ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jonathan Haidt - Social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures.

Why you should listen

By understanding more about our moral psychology and its biases, Jonathan Haidt says we can design better institutions (including companies, universities and democracy itself), and we can learn to be more civil and open-minded toward those who are not on our team.

Haidt is a social psychologist whose research on morality across cultures led to his 2008 TED Talk on the psychological roots of the American culture war, and his 2013 TED Talk on how "common threats can make common ground." In both of those talks he asks, "Can't we all disagree more constructively?" Haidt's 2012 TED Talk explored the intersection of his work on morality with his work on happiness to talk about "hive psychology" -- the ability that humans have to lose themselves in groups pursuing larger projects, almost like bees in a hive. This hivish ability is crucial, he argues, for understanding the origins of morality, politics, and religion. These are ideas that Haidt develops at greater length in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Haidt joined New York University Stern School of Business in July 2011. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, based in the Business and Society Program. Before coming to Stern, Professor Haidt taught for 16 years at the University of Virginia in the department of psychology.

Haidt's writings appear frequently in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He was named one of the top global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine and by Prospect magazine. Haidt received a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

More profile about the speaker
Jonathan Haidt | Speaker | TED.com
TED2008

Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives

Filmed:
3,635,704 views

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices, whether we're left, right or center. In this eye-opening talk, he pinpoints the moral values that liberals and conservatives tend to honor most.
- Social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:19
Suppose that two American friends are traveling together in Italy.
0
1000
3000
00:22
They go to see Michelangelo's "David,"
1
4000
2000
00:24
and when they finally come face to face with the statue,
2
6000
2000
00:26
they both freeze dead in their tracks.
3
8000
2000
00:28
The first guy -- we'll call him Adam --
4
10000
2000
00:30
is transfixed by the beauty of the perfect human form.
5
12000
3000
00:33
The second guy -- we'll call him Bill --
6
15000
2000
00:35
is transfixed by embarrassment, at staring at the thing there in the center.
7
17000
4000
00:40
So here's my question for you:
8
22000
2000
00:42
which one of these two guys was more likely to have voted for George Bush,
9
24000
4000
00:46
which for Al Gore?
10
28000
2000
00:48
I don't need a show of hands
11
30000
1000
00:49
because we all have the same political stereotypes.
12
31000
3000
00:52
We all know that it's Bill.
13
34000
2000
00:54
And in this case, the stereotype corresponds to reality.
14
36000
4000
00:58
It really is a fact that liberals are much higher than conservatives
15
40000
3000
01:01
on a major personality trait called openness to experience.
16
43000
3000
01:04
People who are high in openness to experience
17
46000
2000
01:06
just crave novelty, variety, diversity, new ideas, travel.
18
48000
4000
01:10
People low on it like things that are familiar, that are safe and dependable.
19
52000
5000
01:15
If you know about this trait,
20
57000
2000
01:17
you can understand a lot of puzzles about human behavior.
21
59000
2000
01:19
You can understand why artists are so different from accountants.
22
61000
3000
01:22
You can actually predict what kinds of books they like to read,
23
64000
2000
01:24
what kinds of places they like to travel to,
24
66000
2000
01:26
and what kinds of food they like to eat.
25
68000
2000
01:28
Once you understand this trait, you can understand
26
70000
3000
01:31
why anybody would eat at Applebee's, but not anybody that you know.
27
73000
4000
01:35
(Laughter)
28
77000
6000
01:41
This trait also tells us a lot about politics.
29
83000
2000
01:43
The main researcher of this trait, Robert McCrae says that,
30
85000
3000
01:46
"Open individuals have an affinity for liberal, progressive, left-wing political views" --
31
88000
4000
01:50
they like a society which is open and changing --
32
92000
2000
01:52
"whereas closed individuals prefer conservative, traditional, right-wing views."
33
94000
