides of the political spectrum. Haidt first presents a photo of his own sleeping child to illustrate the Care foundation of the human mind. He argues that this Care foundation is essential in both males and females, as protecting the young has always been a clear goal for species survival. This Care foundation also makes us attuned to suffering or cruelty. As Haidt states, “The moral matrix of liberals, in America and elsewhere, rests more heavily on the Care foundation than do the matrices of conservatives” (134).
The Fairness or cheating foundation is also encoded into the human mind, according to Haidt, and this concept assists in group dynamics that also promote species survival. As Haidt notes: “Human life is a series of opportunities for mutually beneficial cooperation. If we play our cards right, we can work with others to enlarge the pie that we ultimately share” (136). The Fairness foundation looks different on the political left and political right, though both groups are acting on the same trigger. For liberals, having fair taxes means not allowing wealthy groups to get advantages. For conservatives, having fair taxes means not taking money from wage earners to give to others in the form of unemployment benefits or welfare.
Haidt connects the Loyalty/betrayal foundation to the human proclivity for war and rivalry. Because groups have always been formed to protect the safety of individuals, resources, and territory, we are sensitive to issues of loyalty or betrayal. Haidt notes, “This virtue of loyalty matters a great deal to both sexes, though the objects of loyalty tend to be teams and coalitions for boys in contrast to two-person relationships for girls” (139). The Loyalty foundation is ingrained in religious groups and tends to be strongest with conservatives. While liberals may eschew nationalism as part of their response to the Caring foundation, conservatives often rely heavily on the Loyalty foundation in their voting.
Haidt presents the Authority/subversion foundation as likewise engrained in all humans. This receptor gives us a sense of our place in the larger group and assists in maintaining harmonious group functionality. Haidt writes:
If you’ve ever felt a flash of distaste when a salesperson called you by first name without being invited to do so or if you felt a pang of awkwardness when an older person you have long revered asked you to call him by first name then you have experienced the activation of some of the modules that comprise the authority/subversion foundation (142).
While all humans are sensitive to rank and relationships between hierarchies, this foundation again resonates more strongly with the political right. The political left often postures as being opposed to hierarchy and systems of power and rank.
To demonstrate the fifth foundation, the Sanctity foundation, Haidt relates a story about a man who killed and ate another man who consented in writing and on video to his own death and subsequent cannibalization. Though it was consensual and no one else was harmed, the story activates intense feelings related to the Sanctity foundation. Haidt argues that this foundation has served humanity well, as it has long governed what we see as safe or unsafe to ingest. It also protects us from dangerous groups or experiences. Conservative groups are again more likely to be triggered by the Sanctity foundation as they tend to be more neophobic (afraid of new things) whereas liberals tend to be more neophilic (attracted to new things).
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Conservative Advantage”
In this chapter, Haidt explains the results and complications that were the by-product of his attempt to put his Moral Foundations Theory to the test. An online version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire attracted a steady volume of participants from both sides of the political spectrum. While many parts of Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory were confirmed, other elements needed to be fine-tuned or added.
The questionnaire results clearly spell out that one of Haidt’s suppositions is indeed true. The foundations of Care and Fairness play well with liberal voters. The other three foundations—Authority, Loyalty, and Sanctity—are far less important to that group. For conservative voters, all foundations are measurable, though care is less significant. This information led Haidt to try to persuade liberals to make more use of the foundations of Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. Using only two foundations clearly puts liberals at a disadvantage when speaking to voters. Conservatives have an advantage in that their arguments appeal to all five foundations.
However, survey results also prompt Haidt to revisit his definition of fairness. It was clear from individual written reactions that fairness was not an abstract notion so much as a law of proportionality. Individuals want to reap what they feel they deserve and to see that happen to others as well. Karma resonates strongly with both sides of the political spectrum, and individuals want to see cheaters punished and good citizens rewarded.
Haidt also decided to add a sixth foundation to his understanding of moral matrices. The sixth foundation, Liberty/oppression, speaks to the sense of indignity and anger that people feel when they encounter attempted domination. Haidt argues that since humans began to arrange themselves into tribes or groups, the need to keep alpha males from aggressively dominating has been a necessity, and this has prompted others to band together to keep power in check. The foundation is observable in American history, in sacred texts such as the Declaration of Independence. On the right, this foundation of liberty manifests as anti-government anger. On the left, this foundation supports egalitarianism and anti-authoritarianism.
Part 2 Analysis
After establishing The Primacy of Intuition and Emotion in Moral Judgment in Part One, Haidt’s next task is to understand how the elephant (emotional/intuitive) part of the mind makes decisions. His five-taste-bud theory is an effort to categorize the values that drive moral judgments. His hope is that by understanding The Cultural Foundations of Moral Judgment, people will be more tolerant of moral choices that don’t align with their own and more effective at persuading others to change their views. In this section, Haidt applies this reasoning to the field of US political divisions.
Haidt’s initial moral foundations are Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. For the left, respect for the individual, especially the oppressed individual, is paramount, and Care and Fairness are the most important moral foundations. The political right places greater emphasis on the remaining three “taste buds”: Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity. However, Haidt points out a key asymmetry between these political groups: While the right cares to some degree about all five taste buds, the left—according to Haidt—has little interest in Loyalty, Authority, or Sanctity. Using a metaphor, he compares the left’s arguments to chairs with only two legs. The implication of this analysis is not that the left must change its values, but that in order to reach conservatives, liberals must find ways to speak to those values that are important to the people they’re trying to persuade.
In this section, Haidt defines the society he and most of his readers belong to as WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic). His analysis of WEIRD society is an effort to understand the cultural foundations of his own morality. He notes that WEIRD society is (as the acronym suggests) a global outlier and that most of the world is unWEIRD—that is, they are more likely to prize communal cohesion over individual autonomy. Haidt’s account of his time in Bhubaneswar, India, illustrates the rift between WEIRD and unWEIRD conceptions of morality. Many of Bhubaneswar’s social strictures are predicated not on respect for individual autonomy or equality but instead on preserving the social order. The clash of values here illustrates a fundamental tension that runs throughout the book: The Tension Between Social Cohesion and Individual Freedom. In both WEIRD and unWEIRD societies, and across the political spectrum, individual autonomy is conceptualized as antithetical to social order. Value systems diverge as they give more or less weight to either side of this dichotomy. In Haidt’s view, many US conservatives share certain characteristics with members of unWEIRD societies—including a preference for Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity over other values—and this is why the left and right sides of the political spectrum are so unable to understand each other’s moral matrices.
Haidt sees little more than two taste buds as part of the liberal pitch at first, though he revises that idea later when he adds Justice to his list of moral foundations. This taste bud, too, is subjective and is configured differently depending on political orientation. For libertarians, justice means anti-government sentiment. For the left, it means egalitarianism. He also comes to see, via survey responses, that fairness is defined in terms of proportionality. People don’t want to see cheaters get away with their actions. They want people to be fairly rewarded for their labor. This willingness to revise his conclusions in light of new evidence is one way in which Haidt models the open-mindedness he seeks to inculcate in his readers.
Unlock all 43 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Jonathan Haidt
