Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsInteresting tools, disciminately used, lead to numerous false or faulty conclusions
Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2017
Roughly the first one-third of this book I found compelling: Haidt argues that our moral decisions are based on quick, gut reactions and that our arguments and rationales about our ethics come later, essentially as apologetics. I’ve long believed such is the case and enjoyed seeing that offered up here as “science.” Haidt also presents intellectual tools that I will definitely be using; and that alone makes this book worth perusal (the acronym "WEIRD" was new to me abd is a gem). However, the down side is huge: Haidt’s examples of his theories are difficult to believe, and therefore his conclusions, in particular, can’t stand scrutiny.
To begin with, Haidt divides ethics into three kinds, which he labels “autonomy morals,” “community morals,” and “divinity morals.” He ventures to explain how these differ and yet all have validity, as well that how they’re seen as relatively more or less important to different cultures and communities. So far, so good: that model offers a way of discussing morality with others—although, since it’s also solidly relativistic, it’s not likely to open many channels to hard-line zealots. Haidt’s model is, in other words, more useful for talking about people, especially with intellectuals, than it is for talking with people, especially those whose values differ from one's own. And yet it’s that bridging of the polarities for which Haidt intends this book to be useful. Strike one.
Following the three types of morals, Haidt introduces six “flavors” that theoretically trigger moral responses from people. Among these are a concern for caring/nurturing versus doing others harm; and a deference to authority versus a concern for self-actualization. These six categories (I’ve only listed two) seem far less useful tools to me and, more importantly, I found myself balking at Haidt’s poor attempts to exemplify them. By the middle of this book, I was reading with discomfort and agitation, feelings which I associate with being handed insufficient evidence, with the misinterpretation of data, and with bad conclusions. Accordingly, I am persuaded that Haidt is doing exactly what, in this book, he warns us other researchers do: validate their own preconceptions, based on have skewed their research. Such, at any rate, is my gut reaction.
Haidt identifies himself as a Liberal politically, yet shows little or no understanding of liberal thinking—which is interesting, but also extremely disturbing: whatever happened to “Know thyself”? He insists here that Liberals are single-mindedly concerned with the caring vs. avoiding harm trigger and that they all but ignore both “community morals” and “divinity morals.” Haidt is wrong about this, which is why he can’t come to grips with the Liberal mind (including, presumably, his own mind). He asks why Liberals—who, in his view, essentially worship individual autonomy—can’t understand or appreciate, e.g., an enterprising businessman’s strong desire for material wealth as a clear expression of that enterprising businessman’s need for more personal autonomy. Haidt can’t answer that question precisely because he considers Liberal morality one-dimensional. His question can, however, be answered, simply and easily, by assuming instead that Liberals are human beings who possess both “community morals” and “divinity morals” in abundance. From that more logical perspective, a liberal might see a “greedy businessman” as “unfair,” not simply to the autonomy of a few other individuals, but rather to Humanity as a whole, and even the planet as a whole—that is, “unfair” based on “community morals” and on “divinity morals” rather than 100% on “autonomy morals." Liberals do in fact also have “divinity morals,” even ift Haidt can’t see them. Since he's a social conservative (i.e. and e.g., he's a published author with a Ph.D.) Haidt evidently recognizes “divinity morals” only if they're housed within some firmly established (big R) Religion. Haidt thus can't’t speak to, for instance, the “divinity” of the endangered Monarch butterfly as an element of perceived “Creation” or “Nature” and as evidence, therefore, of an awareness of all things containing a spark of the divine, for instance. To come at this point from another angle, it’s equally valid to ask why the “Conservative” has no desire to “conserve” an endangered species—but Haidt doesn’t ask the alternative question, and thus flops. The whole picture, in short, is far more complex than Haidt presents it here; and his answers don’t satisfy because he fails to explicate the whole. Notice, please, that I’m not arguing the “rightness” or “wrongness” of either the Liberal or the Conservative position; I’m simply arguing that Haidt evidently considers “Liberals” less complicated than are “Conservatives” and that this misapprehension explains most of his unsolved dilemmas.
