This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Righteous Mind" by Jonathan Haidt. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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What is Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory? What does he believe are the six foundations of morality?
Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory puts forth six foundations of morality that we all have, but in different proportions. They are based on how people in various cultures deal with life’s challenges and what they regard as virtues.
Read more to learn about Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory.
The First Five Foundations of Morality
Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory is based on his examination of normal social life and the challenges associated with it around the world. He considered how people in different cultures deal with these challenges differently, and what they prioritize as virtues.
In his research, Haidt found five foundations of morality, or “taste receptors.” Just as we all have the same five taste receptors but prefer different foods, we all have these same five moral foundations, but in different proportions. The foundations are:
- Care/harm
- Fairness/cheating
- Loyalty/betrayal
- Authority/subversion
- Sanctity/degradation
Each foundation has an adaptive advantage—in some way, each one helped humans succeed. Each also has triggers that existed generations ago and triggers that exist today. Finally, each foundation is associated with certain emotions and virtues. Find the characteristics of each foundation, or “taste receptor,” in the table below.
Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory did not include the sixth foundation, Liberty/oppression, until he discovered it later.
To understand how the foundations work in practice, we’ll use an example of the Care/harm principle: You take your four-year-old to a hospital to have his appendix removed. You can watch through a glass wall, and you see him lying on the operating table unconscious while the surgeon punctures his abdomen. You might feel both relief knowing the doctor is saving his life and pain watching him get punctured. From Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarian point of view, it would be irrational if you looked away in fear because you know the doctor is not harming your child. But from the point of view of Haidt’s “taste receptor” theory, it makes sense, because you have an emotional response to watching your child bleed, even though you know rationally the doctor is not committing violence on him. This shows that you are caring and empathetic and that the Care/harm principle is a powerful “taste receptor” for you.
Discovering the Sixth Foundation
Haidt began to conduct experiments and write opinions based on his five principles, he realized that liberals and conservatives understood the second principle, Fairness/cheating, differently. Liberals argued that conservatives don’t care about fairness because they don’t care about equal outcomes—for example, they don’t care whether every school district is equally well-funded. However, conservatives also argued that liberals don’t care about fairness in this case because they don’t care about proportional outcomes—for example, they don’t care that successful people have to pay a lot of their hard-earned money in taxes. Haidt realized that he needed a better definition of fairness, and with it a better definition of equality. This led him to create a sixth taste receptor.
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Here's what you'll find in our full The Righteous Mind summary :
- Why we all can't get along
- How our divergent moralities evolved
- How we can counter our natural self-righteousness to decrease political divides
