Jonathan Haidt Research Articles

Trusting Our Instincts: Evaluating the Evolutionary and Rational Foundations of Moral Intuitions

This paper delves into the nature and reliability of moral intuitions, building upon Jonathan Haidt’s social intuitionist model, which suggests that moral judgments stem from instinctive reactions followed by rational justifications. By examining Haidt’s experiments, which reveal the primacy of intuitive responses over rational deliberation, this paper seeks to address whether we have valid reasons to trust these moral intuitions. Drawing from evolutionary psychology, it argues that moral intuitions have historically contributed to the survival and success of the human species, thereby providing them with normative value. However, given the rapid advancements in technology and societal changes, these intuitions may sometimes lead to nonoptimal or disastrous outcomes. The paper proposes a rational test to determine the reliability of moral intuitions: we should trust an intuition if its generalized application benefits the human species. Potential counterarguments, such as the historical misuse of evolutionary logic in eugenics, are addressed to underscore the validity of this test. The conclusion emphasizes that while moral intuitions are generally trustworthy due to their evolutionary roots, rational thought must intervene when intuitions become outdated in the face of contemporary challenges.

Book Review: The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

Book Review: <i>The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness</i> by Jonathan Haidt

Can We Teach the Intuitive Dog New Tricks? Reconciling Jonathan Haidt’s Viewpoint Diversity with His Moral Psychology

In recent years, many scholars drew attention to political polarization in academia and attempted to reduce it. Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, suggests that his framework of “viewpoint diversity” can reduce polarization. However, this framework contradicts his earlier work, especially the “social intuitionist model.” On the one hand, he argues that reason is not crucial to changing someone’s mind. He uses the metaphor of a dog who makes intuitive decisions and wags its tail (reason) to communicate and justify them. On the other hand, he believes that scholars can change each other’s minds on political issues through reason. This paper seeks to reveal the tension between “viewpoint diversity” and the “social intuitionist model” and to reconcile it. In order to ground these frameworks into social psychological theories, this paper examines the social intuitionist model in relation to cognitive dissonance theory and suggests modifications to Haidt’s “viewpoint diversity” based on cognitive reappraisal.

Moral dumbfounding and imaginative resistance

ABSTRACT Moral dumbfounding and imaginative resistance have both spawned important literatures that intersect moral psychology. Moral dumbfounding, rooted in Jonathan Haidt’s empirical work, has been taken to be evidence of the epistemic and cognitive shallowness of many of our moral emotions and beliefs. Opinions about imaginative resistance, on the other hand, have treated it as something between a psychological curiosity and an ethical spandrel. This essay argues that the two are related and that teasing out this relation is important for understanding each phenomenon. For positions or practices that our moral communities treat as inadmissible, we do not naturally deliberate about the truth of such positions or imagine what the world would be like if we adopted those practices so much as we resist treating them as live options for moral consideration. As we near the perceived boundary of appropriate moral discourse, we switch from moral deliberation to the rehearsal of stock reasons for why the boundaries of deliberation are fixed where they are or to resisting uptake of reasons for doing what is perceived as morally deviant. Likewise, when asked to imagine a world in a way that invites situating the boundaries of what is morally inadmissible in our world differently, we switch from a willingness to suspend disbelief and accept a narrative on its own terms to explicitly bracketing or actively resisting the story.

Exclusionary reasons and mental contamination

According to Joseph Raz, authoritative directives are exclusionary reasons, which means that people have normative reasons not to act on their personal assessment of the merit of the case even though this doesn’t imply that they have to surrender their personal judgment. The exclusionary model of authority is contrasted with the weighing model. One reason to accept the exclusionary model of authority over the weighing model is that human beings are fallible and obedience to the law can be a way to protect them from bias. This article questions the ability of the exclusionary model to counteract biases. To do so, it combines three different traditions of empirical studies: a general framework on our inability to intentionally ignore relevant or quasi-relevant information — studies on ‘mental contamination’; Jonathan Haidt's research on the conflict between moral reasoning and moral intuitions; and studies on motivated reasoning. While the overall picture does not doom the exclusionary model, it provides reason to articulate it as implying that surrender of judgment is often important.

