43 pages • 1 hour read
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
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Part 1: “Intuitions Come First, Strategic Reasoning Second”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Where Does Morality Come From?”
In the first chapter of the book, the author explains that the goal of his philosophical and psychological research is to discern how people decide what is right and what is wrong. Is it a cultural construct? Is it a historical construct? Is it something else altogether? Since this question itself (how do we know right from wrong) is one that has been pervasive throughout human history, Haidt starts by looking at typical answers to this question to illustrate the shortcomings of these answers.
Learning right from wrong is something that happens as we age. Morality is established in childhood. We are expected to know it and act on it by the time we reach maturation. So then the question is: How do we learn it? Haidt explains that traditionally—and simplistically—people have answered the question of how children learn right from wrong in two main ways. The two options are often referred to as “nature or nurture.”
For some, it is a matter of innate goodness, encoded by God perhaps, in the human soul. Children (and adults) need to be guided by this innate goodness to see what is right and wrong and then act accordingly. Individuals who subscribe to this belief are nativists. Nativists believe that human beings have moral goodness programmed into them innately and must simply tap into it and stay in tune with it.
Haidt contrasts this with those who believe that nurture, not nature, shapes human understanding of right and wrong. For this group, called empiricists, our childhood experiences form us into the adults we will become. We learn what is morally correct from these experiences. We do not know innately but instead draw from empirical data, from observations and firsthand experience.
There is a third option to the “nature versus nurture” choice, though, as made clear by the research of Jean Piaget. Through his findings, Piaget constructed the philosophy of rationalism. Via this lens, children figure out morality on their own. They learn when their minds are ready and when they have arrived at a particular cognitive stage (cognitive stages roughly correspond with various ages). Children draw on their own experiences, in an empiricist way, to decide what is wrong and right.
Piaget’s ideas were later expanded by Lawrence Kohlberg, who applied the ideas of rationalism to morality. Using Piaget’s ideas of cognitive stages, Kohlberg established terms to describe children’s development of morals as they grow. When very young, children are pre-conventional in their thinking, in that they judge wrong from right based on how adults behave in response to their actions. When they reach the conventional level, they internalize and rely on social conventions of right and wrong to determine actions. At a later, post-conventional stage, children are able to question and adapt rules to fit their own notions of justice.
The ideas of Piaget and Kohlberg were later fine-tuned by Elliot Turiel, who sought to determine what governs the decisions that children make about right and wrong. Turiel’s theory postulates that the crucial component in this decision is harm. Children are able to think beyond social convention and to evaluate decisions based on whether or not someone is harmed. The prevention of harm is important from a young age, as children experience harm and realize suffering. Prevention of harm governs what children find to be wrong or right. Protecting the welfare of the individual becomes the litmus test for morality, according to Turiel.
Turiel’s theory was later tested by Richard Shweder, who argued that right and wrong are defined largely by whether cultures are sociocentric—meaning that the community as a whole matters most—or individualistic—meaning that the protecting the needs of the individual is most important. Shweder found that sociocentric and individualistic ideas of wrong and right are rarely identical. Sociocentric cultures have more rules governing right and wrong behavior, and they factor in social taboos and culturally received conventions. Shweder’s ideas go against the idea of rationalism, prompting a rebuttal from Turiel, who argued that Shweder’s research inadequately addressed the issue of harm.
To decide for himself, Haidt attempted to reproduce Shweder’s research but wanted to ask people where they landed on controversial issues in which no one is harmed. What his research illustrates is that often people respond to an issue, declaring it wrong, based on gut feelings or strong emotions against it. They then later fabricate a reason why someone might be harmed by it, even going to great lengths to imagine possible harm, in order to rationalize their intense emotional feelings. This discovery led Haidt to conclude that on the issue of morality, rationalism alone does not explain what we believe. We are guided by notions of harm and personal experiences. We are also led by cultural notions and innate feelings. Separating one from the other is complex, as the two are nearly inextricably bound in the human mind.
Chapter 2 Summary: “The Intuitive Dog and Its Rational Tail”
In this chapter, Haidt tries to work out the relationship between reason and emotion in individual decision-making. It is clear to the author from his research that both feeling and rationality are engaged when people decide what is morally right and morally wrong. The relationship between the two forces, however, is not always clear, as people struggle to decide what they rationally oppose or support and what reactions are made by feeling.