5000
01:57
This trait also tells us a lot about the kinds of groups people join.
34
99000
4000
02:01
So here's the description of a group I found on the Web.
35
103000
2000
02:03
What kinds of people would join a global community
36
105000
2000
02:05
welcoming people from every discipline and culture,
37
107000
2000
02:07
who seek a deeper understanding of the world,
38
109000
2000
02:09
and who hope to turn that understanding into a better future for us all?
39
111000
3000
02:12
This is from some guy named Ted.
40
114000
2000
02:14
(Laughter)
41
116000
2000
02:16
Well, let's see now, if openness predicts who becomes liberal,
42
118000
4000
02:20
and openness predicts who becomes a TEDster,
43
122000
2000
02:22
then might we predict that most TEDsters are liberal?
44
124000
3000
02:25
Let's find out.
45
127000
1000
02:26
I'm going to ask you to raise your hand, whether you are liberal, left of center --
46
128000
4000
02:30
on social issues, we're talking about, primarily --
47
132000
2000
02:32
or conservative, and I'll give a third option,
48
134000
2000
02:34
because I know there are a number of libertarians in the audience.
49
136000
2000
02:36
So, right now, please raise your hand --
50
138000
2000
02:38
down in the simulcast rooms, too,
51
140000
1000
02:39
let's let everybody see who's here --
52
141000
2000
02:41
please raise your hand if you would say that you are liberal or left of center.
53
143000
3000
02:44
Please raise your hand high right now. OK.
54
146000
3000
02:48
Please raise your hand if you'd say you're libertarian.
55
150000
2000
02:51
OK, about a -- two dozen.
56
153000
2000
02:53
And please raise your hand if you'd say you are right of center or conservative.
57
155000
3000
02:56
One, two, three, four, five -- about eight or 10.
58
158000
5000
03:02
OK. This is a bit of a problem.
59
164000
3000
03:05
Because if our goal is to understand the world,
60
167000
3000
03:08
to seek a deeper understanding of the world,
61
170000
2000
03:10
our general lack of moral diversity here is going to make it harder.
62
172000
3000
03:13
Because when people all share values, when people all share morals,
63
175000
4000
03:17
they become a team, and once you engage the psychology of teams,
64
179000
3000
03:20
it shuts down open-minded thinking.
65
182000
2000
03:25
When the liberal team loses, as it did in 2004,
66
187000
4000
03:29
and as it almost did in 2000, we comfort ourselves.
67
191000
4000
03:33
(Laughter)
68
195000
2000
03:35
We try to explain why half of America voted for the other team.
69
197000
4000
03:39
We think they must be blinded by religion, or by simple stupidity.
70
201000
5000
03:44
(Laughter)
71
206000
3000
03:47
(Applause)
72
209000
8000
03:55
So, if you think that half of America votes Republican
73
217000
6000
04:01
because they are blinded in this way,
74
223000
3000
04:04
then my message to you is that you're trapped in a moral matrix,
75
226000
3000
04:07
in a particular moral matrix.
76
229000
1000
04:08
And by the matrix, I mean literally the matrix, like the movie "The Matrix."
77
230000
4000
04:12
But I'm here today to give you a choice.
78
234000
2000
04:14
You can either take the blue pill and stick to your comforting delusions,
79
236000
4000
04:18
or you can take the red pill,
80
240000
2000
04:20
learn some moral psychology and step outside the moral matrix.
81
242000
3000
04:23
Now, because I know --
82
245000
2000
04:25
(Applause) --
83
247000
3000
04:28
OK, I assume that answers my question.
84
250000
2000
04:30
I was going to ask you which one you picked, but no need.
85
252000
2000
04:32
You're all high in openness to experience, and besides,
86
254000
2000
04:34
it looks like it might even taste good, and you're all epicures.
87
256000
3000
04:37
So anyway, let's go with the red pill.
88
259000
2000
04:39
Let's study some moral psychology and see where it takes us.
89
261000
2000
04:41
Let's start at the beginning.
90
263000
2000
04:43
What is morality and where does it come from?
91
265000
2000
04:45
The worst idea in all of psychology
92
267000
2000
04:47
is the idea that the mind is a blank slate at birth.
93
269000
3000
04:50
Developmental psychology has shown
94
272000
2000
04:52
that kids come into the world already knowing so much
95
274000
2000
04:54
about the physical and social worlds,
96
276000
2000
04:56
and programmed to make it really easy for them to learn certain things
97
278000
4000
05:00
and hard to learn others.
98
282000
1000
05:01
The best definition of innateness I've ever seen --
99
283000
2000
05:03
this just clarifies so many things for me --
100
285000
2000
05:05
is from the brain scientist Gary Marcus.
101
287000
2000
05:07
He says, "The initial organization of the brain does not depend that much on experience.
102
289000
5000
05:12
Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises.
103
294000
3000
05:15
Built-in doesn't mean unmalleable;
104
297000
2000
05:17
it means organized in advance of experience."
105
299000
3000
05:20
OK, so what's on the first draft of the moral mind?
106
302000
2000
05:22
To find out, my colleague, Craig Joseph, and I
107
304000
3000
05:25
read through the literature on anthropology,
108
307000
2000
05:27
on culture variation in morality
109
309000
2000
05:29
and also on evolutionary psychology, looking for matches.
110
311000
2000
05:31
What are the sorts of things that people talk about across disciplines?
111
313000
3000
05:34
That you find across cultures and even across species?
112
316000
2000
05:36
We found five -- five best matches,
113
318000
2000
05:38
which we call the five foundations of morality.
114
320000
2000
05:40
The first one is harm/care.
115
322000
2000
05:42
We're all mammals here, we all have a lot of neural and hormonal programming
116
324000
4000
05:46
that makes us really bond with others, care for others,
117
328000
2000
05:48
feel compassion for others, especially the weak and vulnerable.
118
330000
3000
05:51
It gives us very strong feelings about those who cause harm.
119
333000
3000
05:54
This moral foundation underlies about 70 percent
120
336000
3000
05:57
of the moral statements I've heard here at TED.
121
339000
2000
05:59
The second foundation is fairness/reciprocity.
122
341000
3000
06:02
There's actually ambiguous evidence
123
344000
2000
06:04
as to whether you find reciprocity in other animals,
124
346000
2000
06:06
but the evidence for people could not be clearer.
125
348000
2000
06:08
This Norman Rockwell painting is called "The Golden Rule,"
126
350000
2000
06:10
and we heard about this from Karen Armstrong, of course,
127
352000
2000
06:12
as the foundation of so many religions.
128
354000
3000
06:15
That second foundation underlies the other 30 percent
129
357000
2000
06:17
of the moral statements I've heard here at TED.
130
359000
2000
06:19
The third foundation is in-group/loyalty.
131
361000
2000
06:21
You do find groups in the animal kingdom --
132
363000
2000
06:23
you do find cooperative groups --
133
365000
2000
06:25
but these groups are always either very small or they're all siblings.
134
367000
3000
06:28
It's only among humans that you find very large groups of people
135
370000
3000
06:31
who are able to cooperate, join together into groups,
136
373000
3000
06:34
but in this case, groups that are united to fight other groups.
137
376000
4000
06:38
This probably comes from our long history of tribal living, of tribal psychology.
138
380000
4000
06:42
And this tribal psychology is so deeply pleasurable
139
384000
2000
06:44
that even when we don't have tribes,
140
386000
2000
06:46
we go ahead and make them, because it's fun.
141
388000
3000
06:49
(Laughter)
142
391000
3000
06:52
Sports is to war as pornography is to sex.
143
394000
3000
06:55
We get to exercise some ancient, ancient drives.
144
397000
3000
06:58
The fourth foundation is authority/respect.
145
400000
3000
07:01
Here you see submissive gestures from two members of very closely related species.
146
403000
3000
07:04
But authority in humans is not so closely based on power and brutality,
147
406000
4000
07:08
as it is in other primates.
148
410000
2000
07:10
It's based on more voluntary deference,
149
412000
2000
07:12
and even elements of love, at times.
150
414000
2000
07:14
The fifth foundation is purity/sanctity.
151
416000
2000
07:16
This painting is called "The Allegory Of Chastity,"
152
418000
3000
07:19
but purity's not just about suppressing female sexuality.
153
421000
3000
07:22
It's about any kind of ideology, any kind of idea
154
424000
3000
07:25
that tells you that you can attain virtue
155
427000
2000
07:27
by controlling what you do with your body,
156
429000
1000
07:28
by controlling what you put into your body.
157
430000
2000
07:30
And while the political right may moralize sex much more,
158
432000
4000
07:34
the political left is really doing a lot of it with food.
159
436000
2000
07:36
Food is becoming extremely moralized nowadays,
160
438000
2000
07:38
and a lot of it is ideas about purity,
161
440000
2000
07:40
about what you're willing to touch, or put into your body.
162
442000
3000
07:43
I believe these are the five best candidates
163
445000
3000
07:46
for what's written on the first draft of the moral mind.
164
448000
2000
07:48
I think this is what we come with, at least
165
450000
1000
07:49
a preparedness to learn all of these things.
166
451000
3000
07:52
But as my son, Max, grows up in a liberal college town,
167
454000
3000
07:56
how is this first draft going to get revised?
168
458000
2000
07:58
And how will it end up being different
169
460000
2000
08:00
from a kid born 60 miles south of us in Lynchburg, Virginia?
170
462000
3000
08:03
To think about culture variation, let's try a different metaphor.
171
465000
2000
08:05
If there really are five systems at work in the mind --
172
467000
3000
08:08
five sources of intuitions and emotions --
173
470000
2000
08:10
then we can think of the moral mind
174
472000
2000
08:12
as being like one of those audio equalizers that has five channels,
175
474000
2000
08:14
where you can set it to a different setting on every channel.
176
476000
2000
08:16
And my colleagues, Brian Nosek and Jesse Graham, and I,
177
478000
3000
08:19
made a questionnaire, which we put up on the Web at www.YourMorals.org.
178
481000
5000
08:24
And so far, 30,000 people have taken this questionnaire, and you can too.
179
486000
5000
08:29
Here are the results.
180
491000
1000
08:30
Here are the results from about 23,000 American citizens.
181
492000
3000
08:33
On the left, I've plotted the scores for liberals;
182
495000
2000
08:35
on the right, those for conservatives; in the middle, the moderates.
183
497000
2000
08:37
The blue line shows you people's responses
184
499000
2000
08:39
on the average of all the harm questions.
185
501000
2000
08:41
So, as you see, people care about harm and care issues.
186
503000
3000
08:44
They give high endorsement of these sorts of statements
187
506000
2000
08:46
all across the board, but as you also see,
188
508000
2000
08:48
liberals care about it a little more than conservatives -- the line slopes down.
189
510000
3000
08:51
Same story for fairness.
190
513000
2000
08:53
But look at the other three lines.
191
515000
2000
08:55
For liberals, the scores are very low.
192
517000
2000
08:57
Liberals are basically saying, "No, this is not morality.
193
519000
2000
08:59
In-group, authority, purity -- this stuff has nothing to do with morality. I reject it."
194
521000
3000
09:02
But as people get more conservative, the values rise.
195
524000
2000
09:04
We can say that liberals have a kind of a two-channel,
196
526000
3000
09:07
or two-foundation morality.
197
529000
1000
09:08
Conservatives have more of a five-foundation,
198
530000
2000
09:10
or five-channel morality.
199
532000
2000
09:12
We find this in every country we look at.
200
534000
1000
09:13
Here's the data for 1,100 Canadians.
201
535000
2000
09:15
I'll just flip through a few other slides.
202
537000
2000
09:17
The U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, Eastern Europe,
203
539000
3000
09:20
Latin America, the Middle East, East Asia and South Asia.
204
542000
4000
09:24
Notice also that on all of these graphs,
205
546000
2000
09:26
the slope is steeper on in-group, authority, purity.
206
548000
3000
09:29
Which shows that within any country,
207
551000
2000
09:31
the disagreement isn't over harm and fairness.
208
553000
3000
09:34
Everybody -- I mean, we debate over what's fair --
209
556000
2000
09:36
but everybody agrees that harm and fairness matter.
210
558000
3000
09:39
Moral arguments within cultures
211
561000
2000
09:41
are especially about issues of in-group, authority, purity.
212
563000
3000
09:44
This effect is so robust that we find it no matter how we ask the question.
213
566000
3000
09:47
In one recent study,
214
569000
2000
09:49
we asked people to suppose you're about to get a dog.
215
571000
2000
09:51
You picked a particular breed,
216
573000
1000
09:52
you learned some new information about the breed.
217
574000
2000
09:54
Suppose you learn that this particular breed is independent-minded,
218
576000
3000
09:57
and relates to its owner as a friend and an equal?
219
579000
2000
09:59
Well, if you are a liberal, you say, "Hey, that's great!"
220
581000
2000
10:01
Because liberals like to say, "Fetch, please."
221
583000
2000
10:03
(Laughter)
222
585000
4000
10:08
But if you're conservative, that's not so attractive.
223
590000
3000
10:11
If you're conservative, and you learn that a dog's extremely loyal
224
593000
3000
10:14
to its home and family, and doesn't warm up quickly to strangers,
225
596000
2000
10:16
for conservatives, well, loyalty is good -- dogs ought to be loyal.
226
598000
3000
10:19
But to a liberal, it sounds like this dog
227
601000
2000
10:21
is running for the Republican nomination.
