The psychology of politics

A cheat sheet of “The Righteous Mind – Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion”, by Jonathan Haidt (2012).

Where does morality come from? Likely from all 3:
– Nature (nativism)
– Nurture (empiricist, taught by parents)
– Rationalist (from our own experiences)

Reason (Plato) and intuition (Hume); intuition is dominant (since judgements depend heavily on expediency), while reason will struggle to explain intuition after the fact. In support of intuition:
– people are obsessive about reputation
– reasoning works like a press secretary, after the fact; this may lead to deception
– If reasoning needs to justify an intuition, it will ask “Can I believe it?” when our intuition wants it to be true, and “Must I believe it?” when our intuition wants it to be false (intuition influences reasoning, not the other way around)
– In moral and political matters we are group orientated; always support the team

Reasoning is less important to the individual reacting to their intuition, and more important to the people the individual is trying to persuade (the individual uses reasoning [or rationalization] to influence other’s intuition).

Since intuition is more persuasive than rationalization, morality binds us together in our groups (individualistic (objects based) or socio-centric (relationship based)) rather than to “truth”, and blinds us to the reality that the “other side” has good people with good intentions. We don’t see the (moral) positions of the other group; we don’t recognize that there may be more than one form of moral truth, or more than one valid framework for judging people or managing society.

Moral domain varies by culture; it is narrow in individualistic (protect individual freedoms and autonomy) cultures, broad in socio-centric (communities, groups and institutions first) cultures. US might seem individualistic, but within the US you have groups (religious or conservative) which are more socio-centric (basic unit is the family, not the individual).

Morality breaks down into categories and all innate (but with different emphasis).
– Care (evolved due to caring for children)
– Fairness (evolved due to cooperation without exploitation; must be proportional)
– Liberty (band together to resist oppression)
– Loyalty (evolved due to forming and maintaining coalitions)
– Authority (evolved to forge relationships that will benefit us)
– Sanctity (popular with the religious right; invest objects with irrational and extreme value)

Liberals are pre-disposed (genes, neurology, etc) to novelty, variety, diversity, and are less sensitive to threats. Conservatives are the opposite. Liberals value care (predominantly), fairness, and liberty; conservatives value all 6 (they see, for example, that loyalty and authority supports liberty, while liberals might see liberty as ephemeral (since the emphasis is on the unaligned individual). Liberals are unable to grasp what loyalty, authority, or sanctity have to do with morality.

Which is more prevalent: competition within groups (individuals), or competition between groups (or both)? He asserts we are 90% within, 10% between. Conservatives, who value loyalty, authority, and sanctity (religion, which is a team sport), are better than liberals at minimizing intra-group warfare while maximizing inter-group warfare.