Haidt presents some established ways of looking at the “head versus heart” debate. He begins with Plato, from whom reason reigned supreme. Haidt retells a classical creation myth from Plato’s Timaeus in which the mind is first molded by a god of perfect rationality. This god tires of its work after creating the head and turns the project of making man over to lesser gods who add pain, pleasure, anger, fear, and all the sensations of the body. Trying to repair things, the perfect-philosopher god puts the space of the neck between the perfect mind and the imperfect body. The clear message of the myth is that the emotions get in the way of productive thought and that feelings should be recognized as counterproductive.
The opposite of this view is presented by philosopher David Hume, who argued that passion is the real deciding force in the world and in the human mind. Reason merely tries to conceal the power of feeling. Decisions are made by emotions and rationality is later employed to justify those decisions.
A compromise between these opposing ideas was offered by Thomas Jefferson, who argued for a dual process model of decision-making. In this view of moral decision-making, the heart and head work in concert. The emotional component of a decision is factored into the rational component. Emotion and reason are not necessarily in competition. Instead, they are simply both influences, and for some aspects of life (such as the arts), feeling reigns supreme, while for others (such as science or math), reason is paramount.
Haidt’s thoughts on the matter are complicated after reading the findings of neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. In his work with individuals with brain injuries, Damasio discovered that an individual’s inability to access emotionality meant they made poor decisions. The study participants all suffered from damage to their vmPFC, a region of the brain that governs emotion processing. Though all of average IQ and able to reason through decisions, the individuals were unable to access gut reactions and thus alienated others and suffered in relationships, as they could not intuit correct actions.
Haidt takes all these ideas into consideration—Plato’s view of reason’s supremacy; Hume’s view of emotion’s supremacy; Jefferson’s dual model, in which each has a relegated place; and Damasio’s study confirming the need for emotion in decision-making—and crafts his own view. The metaphor he settles on is that of the rider and the elephant. The elephant represents the automatic processes of the mind. Emotion and instinct govern these automatic processes. They include intuition and animalistic habits of self-preservation such as the fight-or-flight response. They are indispensable and cannot be explained away. They are in charge and are only managed by the rider.
The rider represents logic and controlled thought. The rider is the reasonable part of the mind that makes carefully calculated decisions. The rider’s job is to offer explanations and qualifications for the decisions of the elephant. The rider has to be sensitive to the workings of the elephant and to acknowledge the elephant’s power. Appealing to the rider alone will not be effective in changing anyone’s mind.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Elephants Rule”
In this chapter, Haidt expands on his metaphor of the elephant and the rider. Again, he illustrates the complex relationship between the instinctual, emotional part of the brain (the elephant) that guides moral judgment and the rational, reasonable part of the mind (the rider). Haidt repeats emphatically that at times the rider (reason) can steer the elephant (emotion) in minor ways, but more often, the rider offers rationalizations for the verdicts of the elephant.
Haidt references the studies of two neuroscientists, Wundt and Zajonc, to illustrate how quickly judgments are formed in the brain. Photos of strangers can produce strong reactions in the mind, even without any information about the individuals in the photo. Studies illustrate that some groups are routinely viewed more negatively in these snap judgments (the elderly, the obese) while others (attractive people) are routinely assessed more positively. Haidt labels these as “quick intuitive flashes” indicating who or what we like or dislike (54).
These same quick judgments are present when study participants see political terms (pro-life) or politicians’ names (George Bush). Even without further information, individuals make instant emotional connections, activating the elephant part of the brain. In both instances—seeing photos of strangers and seeing political terms or names—the rider acts to rationalize the intense, instantaneous feelings of the elephant.
Other surprising and unseen factors impact how we make judgments. Haidt cites studies that reveal that people make more harsh judgments on moral issues when they are in foul-smelling settings. This unpleasant olfactory experience leads the elephant part of the mind to seek cleanliness and harshly process anything seen as “unclean.” When people read stories of others behaving in ways they find impure, they wash their hands more frequently (the Lady Macbeth effect).
Haidt also examines situations in which the rider part of the brain is fully functioning but the elephant is not. He uses Ted Bundy and other psychopaths as examples of individuals who are capable of reasoning properly but cannot tap into the elephant part of the brain. Their inability to access feelings and intuition leads to their crimes.
By contrast, infants have been revealed, via recent research, to understand morality and to show a preference for kindness versus unkindness in interactions they witness. Though their developing minds are unable to understand complex reason, infants can be guided in their decisions by emotional reactions. The elephant part of their minds is active even without the riders to reason and vocalize their behavior.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Vote for Me (Here’s Why)”
After establishing the supremacy of the elephant over the rider and illustrating that the rider mostly exists to explain the reactions of the elephant, Haidt illustrates what this looks like for the average individual. The author applies this elephant-and-rider metaphor to daily decision-making and ballots cast in the voting booth.