228
603000
2000
10:23
(Laughter)
229
605000
1000
10:24
So, you might say, OK,
230
606000
2000
10:26
there are these differences between liberals and conservatives,
231
608000
2000
10:28
but what makes those three other foundations moral?
232
610000
2000
10:30
Aren't those just the foundations of xenophobia
233
612000
2000
10:32
and authoritarianism and Puritanism?
234
614000
2000
10:34
What makes them moral?
235
616000
1000
10:35
The answer, I think, is contained in this incredible triptych from Hieronymus Bosch,
236
617000
3000
10:38
"The Garden of Earthly Delights."
237
620000
2000
10:40
In the first panel, we see the moment of creation.
238
622000
3000
10:43
All is ordered, all is beautiful, all the people and animals
239
625000
4000
10:47
are doing what they're supposed to be doing, where they're supposed to be.
240
629000
3000
10:50
But then, given the way of the world, things change.
241
632000
3000
10:53
We get every person doing whatever he wants,
242
635000
2000
10:55
with every aperture of every other person and every other animal.
243
637000
3000
10:58
Some of you might recognize this as the '60s.
244
640000
2000
11:00
(Laughter)
245
642000
1000
11:01
But the '60s inevitably gives way to the '70s,
246
643000
4000
11:05
where the cuttings of the apertures hurt a little bit more.
247
647000
4000
11:09
Of course, Bosch called this hell.
248
651000
2000
11:11
So this triptych, these three panels
249
653000
3000
11:14
portray the timeless truth that order tends to decay.
250
656000
5000
11:19
The truth of social entropy.
251
661000
2000
11:21
But lest you think this is just some part of the Christian imagination
252
663000
3000
11:24
where Christians have this weird problem with pleasure,
253
666000
2000
11:26
here's the same story, the same progression,
254
668000
3000
11:29
told in a paper that was published in Nature a few years ago,
255
671000
3000
11:32
in which Ernst Fehr and Simon Gachter had people play a commons dilemma.
256
674000
4000
11:36
A game in which you give people money,
257
678000
2000
11:38
and then, on each round of the game,
258
680000
2000
11:40
they can put money into a common pot,
259
682000
2000
11:42
and then the experimenter doubles what's in there,
260
684000
2000
11:44
and then it's all divided among the players.
261
686000
2000
11:46
So it's a really nice analog for all sorts of environmental issues,
262
688000
3000
11:49
where we're asking people to make a sacrifice
263
691000
2000
11:51
and they themselves don't really benefit from their own sacrifice.
264
693000
2000
11:53
But you really want everybody else to sacrifice,
265
695000
2000
11:55
but everybody has a temptation to a free ride.
266
697000
2000
11:57
And what happens is that, at first, people start off reasonably cooperative --
267
699000
4000
12:01
and this is all played anonymously.
268
703000
2000
12:03
On the first round, people give about half of the money that they can.
269
705000
3000
12:06
But they quickly see, "You know what, other people aren't doing so much though.
270
708000
3000
12:09
I don't want to be a sucker. I'm not going to cooperate."
271
711000
2000
12:11
And so cooperation quickly decays from reasonably good, down to close to zero.
272
713000
4000
12:15
But then -- and here's the trick --
273
717000
2000
12:17
Fehr and Gachter said, on the seventh round, they told people,
274
719000
2000
12:19
"You know what? New rule.
275
721000
2000
12:21
If you want to give some of your own money
276
723000
2000
12:23
to punish people who aren't contributing, you can do that."
277
725000
4000
12:27
And as soon as people heard about the punishment issue going on,
278
729000
3000
12:30
cooperation shoots up.
279
732000
2000
12:32
It shoots up and it keeps going up.
280
734000
2000
12:34
There's a lot of research showing that to solve cooperative problems, it really helps.
281
736000
3000
12:37
It's not enough to just appeal to people's good motives.
282
739000
2000
12:39
It really helps to have some sort of punishment.
283
741000
2000
12:41
Even if it's just shame or embarrassment or gossip,
284
743000
2000
12:43
you need some sort of punishment to bring people,
285
745000
3000
12:46
when they're in large groups, to cooperate.
286
748000
2000
12:48
There's even some recent research suggesting that religion --
287
750000
3000
12:51
priming God, making people think about God --
288
753000
2000
12:53
often, in some situations, leads to more cooperative, more pro-social behavior.
289
755000
5000
12:59
Some people think that religion is an adaptation
290
761000
2000
13:01
evolved both by cultural and biological evolution
