The Independent Whig
Unconstrained Vision
Religion, Morality, and Ideology: Like Things That Should Be Judged Alike.
Introduction This post is the second half of a two part essay. In part one I argued that religions, moralities, and ideologies are different manifestations of a single underlying element of human nature: our tendency to form into groups of like-minded people and compete with other groups. In this post I continue that argument and make the additional claim that since … Continue reading
Yes, I Am “Judgmental”: An Overview of the Position of The Independent Whig
JSWagner, a reader of this blog, made a fair and well reasoned comment to the post in which I observed that Opennes Is Not A Moral Foundation. He said that I can be judgmental, and that there’s sometimes a negative tone to my writing about ideas I don’t agree with. He said that I “castigated” … Continue reading
Response to “Conservatives Good, Republican Party Bad”
NOTE: Haidt has published a follow-up to his “Conservatives Good, Republican Party Bad” post, here: I Retract My Republican-Party-Bad Post. ========================================================= On the blog section of the website for his new book “The Righteous Mind,” Jonathan Haidt posted a short essay entitled “Conservatives Good, Republican Party Bad.” I posted a comment to Dr. Haidt’s … Continue reading
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
Overview: Moral Foundations Theory Explains Much More Than Just The Political Divide
Social scientist Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory does not go far enough. Haidt suggests that moral foundations are a set of intuitions about human behavior and social interaction embedded in each of us by natural selection, and that the political divide can be traced to the different ways liberals and conservatives apply the foundations to … Continue reading
I Support Viewpoint Diversity
A politically diverse group of social scientists, natural scientists, humanists, and other scholars who want to improve our academic disciplines and universities. We share a concern about a growing problem: the loss or lack of “viewpoint diversity.” When nearly everyone in a field shares the same political orientation, certain ideas become orthodoxy, dissent is discouraged, and errors can go unchallenged.
Venn Diagram of Liberal and Conservative Traits and Moral Foundations and
The Independent Whig 