Book Summary: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt a NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Jonathan Haidt, the #1 bestselling author of The Anxious Generation and renowned social psychologist, comes a thought-provoking exploration of morality, politics, and religion that resonates with both conservatives and liberals alike.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, authored by Jonathan Haidt, was published in paperback on February 12, 2013, by Vintage in a reprint edition. This book has received an impressive rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars based on 10,907 ratings and holds a 4.2 rating on Goodreads from 58,488 ratings. It is available in English and spans 528 pages.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt Overview

Based on over twenty-five years of pioneering research in moral psychology, Haidt reveals that our moral decisions stem more from instinctual feelings than logical reasoning. He explains why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians differ so dramatically in their moral outlooks and highlights how each group is right in its core beliefs.

In this insightful and accessible work, Haidt offers a deeper understanding of the marvel of human cooperation and sheds light on the persistent divisions and conflicts in society. The Righteous Mind is a must-read for anyone seeking to replace anger with understanding.

The Book answers some of these questions :

• How do the elephant and rider metaphors explain the communication strategies of Republicans and Democrats?
• Why does Haidt argue that conservatives have a broader moral foundation than liberals?
• What is the plausibility of gene-culture coevolution and multi-level selection in human behavior?
• Why are both stability/order and progress/reform necessary in political systems, and how does this relate to natural selection?
• How do liberals and conservatives differ in their views on erasing societal boundaries, and why do conservatives believe this could lead to chaos?
• Under what conditions can close-knit groups help bridge social divides and foster better social interactions in broader society?

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt Book Details

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt Table Of Contents

PART I: Intuitions Come First

1. Introduction
2. Intuitions Come First, Strategic Reasoning Second
3. Where Does Morality Come From?
4. The Intuitive Dog and Its Rational Tail
5. Elephants Rule
6. Vote for Me (Here’s Why)

PART II: There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness
6. Beyond WEIRD
7. Taste Buds of the Righteous Mind
8. The Moral Foundations of Politics
9. The Conservative Advantage

PART III: Morality Binds and Blinds
10. Why Are We So Groupish?
11. The Hive Switch
12. Religion Is a Team Sport
13. Can’t We All Disagree More Constructively?

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt Book Summary

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist who has researched human morality for several decades, offers a profound exploration of how morality shapes our understanding of politics and religion.

In this book, described by The New York Times Book Review as “a landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself,” Haidt provides both a theoretical framework and practical guide for thinking about morality. NPR boldly stated that the book “may well change how you think and talk about politics, religion, and human nature.”

Haidt presents a new perspective on two of the most divisive topics in human life: politics and religion, arguing that both are expressions of our underlying moral psychology. He laments a largely 21st-century phenomenon: the collapse of political cooperation across party lines.

Haidt attributes this, in part, to our failure to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, each convinced of its own righteousness. He contends that human nature is not only intrinsically moral but also moralistic (critical or judgmental).

Additionally, humans are predisposed to thrive in group environments, which require boundaries and inevitably lead to inter-group conflict. By understanding why we differ, Haidt suggests, we can avoid wholesale blaming and instead manage conflicts in a way that doesn’t destroy us.

This book is divided into three parts, which you can think of as three separate books—except that each one builds on the one before it. Each part presents one major principle of moral psychology.

Part I is about the first principle: Intuitions come first, and strategic reasoning second. Moral intuitions arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started. 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 view moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas—to justify our actions and defend the teams we belong to—then things will make more sense.

Pay attention to the intuitions and don’t take people’s moral arguments at face value. They are 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 represents our conscious reasoning—the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware.

The elephant represents the other 99 percent of mental processes—the ones that occur outside of awareness but 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 navigate 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 to better persuade people who seem unresponsive to reason.

Part II of this exploration delves into the second principle of moral psychology. It asserts that morality expands beyond mere harm and fairness. Here, the righteous mind is metaphorically described as a tongue furnished with six taste receptors. It proposes that secular Western moralities are akin to cuisines that aim to stimulate only one or two of these receptors. These largely address concerns about harm, suffering, fairness, and injustice.

However, mankind possesses a plethora of potent moral intuitions including liberty, loyalty, authority, and sanctity. The subsequent chapters will further explain the origins of these six taste receptors, their role in shaping the world’s diverse moral cuisines, and the reason why right-wing politicians seem to have a built-in advantage in appealing to voters.

Part III centers on the third principle: Morality binds and blinds. The pivotal metaphor here likens humans to 90 percent chimps and 10 percent bees. The duality of human nature was crafted by natural selection operating at two levels. On one hand, our competitive primal instincts make us selfish hypocrites adept at feigning virtue.

On the other hand, as groups compete, mankind exhibits the ability to suppress our primal selves and function as part of a larger entity. This group-oriented aspect of human nature enables altruism, heroism, war, and genocide.

Once you perceive our righteous minds as primate minds layered with a communal overlay, it offers a novel perspective on morality, politics, and religion. This viewpoint posits that religion, likely an evolutionary adaptation for fostering unified communities, is not a virus or parasite. It also provides insights into why people tend to align themselves into political teams that share moral narratives, becoming oblivious to alternative moral universes.

About the Author: Jonathan Haidt

Jonathan Haidt holds the position of Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU’s Stern School of Business. In 1992, he completed his Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Chicago and in Orissa, India.

Before he arrived at NYU Stern in 2011, he taught for 16 years at the University of Virginia. Haidt has been acknowledged as one of the “top global thinkers” by Foreign Policy magazine and as one of the “top world thinkers” by Prospect magazine.

He investigates morality, examining its emotional basis, cultural variances, and developmental path. At first, he concentrated on exploring adverse moral emotions like disgust, shame, and vengeance, but later turned his attention to investigating positive moral emotions such as admiration, awe, and moral elevation.

Haidt is recognized for his contributions to the development of the Moral Foundations Theory and the creation of the research platform YourMorals.org. He is a co-founder of HeterodoxAcademy.org, an organization that supports the promotion of different perspectives in academia.

Haidt uses his research to promote comprehension and appreciation for diverse moral viewpoints.

He has written books like The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, and The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure (with Greg Lukianoff). To learn more information, go to www.JonathanHaidt.com.

Get Your Copy of The book: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt