The Righteous Mind by Johnathan Haidt
8 out of 10Facts and reasoning do not play large roles in the moral assessment of an issue. Instead, we often search for confirmation in order to convince ourselves and our peers of our virtue. It turns out that judgment and justification are separate cognitive processes. Through a series of surveys, Haidt and his colleagues measured thousands of participants on six moral dimensions: (1) +care-harm (2) +liberty-oppression (3) +fairness-cheating (4) +loyalty-betrayal (5) +authority-subversion (6) +sanctity-degradation. The results suggest that modern Conservatives score highly on all six elements. Whereas modern Liberals instantly reject the value of 4, 5, & 6 -- defending that loyalty pollutes diversity, authority preserves patriarchal inequality, and sanctity is puritanical arbitrariness. As a notable corollary (backed by additional survey data), a Conservative is more likely to accurately understand a Liberal than a Liberal is to accurately understand a Conservative. Other points of interest include gossip, weapons, regicide, cultural evolution, self-domestication, parasitic memes, trusting strangers, bees, chimps, Whole Foods, Cracker Barrel, ...