Jonathan Haidt: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives

Jonathan Haidt: The Moral Roots of Liberals and Conservatives

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Imagine two American friends traveling together to Italy. There, they see Michelangelo's statue of David. When they get close enough, they are frozen in awe. The first one—let's call him Adam—is mesmerized by the beauty of the unparalleled form of the human body in this sculpture. The second one—let's call him Bill—feels deeply embarrassed by what he sees in the middle of this image. Now, my question to you is: which one do you think votes for George Bush, and which one for Al Gore?

You don't need to raise your hands, because we all share the same political stereotypes. We all know the answer is Bill. In this case, our mental stereotype matches reality. It is a fact that this trait, which we call "openness to experience," is seen more among liberals than conservatives. People who are experiential are eager for novelty, diversity, new ideas, and travel. People who possess less of this trait are drawn to things that are familiar, safe, and reliable.

If you are familiar with this human trait, you can understand many puzzles about human behavior. You can understand why artists are so different from accountants. You can even guess what kind of books they like to read, where they like to travel, what food they like to eat. Once you grasp this, you understand why some people go to the fast-food restaurant "Applebee's," but not the people you know. (Laughter) This trait also explains people's political orientations. The renowned researcher in this field, Robert McCrae, says: "Open individuals have an affinity for liberal, progressive, left-wing political views"—they like open and dynamic societies—"whereas closed individuals prefer conservative, traditional, right-wing views."

This characteristic even tells us what kind of groups people gravitate toward. Well, this description relates to a group I found on the internet. What kind of people join a global group that welcomes individuals from all cultures, seeks a deeper meaning in the world, and aspires to use that better understanding of the world to build a better future for all of us? And seeks a deeper meaning in the world—this was actually written by someone named TED. (Laughter) Well, if "openness to experience" predicts becoming a liberal, and who joins TED, then shouldn't we conclude that most TED members are liberal? Let's see. I'd like to ask you, if you are liberal, meaning you lean left (I mean on social issues), to raise your hand; then it will be the conservatives' turn, and then I'll add a third option, because I know there are some "libertarians" here too. So now, please, everyone who is liberal or left-leaning, raise your hand. Those who think they are liberal or left-leaning, raise your hands. Good. Up! Now, libertarians, raise your hands. Good, there are ten or twelve. Now, those who think they are conservative or right-leaning. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5—that makes about ten.

This gets a bit difficult. If our goal is to better understand the world, our lack of moral diversity makes the task hard. Because when people all share a single opinion and single values, they become a team, and in a team, you can't think freely. When the liberal team loses, like in 2004 and almost in 2000 when they lost, we console ourselves. (Laughter) We try to explain why half of America voted for the other team. We tell ourselves they are either blinded by religion or they are stupid. (Laughter) (Applause) If you think half of America votes for Republicans because they are blind, I must tell you that you are trapped in a moral matrix, a specific moral matrix. By matrix, I mean the movie The Matrix. But I am here today to give you a choice.

You either take the blue pill and cling to a comforting illusion, or you choose the red pill, learn moral psychology, and step out of the moral matrix. Well, since I know — (Applause) well, I guess I have my answer. I was going to ask which pill you would take, but there's no need. You are all wonderfully eager for new experiences; it even seems tasty, so let's go with the red pill. Let's do a little moral psychology and see where it takes us.

Let's start from the beginning. What is morality and where does it come from? Let's start from the beginning. What is morality and where does it come from? The worst idea in psychology is that the mind is a blank slate at birth. The worst idea in psychology is that the mind is a blank slate at birth. Evolutionary psychology has shown that babies are born with a great deal of information about the physical and social world, and are programmed to learn some things easily and others with a bit more difficulty. The best definition I have ever heard for innateness — which explains a lot — comes from the renowned scientist, Gary Marcus, who says: “The initial organization of the brain does not depend that much on experience. Nature provides a first draft, which experience then revises. ‘Built-in’ does not mean unmalleable; it means organized in advance of experience.” So, what is written on that first draft of morality in the mind? To find out, my colleague Craig Joseph and I combed through the literature of anthropology, cultural variations in morality, and evolutionary psychology, looking for commonalities. We were looking for foundational moral principles that people talk about across different disciplines, across different cultures, and even across different species. We found five commonalities across all of these, which we called the five foundations of morality.

