The Righteous Mind

Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

By: Jonathan Haidt

Narrated by: Jonathan Haidt

Why can’t our political leaders work together as threats loom and problems mount? Why do people so readily assume the worst about the motives of their fellow citizens?

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition - the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong.

Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right. He blends his own research findings with those of anthropologists, historians, and other psychologists to draw a map of the moral domain, and he explains why conservatives can navigate that map more skillfully than can liberals. He then examines the origins of morality, overturning the view that evolution made us fundamentally selfish creatures.

But rather than arguing that we are innately altruistic, he makes a more subtle claim - that we are fundamentally groupish. It is our groupishness, he explains, that leads to our greatest joys, our religious divisions, and our political affiliations. In a stunning final chapter on ideology and civility, Haidt shows what each side is right about, and why we need the insights of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to flourish as a nation.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2012 Jonathan Haidt (P)2012 Gildan Media LLC

Critic reviews

"Haidt is looking for more than victory. He's looking for wisdom. That's what makes The Righteous Mind well worth reading…. a landmark contribution to humanity’s understanding of itself.” ( The New York Times Book Review)

This should give you pause.

I just finish this book and I have to admit it give me a great deal of pause As a liberal thinker, i've tried to fully understand the counterpoints to liberalism. And sometimes find myself wondering "why would anybody want to be a conservative?" Well, I seem to understand better now. Not that I'm going to abandon liberalism, but rather try to understand conservatism better.

Hopefully the start of a more productive dialogue

The thing that saddens me when I read books on moral psychology is that it makes it clear that we as a species have come to a good understanding about how it is we think, yet that understanding doesn't filter down to the individual level. Like Michael Shermer's The Believing Brain, or Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson's Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me), this book has within it much that could help keep in check the more extravagant of cognitive pitfalls, yet how does it make that tricky journey from the psychology journals and out into the public? This book, as good as any other on the topic I have read, has me hoping it will be able to make a little headway.

Since I'm not a psychologist, I can't comment on the quality of the research, except to say that I found the presentation of the ideas was clear and very illustrative. Haidt's writing style is very accessible, and whether or not you agree with him by the end, anyone who carefully listens should at least appreciate where he was coming from. By the end, there's perhaps a means to appreciate where other people are coming from.

One major problem was that in his efforts to give a descriptive moral psychology, he ignored the prescriptive aspect. The question of whether or not people see morality a particular way doesn't make that way warranted. Of course Jonathan Haidt knows this, but neglects to mention this until near the end of the penultimate chapter, and even then does little more than shrug at the prospect. That's fair enough as he's not a moral philosopher, but for several chapters preceding that brief mention he focused on trying to understand morality from a neurological perspective - even going so far as to ridicule those current prescriptive theories as being inadequate and possibly the result of Aspergers' syndrome. As the reader this was quite jarring, as he was seeming to make the same mistake Sam Harris did in The Moral Landscape by descending into neurobabble.

For example, much is made of Western Educated Industrial Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) phenomenon of moral psychology where the educated products of enlightenment thinking see the role of moral thought in a very different way from all other societies (and even the poor in their own society). While he makes an interesting case for why moral psychology as a discipline has misfired by focusing on the WEIRD, be doesn't address the inverse case - why some of us are WEIRD? After all, being weird is the anomaly.

If you keep in mind that his account of morality is descriptive rather than normative, then the book reads much better. It's a good account of how to think about how other people think on moral issues, and that is a vital part of having an understanding of where other people are coming from. For that, the book is good. And as far as the presentation goes, Haidt's willingness to describe the diagrams was useful, and him breaking out in song was an unexpected joy.

Interesting Ideas, Well Written, Worthwhile

I'm glad I read this (listened) and I recommend it to anyone who's interested in the topic, even if I don't agree with some of the author's conclusions. My favorite part of the book, the author's insights about people's moral convictions (and the political candidates they're attracted to), was fascinating. It's changed the way I look at (or listen to) people on the other side of the moral/political spectrum. I actually *hear* them differently, and their convictions make more sense to me.

Interesting book, well written and well read by the author.

Excellent biased book.

This is great and very informative book. And it made me very mad.

First there a difference between description, how something is, and prescription, how something should be. The author waits till 3/4 through to acknowledge he understands this extremely important distinction. I think intentionally leading to much misinterpretation.

The author is dinner downright dishonest when claiming Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennet say religion was never adaptive. Likewise group selection is not a thing. And groups of humans including corporations are not super organisms like hives of bees. Maybe those terms were intended as analogies but if so the author again is apparently intentionally unclear.

The author says that religion is helpful or necessary for moral societies. But not for elites such as himself apparently. Which Dawkins, Dennet and most everyone who cares would say religion being adaptive or not is irrelevant to the truth of religious claims. Religious claims which the author avoids like the plague. In fact he defines religion so broadly as to include bowling leagues while calling organized religion a recent innovation not really exploratory of religion...

He tucks away a couple other admissions. Utilitarian ethics based on well being, you know that liberal system he bashes for majority of the book, is the best system as far as actually doing what a system of morality is meant to do. And what primarily distinguishes a conservative from a liberal, sensitivity to threats, ie fearfulness, and a distaste of diversity... Funny how certain things got buried.

Also the terminology like hive and sacred are used for group action, where he is describing a category that would include a mob lynching someone for breaking moral norms he titles community and cleanliness. I'm not saying the hive action is only the worst aspect of humanity but it's included right along with positive examples the author chooses.

Again and again the author frames for a particular effect. One aligned with his ideology.

But this is a great book. That makes excellent observations about morality and how to reach people. Then utilizes that information to underhandedly put forth a particular ideology that has more to do with the author's intuition and tribal affiliation than his rational brain. In other words he proves the thesis of his book by being as irrational as anyone else and looking to exploit your irrationally to recruit you to his tribe

But with all my criticisms and there

A portal to understanding humanity

This is a high value book in my opinion. Dense in new knowledge and explained in a way that a common person like me can understand and use.
Amazing.

May listen again.

Haidt's insights are well thought-out and researched. His ability to recognize his own biases and his fair and honest approach to contrary views are impressive. Well worth the read.

I wish everyone would take the time to read this!

my husband is a conservative and I am a mother, we need to learn how to listen and consider each other's directives.

This explains a lot!

Are you ever sitting in you essay chair watching the news and shouting at the TV about what morons people are? Maybe they are, but it may just be possible that what they consider more important and less important leads them to a different conclusion. The Righteous Mind mind be just what you need to help lower your blood pressure. You may still think others are morons, but at least you might have a chance to understand their point of view.

I know longer see political and religious arguments in the same light. I believe I have been changed by reading this book.

This is way beyond appraisal

The way how ideas are chosen, formed, presented in order, and the overall performance is simply amazing.. I can’t disagree with any mentioned point, and got tired of marking and adding notes.. In my culture, the superbly appealing collective of education and moderation, is called prophecy.. this book is not short of such description.

Learned a LOT!

Discoveries abound. Haidt shares the context of our moral lives and challenges you to explore your inner self. A book to share with friends or family so that you better understand each other and our countrymen.