The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt: Book Review

Abstract

In The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt examines the moral grounds that people intuitively believe. He presented his idea by asking why good people are divided by politics and religion. Then, he asked about morality by asking, “Where does morality come from?” (Haidt, 2012, p. 3). He explained that people understand social morality in different ways. People live in unique societies that shape their understanding of social norms, which are based on many factors, such as culture, religion, and education. Haidt based his ideas about the righteous mind on three principles and demonstrated them through three metaphors to help his readers understand his theory. The first principle is “intuitions come first,” and its central metaphor is that the mind is like a rider on an elephant, where the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The second principle is “there is more to morality than harm and fairness,” and its central metaphor is that the righteous mind is like a tongue with six taste receptors. The third principle is “morality binds and blinds,” and its metaphor is that we are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee (Pp. 3, 109, 217).