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| Subtitle | Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion |
| First Written | 2012 |
| Genre | Philosophy |
| Origin | US |
| Publisher | Pantheon |
| My Copy | library hardback |
| First Read | January 08, 2017 |
The Righteous Mind
The book starts entertainingly with the author's 'moral dumbfounding' stories - stories that feel immediately like they have a right and wrong, but don't map neatly onto the subject's available moral axes. An example;
A family's dog was killed by a car in front of their house. They had heard dog meat was delicious, so they cut up the dog's body and cooked it and ate it for dinner. Nobody saw them do this.
This is constructed so it flags your sense of sanctity / degredation and loyalty / betrayal - but if you refer all your discussion about Right and Wrong onto Care / Harm, then you'll come up short explaining why you feel the family was wrong.
Noted on January 8, 2017
This is a fascinating book outlining some simple but impressive ideas: that where people disagree about right and wrong, they're really priotizing different moral axes differently (like, axis-es, not hatchets).
I'd heard this idea around, and I don't know if it's original with Haidt or if he's just articulated it really well. But the idea is that right and wrong is not like simple, but rather like different flavors - some people like spicier food, some people like their foods more bitter. When there's a conflict between people's ideas of morality, it's because they have different taste buds.
The six “flavors” are:
Care vs Harm
Liberty vs Oppression
Fairness vs Cheating
Loyalty vs Betrayal
Authority vs Subversion
Sanctity vs Degradation
Liberal westerners (described as Western, Educated, Industrialized Rich Democratic (WEIRD)) often base their morality almost exclusively around Care Vs Harm - and have a hard time articulating why anything could be wrong if it's not hurting someone. But conservative westerners might also prioritize Fairness, Liberty, Authority, etc.
Noted on January 8, 2017
If you want to understand another group, follow the sacredness...And if you really want to open your mind, open your heart first. If you can have at least one friendly interaction with a member of the “other” group, you’ll find it far easier to listen to what they’re saying, and maybe even see a controversial issue in a new light.
Quoted on January 8, 2017
Human beings are the giraffes of altruism. We're one-of-a-kind freaks of nature who occasionally - even if rarely - can be as selfless and team-spirited as bees.
Quoted on January 8, 2017
[on learning to sympathize an ethic of divinity in India]
I could see beauty in a moral code that emphasized self-control, resistance to temptation, cultivation of one's higher, nobler self, and negation of the self's desires. I could see the dark side of this ethic too: once you allow visceral feelings of disgust to guide your conception of what God wants, then minorities who trigger even a hint of disgust in the majority (such as homosexuals or obese people) can be ostracized and treated cruelly. The ethic of divinity is sometimes incompatible with compassion, egalitarianism, and basic human rights.
Quoted on January 8, 2017
Wherever I went, people were kind to me. And when you're grateful to people, it's easier to adopt their perspective.
Quoted on January 8, 2017
They said things like, 'I know it's wrong, but I just can't think of a reason why.' They seemed to be morally dumbfounded - rendered speechless by their inability to explain verbally what they knew intuitively.
Quoted on January 8, 2017
These ethnographies were fascinating, often beautifully written, and intuitively graspable despite the strangeness of their content. Reading each book was like spending a week in a new country: confusing at first, but gradually you tune up, finding yourself better able to guess what's going to happen next. And as with all foreign travel, you learn as much about where you're from as where you're visiting.
Quoted on January 8, 2017