Jonathan Haidt on Moral Impulses | Miller-McCune
From an article by Tom Jacobs on Jonathan Haidt, professor of social psychology at University of Virginia.
Haidt identified five foundational moral impulses. As succinctly defined by Northwestern University's [Dan] McAdams, they are:
• Harm/care. It is wrong to hurt people; it is good to relieve suffering.
• Fairness/reciprocity. Justice and fairness are good; people have certain rights that need to be upheld in social interactions.
• In-group loyalty. People should be true to their group and be wary of threats from the outside. Allegiance, loyalty and patriotism are virtues; betrayal is bad.
• Authority/respect. People should respect social hierarchy; social order is necessary for
human life.
• Purity/sanctity. The body and certain aspects of life are sacred. Cleanliness and health, as well as their derivatives of chastity and piety, are all good. Pollution, contamination and the associated character traits of lust and greed are all bad. ...
Spend some time reading Haidt, and chances are you'll begin to view day-to-day political arguments through a less-polarized lens. Should the Guantanamo Bay prison be closed? Of course, say liberals, whose harm/fairness receptors are acute. Not so fast, argue conservatives, whose finely attuned sense of in-group loyalty points to a proactive attitude toward outside threats. ...
Haidt notes that the environmental movement was started by liberals, who were presumably driven by the harm/care impulse. But conservative Evangelical Christians are increasingly taking up the cause, propelled by the urge to respect authority. "They're driven by the idea that God gave man dominion over the Earth, and keeping the planet healthy is our sacred responsibility," he notes. "If we simply rape, pillage, destroy and consume, we're abusing the power given to us by God.
"The climate crisis and the economic crisis are interesting, because neither has a human enemy. These are not crises that turn us against an out-group, so they're not really designed to bring us together, but they can be used for that. I hope and think we are ready, demographically and historically, for a less polarized era."
But that will require peeling off some bumper stickers. Contrary to the assertion adhered onto Volvos, dissent and patriotism are very different impulses. But Haidt persuasively argues that both are essential to a healthy democracy, and the interplay between them — when kept within respectful bounds — is a source of vitality and strength. "Morality," he insists, "is a team sport."