291
763000
2000
13:03
to make groups to cohere,
292
765000
2000
13:05
in part for the purpose of trusting each other,
293
767000
2000
13:07
and then being more effective at competing with other groups.
294
769000
2000
13:09
I think that's probably right,
295
771000
1000
13:10
although this is a controversial issue.
296
772000
2000
13:12
But I'm particularly interested in religion,
297
774000
2000
13:14
and the origin of religion, and in what it does to us and for us.
298
776000
3000
13:17
Because I think that the greatest wonder in the world is not the Grand Canyon.
299
779000
4000
13:21
The Grand Canyon is really simple.
300
783000
2000
13:23
It's just a lot of rock, and then a lot of water and wind, and a lot of time,
301
785000
3000
13:26
and you get the Grand Canyon.
302
788000
2000
13:28
It's not that complicated.
303
790000
1000
13:29
This is what's really complicated,
304
791000
2000
13:31
that there were people living in places like the Grand Canyon,
305
793000
2000
13:33
cooperating with each other, or on the savannahs of Africa,
306
795000
2000
13:35
or on the frozen shores of Alaska, and then some of these villages
307
797000
3000
13:38
grew into the mighty cities of Babylon, and Rome, and Tenochtitlan.
308
800000
4000
13:42
How did this happen?
309
804000
1000
13:43
This is an absolute miracle, much harder to explain than the Grand Canyon.
310
805000
3000
13:46
The answer, I think, is that they used every tool in the toolbox.
311
808000
3000
13:49
It took all of our moral psychology
312
811000
2000
13:51
to create these cooperative groups.
313
813000
2000
13:53
Yes, you do need to be concerned about harm,
314
815000
2000
13:55
you do need a psychology of justice.
315
817000
1000
13:56
But it really helps to organize a group if you can have sub-groups,
316
818000
3000
13:59
and if those sub-groups have some internal structure,
317
821000
3000
14:02
and if you have some ideology that tells people
318
824000
2000
14:04
to suppress their carnality, to pursue higher, nobler ends.
319
826000
4000
14:08
And now we get to the crux of the disagreement
320
830000
2000
14:10
between liberals and conservatives.
321
832000
2000
14:12
Because liberals reject three of these foundations.
322
834000
2000
14:14
They say "No, let's celebrate diversity, not common in-group membership."
323
836000
3000
14:17
They say, "Let's question authority."
324
839000
2000
14:19
And they say, "Keep your laws off my body."
325
841000
2000
14:21
Liberals have very noble motives for doing this.
326
843000
3000
14:24
Traditional authority, traditional morality can be quite repressive,
327
846000
3000
14:27
and restrictive to those at the bottom, to women, to people that don't fit in.
328
849000
3000
14:30
So liberals speak for the weak and oppressed.
329
852000
2000
14:32
They want change and justice, even at the risk of chaos.
330
854000
2000
14:34
This guy's shirt says, "Stop bitching, start a revolution."
331
856000
3000
14:37
If you're high in openness to experience, revolution is good,
332
859000
2000
14:39
it's change, it's fun.
333
861000
2000
14:41
Conservatives, on the other hand, speak for institutions and traditions.
334
863000
3000
14:44
They want order, even at some cost to those at the bottom.
335
866000
4000
14:48
The great conservative insight is that order is really hard to achieve.
336
870000
2000
14:50
It's really precious, and it's really easy to lose.
337
872000
3000
14:53
So as Edmund Burke said, "The restraints on men,
338
875000
2000
14:55
as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights."
339
877000
3000
14:58
This was after the chaos of the French Revolution.
340
880000
2000
15:00
So once you see this -- once you see
341
882000
2000
15:02
that liberals and conservatives both have something to contribute,
342
884000
3000
15:05
that they form a balance on change versus stability --
343
887000
3000
15:08
then I think the way is open to step outside the moral matrix.
344
890000
3000
15:11
This is the great insight that all the Asian religions have attained.
345
893000
5000
15:16
Think about yin and yang.
346
898000
2000
15:18
Yin and yang aren't enemies. Yin and yang don't hate each other.
347
900000
2000
15:20
Yin and yang are both necessary, like night and day,
348
902000
2000
15:22
for the functioning of the world.
349
904000
2000
15:24
You find the same thing in Hinduism.
350
906000
2000
15:26
There are many high gods in Hinduism.
351
908000
2000
15:28
Two of them are Vishnu, the preserver, and Shiva, the destroyer.
352
910000
3000
15:31
This image actually is both of those gods sharing the same body.
353
913000
3000
15:34