Book Review: The coddling of the American mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

Book Review: <i>The coddling of the American mind: How good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure</i> by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

In Case You Haven't Heard…

In an effort to remove distractions and enhance educational experiences, schools across the United States are increasingly adopting a no‐phone policy, requiring students to lock away their devices for the entire school day, CBS News reported on Oct. 20. Students at the Newburgh Free Academy in Newburgh, New York, begin their day by putting their phones in pouches, which remain locked for seven hours, including at lunchtime. The pouches are made by a company specializing in creating phone‐free spaces called Yondr, and cost between $25 and $30 per student. With over 2,000 schools participating, the company reported a 150% increase in schools using them in 2023. At the Newburgh school, the policy came as a bit of a shock for some students when it was introduced four years ago. No‐phone policies come amid rising concerns about kids' mental health and technology. “Smartphones are basically kryptonite for learning,” said Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and author. “When children have a phone in their pocket — and most schools say you have to keep your phone in your pocket; you can't use it during class — it's like saying in a drug detox clinic, ‘You can keep your heroin in your pocket, just don't shoot up.’”

Ethical Dilemmas and Family History: A Psychological Approach

Family historians frequently encounter ethical issues in the course of their research, and many come to recognise the moral dilemmas facing them. Common dilemmas revolve around topics such as whether family secrets should be revealed or favourite stories debunked in light of the evidence, how the privacy of living relatives can be maintained when family histories are published, if the ‘sins of the fathers’ require reparation (and how this might be possible), and to what extent is it acceptable to romanticise or ‘whitewash’ one’s ancestral story. In this paper, dilemmas such as these are discussed using the theoretical framework of psychologist Jonathan Haidt whose model of five moral ‘instincts’ includes care, fairness, loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity. It is concluded that examining ethical issues using such a framework has the potential to stimulate empathy, reduce impulsive action, and increase the likelihood of finding creative solutions to moral dilemmas.

Positive Psychology in Christian Perspective: Foundations, Concepts, and Application

Positive Psychology in Christian Perspective: Foundations, Concepts, and Application

Particular Sexual and Ambitious Attitude threatens the Global Societal Functioning and Individual Wellbeing

The authors begin with the premise that mental well-being, and even the quality of life in many countries worldwide, is not satisfactory. They further assert that the current state of welfare in individual countries can be objectively evaluated, citing the World Justice Project as an example. Objective data relating to the exercise of power reveals that many societies are governed in an authoritarian manner. The authors then recall findings made by Jonathan Haidt and other neuroscientists, who demonstrated that people with conservative attitudes differ from those with liberal-democratic orientations in five psychological traits defined by the terms: harm, fairness, authority, ingroup, and purity. Their own interpretation of these findings leads the authors to formulate a hypothesis explaining why there is a constant tendency for authoritarian regimes to emerge. In the next step of their arguments, the authors state that authoritarian regimes usually maintain a patriarchal social structure, based on the traditional system of customary taboo, adhering to religious mandates. This psychological and social situation leads to vast variations in legal regulations in individual countries regarding dilemmas such as the legality of adultery, pornography, prostitution, the permissibility of abortion, and sex education, which can be illustrated by maps available on Wikipedia. The authors then devote much attention to the links between religious views and the realm of sexuality and their influence in maintaining the patriarchal structure of many societies. In their opinion, the freedom, freedom of speech, and well-being of citizens are often limited from two sides: by oppressive power and by a strict, purist system of taboo. The authors also ponder what can be done to counteract the described social situation. They believe that a persuasive educational program should be developed.

