Moral Foundations

“The Righteous Mind” Critiqued in Three Pictures

The Conservative Conundrum, and a Possible Solution

Haidt’s work presents a conundrum for conservatives. On the one hand, in one context, everything he says is right.  We should understand where both sides are coming from, realize that both sides offer valuable insights, give more benefit of the doubt, stop demonizing the other side, and build a door through the wall of the … Continue reading →

The Moral Foundations

For convenience, a short description of each Moral Foundation is offered here, making heavy use of text from Haidt’s web site, http://www.moralfoundations.org, along with a portion of a transcript I typed while watching this video of one of Haidt’s talks (carefully, hitting “pause” and “rewind” many, many times) . All such text is in italics, … Continue reading →

The Conservative Elephant

The same studies which show that the liberal morality rests on a small number of moral foundations, show that the conservative morality is built on all of them in equal balance. It includes care, fairness, and liberty, just as the liberal morality does, but it does not end there. It also depends equally on a … Continue reading →

Reason is for Winning, Not Truth Finding (and Moral Foundations are the Rider’s Tools of Reason)

In The Moral Mind: How five sets of innate intuitions guide the development of many culture-specific virtues, and perhaps even modules (1) Haidt describes moral foundations as analogous to “innate ‘taste buds’ of the moral sense,” saying “The taste buds on the tongue gather perceptual information (about sugars, acids, etc.) whereas the taste buds of … Continue reading →

Circumstances and Beliefs

Social circumstances and political beliefs make each other up in the fashion of the chicken and the egg, with the following caveat:  The scope of a person’s beliefs is bounded by the scope of the moral foundations they employ.    – The Independent Whig

The Moral Foundations

Many of the ideas presented at The Independent Whig are built upon Moral Foundations Theory, developed by Dr. Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Psychology, at the University of Virginia. For convenience, a discription of each Moral Foundation is offered here, making heavy use of text from Haidt’s web site, http://www.moralfoundations.org, along with a portion of a … Continue reading →

Conservatism and Liberalism in a Nutshell

When there’s food on the table there are many problems. When there’s no food on the table there is only one problem. The seven-foundation (including ownership) conservative morality gained freedom from an oppressive regime, and it created a new form of government designed to prevent such oppression from ever happening again. The new nation, thus … Continue reading →

Why Rep. Carson Thinks the Tea Party is Racist

Democratic Rep. Andre Carson told a Miami crowd last week that the Tea Party movement would “love” to see black Americans “hanging on a tree.” (1) He is not alone among liberals in depicting the Tea Party as racist.  Janeane Garofalo attributed the Tea Party to “racism, straight up,” (2) and Keith Olberman agreed with … Continue reading →

What is Rick Perry Talking About?

   One of the most quoted passages from Rick Perry’s book Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington is this: We are tired of being told how much salt to put on our food, what kind of cars we can drive, what kind of guns we can own (and) what kind of prayers we are … Continue reading →