The first is “Care/harm.” We are all mammals with a host of hormonal-neural settings that bond us together, that make us feel sympathy for others, especially the vulnerable. It gives us a strong feeling against those who cause harm to others. This moral foundation accounts for 70% of the moral statements I have heard so far at TED.

The second is “Fairness/reciprocity.” It is not very evident in animals but is quite apparent in humans. Norman Rockwell's painting is called “The Golden Rule.” This second foundation accounts for 30% of the moral statements made at TED. And, as Karen Armstrong says, it is the basis of many religions.

The third foundation is “Loyalty to the group.” Groups are found among animals too, though usually very small groups, mostly consisting of family members. Only among humans do we find very large groups that cooperate and unite — and of course, they unite to fight other groups. This probably has its roots in our tribal past, and it seems so enjoyable that even if we don't have a tribe, we make one for ourselves. (Laughter) Sports is to war as pornography is to sex. We want to exercise and cultivate some very, very ancient drives.

The fourth foundation is “Respect for authority.” Here you see submissive gestures from two very closely related species, but authority in humans is not based on force and brutality as much as it is in other primates. It is based more on voluntary respect and liking. The fifth foundation is “Purity/sanctity.” This painting is called “The Allegory of Chastity.” But purity is not just about suppressing female sexuality. It is about any idea that tells you how you can become pure by controlling your body and what you put into it. Political conservatives talk more about morality in sex, while liberals talk more about eating correctly and better. Food has become a very moral category today; people talk a lot about the purity of food, as something that is going to enter the body.

I imagine these are the five principles that are pre-drafted in the infant's mind. I think these are the things we bring with us from birth and later work on. But as my son Max grows up in a liberal university town, how will these drafts be cultivated? And how will he ultimately differ from a child growing up 100 kilometers away in Virginia? To think about cultural diversity, let's consider a different example. If there really are five principles in the way the mind works — five innate, emotional principles — then we can look at the moral mind like a radio with five channels whose settings can be adjusted. My colleagues Brian Nosek and Jesse Graham and I created a questionnaire and put it on the website www.YourMorals.org, which 30,000 people have taken so far; you can too. The results look like this. These are the results from 23,000 American citizens. On the left are the scores of liberals, on the right the scores of conservatives, and in the middle, moderates. The blue line shows people's average responses to questions about "harm."

So, you can see that people care about "care versus harm." They often care about categories like this. Of course, as the slope of the graph shows, liberals care a little more. And the same goes for fairness. But look at the other three lines; for liberals, the scores are very low. Liberals are essentially saying, "No, these are not matters of morality. Ingroup loyalty, purity, and such have nothing to do with morality." But as people become more conservative, these values rise. You could say liberals are sort of two-channel, or have a two-foundation morality, whereas conservatives are five-channel, or have a five-foundation morality.

These findings hold true in every country we've researched. This is data from 1,100 candidates. I'll skip through a few slides. England, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, East Asia, and South Asia. Notice that in all these graphs, the slope for the ingroup, authority, and purity sections is lower. This indicates that in no country is there disagreement about harm and fairness. Everyone — although one can debate what is fair — agrees that not causing harm and fairness are important. Moral debates across cultures are mainly about ingroup loyalty, authority, and purity.

This effect is so strong that no matter how we ask the question, we get the same answer. In a recent study, we asked people to imagine they want to buy a dog. You choose a specific breed you know about. Imagine this particular breed has an independent mind and is like a friend to its owner. The result? Well, if you're a liberal, you say, "Hey, that's great!" because liberals like to tell their dog, "Please fetch that stick!" (Laughter) But if you're a conservative, this might not appeal to you. And you find that a dog that is loyal to its owner and quickly bonds with strangers — for conservatives, loyalty is good — a dog that is loyal is good. But for liberals, it's as if this dog has become a Republican candidate. (Laughter)

So you might now say, alright, these differences exist between liberals and conservatives, but what makes those other three principles moral? Aren't they essentially the basis of "xenophobia," "authoritarianism," and "puritanism"? What makes them moral? The answer, I think, lies in this triptych by Hieronymus Bosch, "The Garden of Earthly Delights." In the first panel, we see the moment of creation's beginning. Everything is orderly, everything is beautiful, all people and animals are doing what they should, where they should be. But then, as is the way of the world, things change. Every person does whatever they please. Some of you might say it resembles the 60s. (Laughter) But the 60s eventually lead to the 70s, where these transgressions become even a bit more pronounced. Of course, Bosch calls this hell.

