Oct 28 2011: This is very interesting. In particular, the 5 components of moral belief that he outlines. However, its clear that he has misunderstood badly the motives and experience of those who hold religious beliefs. He paints religious and conservative people as rigid and afraid to embrace the unknown. However, this is a universal trait of humanity and not just conservative people. Ironically, liberal-minded people are just as afraid to embrace truthes about the existence of God and other ideas that run counter to their own rigid ideology, even when the truth is very obvious.
I have heard a concept in Psychology called "cognitive dissonance" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance) and the drive to avoid it used to explain the formation of moral beliefs. I think this is an important idea to consider when discussing the formation of ideas about morality, especially among liberal-minded people. Ted does not mention it but I think its a very good explaination as to why liberal minded people are low on 3 of the moral components that he outlines and conservative people are not.
The true measure of whether you are "open-minded" is not whether you challenge traditional held ideas, but whether you can challenge your own beliefs that are often strongly affected by Psychological phemnomena like the drive to avoid cognitive dissonance. The fact is that traditional ideas have withstood the test of time whereas progressive ideas have not. Based on that alone, I think I would lean towards traditional ideas on first appraisal of an idea.
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A comment on Talk: Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives
I have heard a concept in Psychology called "cognitive dissonance" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance) and the drive to avoid it used to explain the formation of moral beliefs. I think this is an important idea to consider when discussing the formation of ideas about morality, especially among liberal-minded people. Ted does not mention it but I think its a very good explaination as to why liberal minded people are low on 3 of the moral components that he outlines and conservative people are not.
The true measure of whether you are "open-minded" is not whether you challenge traditional held ideas, but whether you can challenge your own beliefs that are often strongly affected by Psychological phemnomena like the drive to avoid cognitive dissonance. The fact is that traditional ideas have withstood the test of time whereas progressive ideas have not. Based on that alone, I think I would lean towards traditional ideas on first appraisal of an idea.