The Righteous Mind serves as an introduction to moral psychology, in particular to the theories favoured by, and personally developed by, the author. The book's narrative thrust is the author's personal hero's journey through academia. He relates how his understanding of the topic grew over the years, from his time as a student through to carrying out the research that led to the Moral Foundations theory. This is a very effective mechanism for introducing all the various concepts to the reader, naturally building on what came before, and the autobiographical elements give you a personal connection with the author-protagonist. The narrative sweeps you along, you share his joy at learning more at each step of the journey, and cheer on as the quest continues. Haidt's intuitionist theories are also very compelling, and do provide a good framework for understanding people of various political and religious persuasions. It's an excellent example of how to communicate ideas from academia to a lay audience.
That being said, there's plenty to criticise in Haidt's theory and conclusions. The central metaphor of the Elephant and the Rider irritated me. The elephant represents your emotional intuition, whereas the rider is your reasoning. The elephant does most of the work and movement, with the rider having little influence over where it goes: your emotions make most of your decisions, and your reasoning goes along with it, making up post-hoc justifications to rationalise the decision after the fact. This is a useful metaphor, but throughout I couldn't help thinking of real-world elephant riding, where the elephant has been brutalised into submission to make it passive enough to ride.
The 'Emotions First' approach also provides an easy built-in method for dismissing Haidt's critics: their elephants have recoiled, and their riders are rushing to come up with justifications to rationalise this response. Haidt does not discuss criticisms of his theory from other academics; instead, the theory forms the conclusion of his hero's journey: now he can return to the real world to share his wisdom and save American politics.
According to Haidt, a big part of the motivation behind his research and this book was frustration over the Democrats not connecting with voters, and a desire to understand conservative moralities that were extremely alien to him as a student at a very liberal university. Having gone on his hero's journey, Haidt is now an Enlightened Centrist who sees the merits and flaws of both sides: he sees morality for what it is, not for what it should be. In the book, he is presenting a descriptive theory of morality, which ostensibly avoids any judgment on what is actually good and moral. However, he does make these kind of judgments throughout, while also claiming not to.
He tries his best to be a both-sidesing critic of both liberals and conservatives, but the way he writes about the two camps is very different. An early chapter describes a visit to India, during which he began to see beauty in a society built on a deeply religious and socially conservative morality; many passages display a deeply orientalist romanticism, and elements of this romanticism are carried forward into descriptions of American conservatism. He writes with anthropological fascination of conservatives, but with a weary tiredness about liberals. As an ex-liberal, he is not excited or interested in liberal morality: he is familiar with and bored with it; he associates it with his own immaturity, and thus his criticisms of liberalism are couched with the cringe adults feel looking back on their younger selves.
This is not to say that his criticisms of liberalism are not valid, especially those about how a lot of liberals refuse to understand conservatives. This is a very real issue which prevents liberal criticisms of conservative positions getting through. A few years ago I read Margaret Thatcher's books, which I found a very useful and enlightening experience, enabling me to understand and critique her actual motivations and goals, rather than those of the demonic caricature presented in left-wing media. I remember discussing this with a friend who said, "But I don't want to give those views legitimacy by trying to understand their motivations."
Compared to other factors, Haidt places more blame on liberals refusing to understand conservatives for the extreme polarisation of American politics. The book was first published in 2012, and this is one of many of Haidt's opinions which has aged poorly over the subsequent decade. Evidently, despite the success and popularity of 'The Righteous Mind', it has failed to undo the polarisation he was decrying a decade ago, and the various culture wars over 'wokeness' have taken that polarisation to obscene new highs. In 2024, Haidt's soft criticisms of conservatives now read as extremely cowardly.
The book is also in part a response to the New Atheists, and this is another aspect which has aged less well. The New Atheists were in vogue when it was first published, but popular culture has now moved on considerably. He defends religion as a means of social and moral cohesion, and decries what he calls 'the Rationalist Delusion'. I enjoyed his argument in favour of evolutionary group selection via religions, and this aspect of the book nicely synergizes with Tara Isabella Burton's Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World, which looks at modern neo-religious movements through a similar lens to Haidt, and fills a large gap in his analysis.
Despite these flaws, and others not described here, I do actually very much recommend the book. The Moral Foundations Theory is a useful if imperfect descriptive model to help you understand different moralities, like the similarly useful but imperfect Political Compass. The narrative sweeps you along like a rousing adventure; it's a great example of a non-fiction book that takes you on a ride and makes you feel like you've learnt a lot. After the initial exhilaration fades, the flaws become more obvious the more you think about it, but not so much that I wouldn't recommend it to others.
