Johnathan Haidt is a Professor of Ethical Leadership and social psychologist at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He wrote the book, The Righteous Mind to “at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, each one certain of its righteousness.” He states: “My goal in this book is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity.” In light of America’s increasingly unreasonable political polarity and developing shared mistrust, it is obvious that Haidt has a lot of work on his hands.
After a short introduction laying out his motive and strategy, Haidt breaks his book into three main parts, which are titled so calculatingly that the audience is not likely to fail to perceive the book’s arguements: “Intuitions Come First, Strategic Reasoning Second;” “There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness;” and “Morality Binds and Blinds.” A very short conclusion serves mainly as a condensation of his main argument, again providing the audience who are new to this kind information …show more content…
Haidt frequently remarks that, in terms of morality, we are 90% chimp (selfish) and 10% bee (groupish) but the last part of this book pushes for the diverse and extensive advantages that our inclination to create social groups expresses. Granted that this book is mainly intended for “WEIRD” readers, it isn’t shocking that the 10% contracts a lot of positive attention in this last part of the book. However, the clear drawbacks and dangers of hive mentality seem to be underrepresented in this book. Whatever benefits conservative groupings make available for insiders, these groupish inclinations can be very difficult on outsiders. This is where traditional ethics must attempt to guide the elephant: at the areas where opposing human hives have differing opinions, but must
After a short introduction laying out his motive and strategy, Haidt breaks his book into three main parts, which are titled so calculatingly that the audience is not likely to fail to perceive the book’s arguements: “Intuitions Come First, Strategic Reasoning Second;” “There’s More to Morality than Harm and Fairness;” and “Morality Binds and Blinds.” A very short conclusion serves mainly as a condensation of his main argument, again providing the audience who are new to this kind information …show more content…
Haidt frequently remarks that, in terms of morality, we are 90% chimp (selfish) and 10% bee (groupish) but the last part of this book pushes for the diverse and extensive advantages that our inclination to create social groups expresses. Granted that this book is mainly intended for “WEIRD” readers, it isn’t shocking that the 10% contracts a lot of positive attention in this last part of the book. However, the clear drawbacks and dangers of hive mentality seem to be underrepresented in this book. Whatever benefits conservative groupings make available for insiders, these groupish inclinations can be very difficult on outsiders. This is where traditional ethics must attempt to guide the elephant: at the areas where opposing human hives have differing opinions, but must