Haidt’s research is mostly questionnaire based, but his questions appear, to me, transparent in their aims and also to encourage self-fulfillment of his prophesies. (Granted, he doesn’t offer his entire research instrument here, so it’s possible that the questions he chose to include in this book are simply the most obvious.) For one example, Haidt asked participants whether they’d be willing to stick an empty syringe needle into a child’s arm, in exchange for various, increasing sums of money. Haidt presumes in this case that participants who said they wouldn't stick the hypothetical hypo were (1) telling the truth (but I’ll set that point aside as ubiquitous); (2) reacting to the question on the basis of a Liberal’s care/harm trigger—that is, they were all responding to the overriding concern he assumes that Liberals share for the welfare of a child, based on 100% "autonomy morals” thinking; and (3) liable to be motivated by money. None of those assumptions are entirely valid.
Speaking for myself, for example, while I felt that I would not stick in the hypo, I’m well aware that (1) money has never been an especially big motivator for me—in fact, the larger the sum offered, the less likely I’d be to “give in” because the larger the sum offered, the more I’d doubt my motives and so become increasingly hesitant; and (2) my initial or gut reaction to the question was that I’m simply not qualified to use the needle (that is, in retrospect, I know ack the education and experience—I’ve never stuck a needle into anyone before) so my first concern was apparently that I lack the authority to use the needle: I wouldn’t do it, because I don’t know how—and thus it’s clear to me, in retrospect, that my reaction sprang, not from a concern for the welfare of a hypothetical child, but my from basic respect for authority: I felt unwilling to risk taking onto myself the authority I should defer to qualified medical practitioners. (Again, this isn’t a gut response now but an analysis of a gut response). In short, even though I, like Haidt claims to be, am relatively liberal socially and politically, I’m responding in this case to “community morals” rather than to the “autonomy morals” that Haidt asserts must obsess me; whereas he can see “deference to authority” active only in, for instance, the military. I in fact react to in this particular case of, ahem, playing doctor. Granted, yes, I do also experience that liberal desire to protect the imaginary child’s autonomy and to see it remaining unharmed. But my first perceived reaction was an unwillingness to elevate myself to a status—that of a practitioner—which I hadn’t earned and didn’t deserve. In sum, I came away from this single example feeling that Haidt's morals model excludes me, or my niche, from further consideration. And, since I’m a human being, that exclusion rankled. Multiply that example by the hundred more in the book, and you get the flavor of it: this book’s a bulldozer, forcefully pushing ideas at us.
A final example: Haidt compares words used commonly in Unitarian sermons (which he calls “Liberal” sermons) to words found more often in “conservative,” Southern Baptist sermons. Not surprisingly, he again finds contrasts that reflect a Liberal concern for nurturing and caring versus conservative concerns for, e.g., justice. However, Haidt is wrong: (1) Parishioners don’t write the sermons they hear, so the words of a sermon don’t necessarily reflect a congregation’s morals or concerns. In fact, a sermon might be written so as to challenge to a congregation’s normal concerns, i.e., "for its own good." (2) Haidt ignores parishioners’ motives for attending church in the first place! People go to church to find community, right? So it necessarily follows that Liberals attending Unitarian churches are responding to the very same “community morals” that Haidt denies they possess, which once again makes him wrong. And, of course, at least some Unitarians might attend church to feel closer to their conception of God, which necessitates that some Unitarians must also possess at least some small measure of “divinity morals.” In summary, anyone attending any church anywhere in America is, in fact, responding to “community morals,” and to “divinity morals” as well. Any person who truly lacked bot would be far more likely not go to church at all, but to stay at home doing something far more solipsistic. Thus, the “two types of sermons” comparison doesn’t uphold Haidt’s thesis; and furthermore, (3) millions of people don’t go to any church (or temple, etc.) and yet still feel a profound spiritual connectedness to things, which motivates their behaviors in highly significant ways. Churches, per se, in the final analysis, don’t indicate “divinity morals” so much as they do an awareness of established authority; and moreover, one can argue that the designation “divinity” is a misnomer here to begin with, intended to skew the results in favor of particular theologies. Again, I’m not arguing for or against an “established” religion. I’m simply saying that Haidt’s analysis is prejudicial and too narrow. In fact, the “Liberal” Haidt describes in this book—a person devoid of both feelings of external grandeur and mystery, and who doesn’t place much value on a shared community, is not a very common type of human animal; whereas Liberals, let’s face it, are fairly common.