Wisdom of the Established Pattern

Wisdom of the Established Pattern

The Value Gap: How Gender, Generation, Personality, and Politics Shape the Values of American University Students

Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, in their book, The Coddling of the American Mind (2018), portrayed current undergraduate American college students (most of whom are in the generation Gen Z: 1995 - 2013) as valuing emotional well-being and the advancement of social justice goals above traditional academic values such as academic freedom and the pursuit of truth. We investigated whether this value discrepancy exists among 574 American university students by exploring the prioritization of five different academic values (academic freedom, advancing knowledge, academic rigor, social justice, and emotional well-being). We also explored how gender, generation, personality, major, and conservatism predict each academic value. Generational differences were present, with Gen Z students emphasizing emotional well-being and de-emphasising academic rigor. Males scored higher on measures of academic freedom and advancing knowledge, while lower on social justice and emotional well-being compared to females. Political conservatism was the strongest predictor for social justice scores, with increased liberal attitudes predicting higher scores on social justice. Emotional stability positively predicted advancing knowledge, while negatively predicting emotional well-being. Agreeableness positively predicted emotional well-being, while negatively predicting advancing knowledge. We ultimately argue that gender is a crucial, underestimated explanatory factor of the value orientations of American college students.

Comparative moral principles: justifications, values, and foundations

The article compares three influential theories used in sociology and psychology to categorize types of morality—Luc Boltanski & Laurent Thévenot’s justification theory, Shalom H. Schwartz’s basic human values theory, and Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations theory—to simplify the complexity presented by three different categorizations, while retaining necessary nuance, and to translate the concepts of each into the language of the other two. A comparative table is presented to evaluate which categories of the three theories correspond to each other and where do theories make distinctions that are lacking from the other two. This summary framework of Comparative Moral Principles (CMP) consists of eight principles to compare, explain, and interpret practices of moral motivation and meaning-making: Liberty, Inspiration, Safety, Community, Care, Equality, Deservingness, and Competition.

Dumbfounded by the Facts? Understanding the Moral Psychology of Sexual Relationships

AbstractOne of the standard examples in contemporary moral psychology originates in the works of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He treats people's responses to the story of Julie and Mark, two siblings who decide to have casual, consensual, protected sex, as facts of human morality, providing evidence for his social intuitionist approach to moral judgements. We argue that Haidt's description of the facts of the story and the reactions of the respondents as ‘morally dumbfounded’ presupposes a view about moral reasoning that is more substantial than he acknowledges. Drawing on the philosophical work by Iris Murdoch and Cora Diamond, we explore how different descriptions of human morality, sexuality, and family relations engage us in evaluations about distinctive features of human life and language that go deeper than Haidt envisages. Thus, we show the need to attend to the concepts used to describe the facts of human moral psychology and the pictures of morality these concepts reveal about the researcher's own understanding of moral experience. This points to the particular responsibility any researcher into human moral psychology has for ensuring that the descriptions they offer are attuned to the complexities of the lives of those they form theories about and that these do not appear conceptually confounding.

Moral Intuitions About Stigmatizing Practices and Feeding Stigmatizing Practices: How Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory Relates to Infectious Disease Stigma.

Despite extensive stigma mitigation efforts, infectious disease stigma remains common. So far, little attention has been paid to the moral psychology of stigmatizing practices (i.e. beliefs, attitudes, actions) rather than the experience of being stigmatized. Addressing the moral psychology behind stigmatizing practices seems necessary to explain the persistence of infectious disease stigma and to develop effective mitigation strategies. Our article proposes building on Jonathan Haidt's moral foundations theory, which states that moral judgements follow from intuitions rather than conscious reasoning. Conceptual analysis was conducted to show how Haidt's five moral foundations can be connected to (i) moral judgements about stigmatizing practices and (ii) stigmatizing practices themselves. We found that care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/betrayal and sanctity/degradation intuitions can inform moral judgements about stigmatizing practices. Loyalty/betrayal and sanctity/degradation intuitions can sometimes also feed stigmatizing practices. Authority/subversion intuitions can inform moral judgements and stigmatizing practices towards people who disrespect authoritative rules meant to protect public health. Moral dumbfounding and posthoc reasoning might explain the persistence of stigmatizing practices. In conclusion, this study demonstrates the relevance of Haidt's approach to infectious disease stigma research and mitigation strategies. We hope that this study motivates researchers to further test and assess this approach.

