The Righteous Mind

Why do decent people end up so bitterly divided over politics and religion? Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt takes up that question by drawing on a quarter century of research into moral psychology. His central claim is that we do not reason our way to moral conclusions. Instead, our gut feelings deliver the verdict first, and reasoning mostly arrives afterward to defend it.

From there, Haidt looks at why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians so often see right and wrong differently. Each group, he argues, is responding to a different set of moral intuitions, and each is right about a good deal of what it cares most about. Rather than casting one side as the villain, he sets out to explain how each worldview makes sense from the inside.

The book is subtle but easy to follow, and it is aimed at readers on every part of the political spectrum. Haidt also asks what lets humans cooperate in large groups at all, and why that same capacity feeds our endless disputes. For anyone who would like to understand the people they disagree with instead of simply fighting them, it offers a way to start.