Reading Order
The Righteous Mind Reading Order
Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012) is a social psychology of moral intuition and political disagreement, arguing that human morality is built on six foundations (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty) and that liberals and conservatives weight these foundations differently, which explains why they talk past each other on political questions.
Where to start
The Righteous Mind
Complete The Righteous Mind Book List
- 1Buy
The Righteous Mind
Jonathan Haidt·2012·The complete standalone book. No sequels; start and finish here. - 2Buy
The Coddling of the American Mind
Jonathan Haidt·2018·Co-authored with Greg Lukianoff, applies Haidt's moral psychology to the campus free-speech debates and argues that three 'Great Untruths' are harming a generation of students. Read after The Righteous Mind for Haidt's applied work.
The Righteous Mind — Frequently Asked Questions
What are the six moral foundations in The Righteous Mind?
Haidt identifies six moral foundations: Care/harm (concern for the vulnerable), Fairness/cheating (concern for justice and equal treatment), Loyalty/betrayal (concern for one's group), Authority/subversion (concern for legitimate hierarchy and tradition), Sanctity/degradation (concern for purity and the sacred), and Liberty/oppression (concern for freedom from domination). Liberals primarily weight Care and Fairness; conservatives weight all six more equally, which means they have moral intuitions that liberals often cannot understand or take seriously.
Is The Righteous Mind liberal or conservative?
Haidt is a self-described 'centrist Democrat' who wrote The Righteous Mind partly as an explanation to liberals of why conservative morality is coherent rather than pathological. The book has been praised by conservatives for taking their moral views seriously and criticized by some liberals for appearing to validate moral frameworks they consider harmful. Haidt's position is that understanding the other side is necessary for political progress, not that all positions are equally correct.
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