The Righteous Mind

Main Ideas

• Moral psychology: Haidt explores how people form their moral judgments and how these judgments influence their behavior.
• Six moral foundations: Haidt identifies six key moral foundations underlying human morality: care/harm, fairness/cheating, liberty/oppression, loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation.
• Intuitive nature of morality: Haidt argues that moral judgments are primarily intuitive, with rational explanations coming later to justify them.
• Group selection: Haidt considers how evolution has contributed to the development of moral norms that help groups survive and thrive.
• Political polarization: Haidt analyzes how differences in moral foundations lead to political polarization and conflicts between different groups.
• Moral communities: Haidt discusses how moral communities form around shared values and norms, and how they can both unite and divide people.