You have the markings of Vishnu on the left,
354
916000
2000
15:36
so we could think of Vishnu as the conservative god.
355
918000
3000
15:39
You have the markings of Shiva on the right,
356
921000
2000
15:41
Shiva's the liberal god. And they work together.
357
923000
2000
15:43
You find the same thing in Buddhism.
358
925000
2000
15:45
These two stanzas contain, I think, the deepest insights
359
927000
2000
15:47
that have ever been attained into moral psychology.
360
929000
3000
15:50
From the Zen master Seng-ts'an:
361
932000
2000
15:52
"If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
362
934000
4000
15:56
The struggle between for and against is the mind's worst disease."
363
938000
4000
16:00
Now unfortunately, it's a disease
364
942000
2000
16:02
that has been caught by many of the world's leaders.
365
944000
2000
16:04
But before you feel superior to George Bush,
366
946000
3000
16:07
before you throw a stone, ask yourself, do you accept this?
367
949000
4000
16:11
Do you accept stepping out of the battle of good and evil?
368
953000
3000
16:14
Can you be not for or against anything?
369
956000
3000
16:18
So, what's the point? What should you do?
370
960000
3000
16:21
Well, if you take the greatest insights
371
963000
2000
16:23
from ancient Asian philosophies and religions,
372
965000
2000
16:25
and you combine them with the latest research on moral psychology,
373
967000
2000
16:27
I think you come to these conclusions:
374
969000
2000
16:29
that our righteous minds were designed by evolution
375
971000
4000
16:33
to unite us into teams, to divide us against other teams
376
975000
3000
16:36
and then to blind us to the truth.
377
978000
2000
16:39
So what should you do? Am I telling you to not strive?
378
981000
4000
16:43
Am I telling you to embrace Seng-ts'an and stop,
379
985000
3000
16:46
stop with this struggle of for and against?
380
988000
3000
16:49
No, absolutely not. I'm not saying that.
381
991000
2000
16:51
This is an amazing group of people who are doing so much,
382
993000
3000
16:54
using so much of their talent, their brilliance, their energy, their money,
383
996000
4000
16:58
to make the world a better place, to fight --
384
1000000
2000
17:00
to fight wrongs, to solve problems.
385
1002000
3000
17:04
But as we learned from Samantha Power, in her story
386
1006000
4000
17:08
about Sergio Vieira de Mello, you can't just go charging in,
387
1010000
5000
17:13
saying, "You're wrong, and I'm right."
388
1015000
2000
17:15
Because, as we just heard, everybody thinks they are right.
389
1017000
4000
17:19
A lot of the problems we have to solve
390
1021000
2000
17:21
are problems that require us to change other people.
391
1023000
3000
17:24
And if you want to change other people, a much better way to do it
392
1026000
3000
17:27
is to first understand who we are -- understand our moral psychology,
393
1029000
4000
17:31
understand that we all think we're right -- and then step out,
394
1033000
3000
17:34
even if it's just for a moment, step out -- check in with Seng-ts'an.
395
1036000
4000
17:38
Step out of the moral matrix,
396
1040000
2000
17:40
just try to see it as a struggle playing out,
397
1042000
2000
17:42
in which everybody does think they're right,
398
1044000
2000
17:44
and everybody, at least, has some reasons -- even if you disagree with them --
399
1046000
2000
17:46
everybody has some reasons for what they're doing.
400
1048000
2000
17:48
Step out.
401
1050000
1000
17:49
And if you do that, that's the essential move to cultivate moral humility,
402
1051000
4000
17:53
to get yourself out of this self-righteousness,
403
1055000
1000
17:54
which is the normal human condition.
404
1056000
2000
17:56
Think about the Dalai Lama.
405
1058000
2000
17:58
Think about the enormous moral authority of the Dalai Lama --
406
1060000
3000
18:01
and it comes from his moral humility.
407
1063000
2000
18:05
So I think the point -- the point of my talk,
408
1067000
2000
18:07
and I think the point of TED --
409
1069000
3000
18:10
is that this is a group that is passionately engaged
410
1072000
3000
18:13
in the pursuit of changing the world for the better.
411
1075000
2000
18:15
People here are passionately engaged
412
1077000
3000
18:18
in trying to make the world a better place.
413
1080000
2000
18:20
But there is also a passionate commitment to the truth.
414
1082000
3000
18:23
And so I think that the answer is to use that passionate commitment
415
1085000
4000
18:27
to the truth to try to turn it into a better future for us all.
416
1089000
4000
18:31
Thank you.
417
1093000
1000
18:32
(Applause)
418
1094000
3000

