The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion is a 2012 social psychology book by the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, in which the author describes human morality as it relates to politics and religion.
Video The Righteous Mind
Summary
In the first part of the book, the author uses research to demonstrate social intuitionism, how people's beliefs come primarily from their intuitions, and rational thought often comes after to justify initial beliefs. In the second portion of the book, he presents moral foundations theory, and applies it to the political beliefs of liberals, conservatives, and libertarians in the US.
Haidt argues that people are too quick to denigrate other points of view without giving those views full consideration, and attempts to reach common ground between liberals and conservatives. He makes the case in the book for morality having multiple foundations (more than just harm and fairness), and said in an interview that morality "is at least six things, and probably a lot more than that" and "[religion and politics are] ... expressions of our tribal, groupish, righteous nature". Haidt himself acknowledges that while he has been a liberal all his life, he is now more open to other points of view.
Maps The Righteous Mind
Some key concepts, and scholars whose work is cited or critiqued in the book
- Rationalist delusion
- Social intuitionism
- Moral foundations theory
- Jean Piaget's work on developmental psychology
- Lawrence Kohlberg's work on moral development
- Elliot Turiel's work on moral development
- Richard Shweder's work in cultural anthropology
- David Hume's philosophy
- Plato's philosophy (criticized)
- Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate about human nature
- E. O. Wilson's Consilience
- E. O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis
- Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error
- Howard Margolis's work in psychology
- Philip E. Tetlock's work on accountability
- Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational
- Dan P. McAdams's work on personalities
- David Sloan Wilson's work on religion
- Barbara Ehrenreich's book Dancing in the Streets
Reception
The book received mostly positive reviews and was #6 on the New York Times' best seller list for non-fiction in April, 2012.
See also
- Evolutionary psychology
- Moral psychology
References
External links
- The Righteous Mind
- Goodreads.com
- TED Talk: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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