Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral. By understanding more about our moral roots, his hope is that we can learn to be civil and open-minded. His new book is "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion."
Why you should listen to him:
Haidt is a social psychologist whose research on morality across cultures led up to his much-quoted 2008 TEDTalk on the psychological roots of the American culture war. He asks, "Can't we all disagree more constructively?" In September 2009, Jonathan Haidt spoke to the TED Blog about the moral psychology behind the healthcare debate in the United States.
He's also active in the study of positive psychology and human flourishing.
At TED2012 he’s combining his work on morality with his work on happiness to talk about “hive psychology” – the ability that humans have to lose themselves in groups pursuing larger projects, almost like bees in a hive. This hivish ability Is crucial, he argues, for understanding the origins of morality, politics, and religion. These are ideas that Haidt develops at greater length in his new book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.
Learn more about his drive for a more productive and civil politics on his website CivilPolitics.org. And take an eye-opening quiz about your own morals at YourMorals.org.
Quotes by Jonathan Haidt
-
“If our goal is to understand the world, to seek a deeper understanding of the world, our general lack of moral diversity here is going to make it harder. Because when people all share values, when people all share morals, they become a team.”
-
“The initial organization of the brain does not depend that much on experience. Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises.”
— quoting scientist Gary Marcus -
“Sports is to war as pornography is to sex. We get to exercise some ancient, ancient drives.”
-
“Purity’s not just about suppressing female sexuality. It’s about any kind of ideology, any kind of idea that tells you that you can attain virtue by controlling what you do with your body, by controlling what you put into your body.”
-
“While the political right may moralize sex, the political left is doing it with food. Food is becoming extremely moralized nowadays, and a lot of it is ideas about purity, about what you’re willing to touch, or put into your body.”
-
“The great conservative insight is that order is really hard to achieve. It’s really precious, and it’s really easy to lose.”
-
“If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between for and against is the mind’s worst disease.”
— quoting Zen master Seng-ts’an -
“The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation — a force for construction and destruction.”
-
“It's a basic fact about being human that sometimes the self seems to just melt away.”
-
“[Politics is] about the eternal struggle between good and evil, and we all believe we're on the good team.”