Durkheimian utilitarianism and legal moralism

The paper concerns the classical problem of legal moralism, i.e. whether enforcement of morality by the state is justified, even if nobody is harmed. In the article, I analyze Durkheimian utilitarianism, Jonathan Haidt’s normative theory of public policies and the law, based on his psychological moral foundations theory. First, I describe Durkheimian utilitarianism and argue how it can be understood as a theory of legal moralism. Then, I subject it to criticism, using five challenges developed by Petersen (2019): the challenge from relativism, the empirical challenge, the no difference challenge, the levelling-down challenge, and the weighing challenge. It leads to the conclusion that Durkheimian utilitarianism, even if it deals with some of the challenges, still suffers from problems that do not allow it to be a fully developed theory of legal moralism.

Four Reasons Why Heterodox Academy Failed

Seven years ago, under the leadership of Jonathan Haidt, Heterodox Academy set out to organize a meaningful resistance to the reigning social justice orthodoxy on campus. “Seven years later,” writes Nathan Cofnas, “you can count HxA’s accomplishments in promoting heterodoxy on the fingers of zero hands.”

Haidt’s Durkheimian Utilitarianism—a Charitable Interpretation

In the paper, I aim to reconstruct a charitable interpretation of Durkheimian utilitarianism, a normative theory of public morality proposed by well-recognised American moral psychologist – Jonathan Haidt, which might provide reasons to justify particular legal regulations and public policies. The reconstruction contains a coherent theory that includes elements of rule-utilitarianism, value pluralism, objective list theory and perfectionism, as well as references to Emile’s Durkheim views on human nature. I also compare Durkheimian utilitarianism with two similar theories – Brad Hooker’s rule consequentialism and Krzysztof Saja’s institutional function consequentialism.

Moral Taste and Moral Education – An Interview Study

In recent research on moral psychology, the human consciousness has been compared to a tongue, with different taste buds, which together can cause a variety of sensations. According to this theory, people in general have a preparedness to react to situations, which can provide opportunities or pose threats in a social context. Moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, has described these receptors as pairs, for example: care/harm, fairness/cheating, loyalty/ betrayal, authority/subversion and sanctity/degradation. Which of these foundations the individual develops a taste for depends, largely, on the social and cultural context. Hence, the choices teachers make of which issues to address and in what way can contribute to a learning environment that influences their pupils’ moral outlook. The purpose of this study is to investigate which of these moral intuitions or taste preferences that teachers want to endorse and cultivate in their pedagogical practices. Against this background, a number of qualitative research interviews were conducted with experienced teachers in the non-confessional subject religious education (RE), who have a particular responsibility for moral education in the Swedish school system. The interviews were based on a modified version of the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, which was deliberately developed to determine the participants’ moral taste, and the participants were asked to elaborate their answers. The results indicate that the participants tended to favour harm and fairness over loyalty, authority and sanctity. As one of the participants puts it: “many of my examples relate to the weak and vulnerable or the ones that are denied their rights in society… these pedagogical choices are based on the content of the curriculum but also mirror my own preferences”. In this paper we analyse the interviews with the RE teachers and critically discuss the consequences the moral foundations theory has for moral education. Keywords: moral education, ethics education, moral psychology, moral foundations theory

Hatred and Anger: A Conceptual Analysis and Practical Effects. A tribute to Jonathan Haidt

This work intends to study the status of some emotions in a practical environment. I shall focus specifically on two: anger and hatred. My first objective will be to show that the distinction between the two is not as simple as might appear at first sight. This is because, as I will show, anger and hatred appear to be neighboring emotions. It is therefore necessary to analyze them conceptually to pull aside the veils of appearance and thus identify their relevant differences. My second objective is to show that the conceptual distinction I seek is not in pursuit of a merely analytical interest. I shall claim that the conceptual differences here have a practical impact, especially in the political environment, because anger and hatred should be dealt with differently in the realm of democracies.