▲Back to top

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jonathan Haidt - Social psychologist
Jonathan Haidt studies how -- and why -- we evolved to be moral and political creatures.

Why you should listen

By understanding more about our moral psychology and its biases, Jonathan Haidt says we can design better institutions (including companies, universities and democracy itself), and we can learn to be more civil and open-minded toward those who are not on our team.

Haidt is a social psychologist whose research on morality across cultures led to his 2008 TED Talk on the psychological roots of the American culture war, and his 2013 TED Talk on how "common threats can make common ground." In both of those talks he asks, "Can't we all disagree more constructively?" Haidt's 2012 TED Talk explored the intersection of his work on morality with his work on happiness to talk about "hive psychology" -- the ability that humans have to lose themselves in groups pursuing larger projects, almost like bees in a hive. This hivish ability is crucial, he argues, for understanding the origins of morality, politics, and religion. These are ideas that Haidt develops at greater length in his book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion.

Haidt joined New York University Stern School of Business in July 2011. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership, based in the Business and Society Program. Before coming to Stern, Professor Haidt taught for 16 years at the University of Virginia in the department of psychology.

Haidt's writings appear frequently in the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He was named one of the top global thinkers by Foreign Policy magazine and by Prospect magazine. Haidt received a B.A. in Philosophy from Yale University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

More profile about the speaker
Jonathan Haidt | Speaker | TED.com