Haidt references the research of Phil Tetlock, an accountability expert who studied people’s behavior when they were being monitored versus when they thought they were unobserved. When told that they would have to explain their decisions with in-depth reasoning, participants were very thorough in their research. They were far less so when they were told that they could make up their minds as they saw fit with no need to explain. The need to be seen as competent and responsible motivated participants to be truly accountable. It inspired better work and more in-depth thinking. Reputation, not any quest for truth, was the inspiration.
Haidt connects this information with the research of self-consciousness expert Mark Leary. Leary’s work focused on examining how people’s brains respond when they think they are gaining or losing popularity with an unseen audience of strangers. Even the participants who professed to be immune to self-consciousness demonstrated how vulnerable they became when they believed their reputations were tanking. Leary concluded that our inner sociometers guide us whether or not we are aware, and they tailor our behaviors so we are liked and thought well of (and not so we do the right thing).
Whatever decision our sensitive sociometers guide us to, our riders act as press secretaries, doing all they can to explain the decisions of the elephants. Sometimes the elephant may make decisions, based on sociometer, that are complicated for the rider to rationalize. Rather than change these decisions, most individuals will work hard to invent complex explanations for the elephant’s verdict. Even a verdict that is difficult to explain is easier for the rider to process than a decision that violates the instinctual feelings of the elephant.
More often than we think, our minds work for confirmatory thought, rather than that exploratory thought. This means that rather than looking for new information or findings, including those findings that challenge our own, we look for information that supports what we already believe. We operate with confirmation bias, as scientists Pete Ditto and Drew Weston have illustrated in their work. Our minds are rewarded with dopamine when they hear positive news stories about our own political groups. If participants in a research study believe a letter will reveal a positive result, they will read an ambiguous shape that could be a 13 or a B as the letter B. In short, we look for what we want to find. What we want to find is based not on exploratory research but on confirmatory thought—using reason to reinforce emotional elephant verdicts.
The key to changing the way we process information, then, is to acknowledge that we are sensitive to reputation and are groupish in our verdicts. Our minds need to be tricked into more open thinking, as cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber’s work has revealed. Rather than telling ourselves that “we must” believe something, we need to ask ourselves “can we” believe something. This shift in approach may lead to more open thinking, as we are giving ourselves permission to think differently rather than delivering a mandate that could upset the elephant, disempowering the rider.
Part 1 Analysis
In the first part of the book, Haidt aims to better understand and explain human cognition. He explores a few competing ideas about how we decide what is right and what is wrong, and he settles on the metaphor of the elephant and rider to explain the two halves of the human mind. This metaphor ironically demotes the human rider to a subservient position: While the rider appears to be in charge, his real function is mostly to provide alibis and justifications for the elephant’s impulsive actions. This analogy structures Haidt’s argument throughout the book, operating as a controlling metaphor to emphasize The Primacy of Intuition and Emotion in Moral Judgment. Like the rider, the rational mind does not make choices about how to act or even what to believe. Instead, it provides justifications for choices that the emotional mind has already made.
Haidt wrestles with an essential question that has consumed philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists throughout the ages: the question of how people determine right from wrong. He cites the influential works of Western psychology and sociology, which posit that children learn via experimentation and that experimentation leads to experience and some harm. Through these experiences of harm, children learn that protecting an individual from harm is paramount. Therefore, children develop moral psychology centered on care and individual protection; they themselves do not wish to be harmed, so they learn not to harm others.
However, Haidt is interested in learning why people still judge actions as wrong even when no one is harmed. He conducts numerous research studies, asking participants to respond to situations that many would condemn (a consensual incestuous affair, the consumption of an already-deceased family pet, etc.) His research participants judge these actions as wrong but often struggle to explain why they view them as wrong. These moral judgments are rooted not in any concrete harm but in The Cultural Foundations of Morality—received notions of right and wrong that are often more emotional and intuitive than rational. The most educated of Haidt’s research participants have absorbed the belief that morality should be rational, and thus they try hard to concoct rational reasons why these actions should be condemned. Unwilling to abandon non-rational but deeply held moral beliefs, they employ the “rider”—the rational mind—to explain and justify the elephant’s choices.
Haidt engages with the work of numerous philosophers in this early section. He rejects the arguments of Plato and Kant, arguing that their opposition to emotion and passion is shortsighted. By placing these two philosophers side by side, though they lived more than 2,000 years apart, Haidt demonstrates that the valorization of reason over emotion has a long history in philosophy. Rejecting this view, Haidt sides with the 18th-century philosopher David Hume—a contemporary of Kant—in giving primacy to feeling over thought.
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