Though parents play some role in teaching and reinforcing behaviors, children largely create their moralities in play with other children (p. On Haidt’s account, humans build morality from a tangle of intuition, rather than consciously assembling a moral edifice. In the first part, Haidt discusses the development of moral reasoning. The Righteous Mind is organized into three parts. But are cooperative tendencies are often limited to some parochial hive, rather than the collective good: Haidt thinks that the best we can aspire to may be “parochial altruism” for those we are close to, rather than universal cooperation. Haidt claims that this capacity allows us to cooperate, and avoid free rider problems. 90% Chimp, 10% Bee: We are mostly individualistic chimps, but we also have some capacity to absorb ourselves into a collective project, or “hive”.He claims that different people and groups have different “taste receptors”: for instance, that liberals care mostly about Care and Fairness, while conservatives have a more even split between all 5 taste receptors. Moral Taste Receptors: Haidt sets out 5 moral tastes (Care, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, Sanctity).Reason is mainly used to justify and support those intuitive judgements. The Elephant and the Rider: It feels like reason (the elephant rider) is driving our moral judgements, but in fact, our reactions to moral questions seem to be determined by intuitive judgements (the elephant).Haidt makes three claims, using three metaphors: You might think that your moral judgments are reasoned, but they are really driven by the “elephant” of our moral intuition, with reasons coming afterwards. The first part summarizes the book, and the second offers commentary.įeedback for this draft is welcome, about either form or content. The book being reviewed is Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, released in 2012. The purposes of the commission include being used as a potential starting point for discussion on the new EA forum.

Meta: This is a draft of a paid book review commissioned by CEA.

The righteous mind book