Sunday, March 18, 2012

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt - review

12:00 AM | Posted by Free Game Zone | | Edit Post

limit of a survey on the evolution of morality

This is a thought experiment. Are you deeply offended by the artwork, such as Andres Serrano

Piss Christ

, representing Jesus as seen through a jar of urine, or Chris Ofili of

The Blessed Virgin Mary

, which shows Mary smeared with elephant dung? So offended that you think should be banned and persecuted the galleries that present? Not? OK, then try replacing the religious figures of these icons sacred images of progressive politics, people like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. How would you feel if you walked into an art gallery and I saw a picture of King dipped in urine or feces smeared Mandela?

Many people tend to feel overwhelmed. The Liberals know the reasoned arguments for freedom of expression and the importance of consistency in matters of principle. On the other hand, it would be surprising if it is not as feelings of disgust and offended. How dare someone to go through such images as art gratuitously offensive? Should they be arrested? Jonathan Haidt, offering a version of this experience in his new book provocative, wants us to know that reason and instinctive indignation always coexist in cases like this. Moreover, in most cases, the indignation which will set the agenda.

image stop Haidt gives our sense of morality is that it is rational as a pilot in the top of an elephant intuitive. The driver may push an elephant, one way or another, but no one should be no doubt that the elephant is important movements. In fact, the main work of the driver that is coming up with post-hoc justifications for the ends of elephants. We rationalize what our gut tells us. This is true whatever we are intelligent. Haidt shows that people with high IQs are not better than anyone else to understand the other party to a moral conflict. What they are better at coming up with what he calls "side-arguments" in favor of his own instinctive position. Smart people make good lawyers. The moralists are not more sensitive.

When these moral instincts come from? Haidt is a developmental psychologist, so the story is essentially Darwinian. Morality is not something we learn from our parents or school, and certainly not something that works for us. I inherited. It comes from our ancestors, ie those whose instinctive behavior has given them a better chance to survive and reproduce. These are people who belonged to groups where people watched each other, cooperation reward and punishment pigeon peas and those outside. That's why our moral instincts are what Haidt calls "groupish." We agree with what is good for the group - our group

is not, as Haidt admits, violent disagreement about this argument between evolutionists. What they can not agree on is whether the evolution of moral behavior which took place at the group or individual. Much hangs on the answer, even if altruism is ultimately selfish (which gives individuals and their genes the best chance of survival) or not (what is authentic individual sacrifices for others). But does not depend much on it Haidt's argument, since its concern is simply to establish that this is how it turned out not how we got here. One might add that the animosity between the two sides in this dispute academic, some of the characters really seem to have contempt for the other -. Shows that even the smartest riders may be under the control of their elephants
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  • Haidt wants us to understand that our moral instincts are inherently critical moral being that makes us moral. Much of the book is devoted to the experimental evidence that shows how often the moral judgment is a matter of them instead of us right vv wrong. In terms of Haidt, morality "binds and blinds." We joined the group and blinds us to the view from outside. This has profound implications for how we think about some of our deepest convictions. For example, this means that what we think is less important than those who share these beliefs. Haidt believes this is especially true of religion and that is why he thinks that the arguments of the current crop of militant atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens and others) are wrong. They spend their time worrying about the irrationality of religious belief and to ignore the fact that religion is about shared values ??and a sense of solidarity. Religion, Haidt says, is a "team sport". In one of the many stunning images in this book, he suggests that "try to understand the persistence and passion of religion through the study of beliefs about God, is like trying to understand the persistence and the passion of football through studying the movement of the ball. "
also think that this understanding of morality has important things to us about politics. This is where the argument is less convincing. One of the requirements is that Haidt's moral appeal to the left in contemporary politics is too narrow, limited to issues of justice and equality, while the right can speak the language of loyalty and authority. He thinks politicians should expand their repertoire groupish left. What is not said is how you can do this without appearing to bow to the other party. The latest attempts CACK hand "blue" thinkers work? to reach a version of progressive politics that speaks of our loyalties and our instinctive distrust of parasites shows how difficult it is to do things correctly. Haidt is not bad in principle, but feels like too easy.

The problem is that, after spending most of the book that shows how difficult it is for us to think rationally about morality, Haidt then tries to make us to reason about politics. This is an American book and is the current U.S. policy that Haidt wants to remedy. He despairs of his impartiality and extreme toxic levels of distrust on both sides. But their analysis can not explain or cure this phenomenon. I can not explain because it is relatively recent - the partisanship got worse in the last two decades - it is not something that can be explained by evolution. People are predisposed to be divided by morality, but if we suddenly become more divided than can not be explained by our predispositions. Something else must have happened: the changing role of money, or technology, or communication or organization of the party, or voting patterns. In other words, the explanation is political, not evolution.


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