So this tripartite painting underscores the fact that order tends to decay. So this tripartite painting underscores the fact that order tends to decay. A reality called social entropy. But for those who think this is a Christian idea, because Christians have a problem with pleasure, here is another similar story published as an article in the journal Nature; where Ernst Fehr and Simon Gachter had people replay this common dilemma. In this game, you give people money, then in each round they can put their money into a common pot, then the experimenter doubles the money in the pot and divides it among them. It's a familiar story, when you ask people to spend their money in a way that brings them no personal gain. And they expect others to do the same, while they themselves wouldn't mind a free ride. At the start of the game, almost everyone cooperates — the game is played completely anonymously, of course — then they quickly say, “But others aren't contributing that much. In the first round, they give half their money. Then they quickly say, “But others aren't contributing that much. I don't want to be taken advantage of, I'm not putting money in anymore.” And thus, cooperation starts well and gradually declines to near zero.

And then — here's the point — in the 7th round of the game, they told people, “Now, a new rule! If you want, you can give some money to punish those who don't cooperate.” As soon as people heard this, cooperation surged again. There's been a lot of research in this area, and this punishment really works. Good deeds alone are not enough; sometimes punishment works too. Even if it's shaming or baseless rumors. To get a large group of people to cooperate, you also need punishment. Research even shows that religion — or compelling people to worship God — often steers society towards social cooperation.

Some say religion is something that evolved through cultural and biological evolution. Some say religion is something that evolved through cultural and biological evolution to maximize trust between groups, on the one hand, to maximize trust between groups, on the one hand, so they could then compete more effectively with other groups. I think this is true, although it's debatable. Because I think the greatest wonder of the world is not the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon is really simple. It was just created by a lot of water, wind, and a lot of time, and ultimately the Grand Canyon was made. It's not complex. What's complex is that within this very Grand Canyon, or on the African savanna, or on the frozen coasts of Alaska, there were people who lived together in groups, and then these very small villages turned into mighty cities like Babylon and Rome. How did that really happen? That's a real miracle, harder to explain than the Grand Canyon.

It seems they used all 5 tools of moral psychology at once. Yes, you certainly worry about harm, you certainly need a justice system. Having subgroups helps build a larger group, provided the subgroups themselves have internal structure, and provided you also have an ideology that suppresses the base self so you can reach the highest degree. And now we come to the unsolvable puzzle between liberals and conservatives. Because liberals reject three of these principles. They say, “Let's celebrate diversity, not membership in a group.” They say, “Let's question authority.” And they also say, “Don't impose your laws on us.”

Liberals have a great model for this. Traditional authority, traditional morality, can be oppressive for women and a number of people. Liberals speak up for the weak and the oppressed. They want change and justice, even if it leads to disorder. On the T-shirt it says, "Enough foolishness, let's have a revolution." On the one hand, if you believe in freedom of thought, revolution is good, it's change, it's an exciting thing. On the other hand, conservatives are in favor of tradition. They want order even if it comes at a cost to some. The great conservative insight is that order is hard-won. It is valuable and easily lost. As Edmund Burke said, "The restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are to be reckoned among their rights." This was said after the turmoil of the French Revolution. So once you understand this — you see that liberals and conservatives each contribute in some way, to form a balance — then I think the way opens up to step out of the moral matrix.

This lies at the heart of all Asian religious teachings. Think of yin and yang. Yin and yang are not enemies. They don't dislike each other. Both yin and yang are necessary, like night and day, for the world to move forward. Something similar appears in Hinduism. There are many gods in Hinduism. One of them is Vishnu, the preserver god, and another is Shiva, the destroyer god. These gods are actually like two spirits in one body. Vishnu is on the left, so we can refer to him as the conservative god; Shiva is on the right, so Shiva is a liberal god — and they all work together. You see something similar in Buddhism. These two verses, I think, are the most profound insights ever achieved in moral psychology. The Zen master Seng-tsan said: "If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease." Now, unfortunately, this is the disease that has afflicted many of the world's leaders. But before you feel a sense of superiority over George Bush, or throw stones, ask yourself: Do you accept this? Can you accept stepping out of the battlefront of "good" and "evil"? Can you not be for or against anything?

Now, what's the point? What should we do? Well, if you take the great insights of the Asian philosophers and combine them with recent research in moral psychology, I think you reach these conclusions: that our righteous minds were designed by evolution to unite us into groups and incite us against other groups, and then blind us to the truth. So what should you do now? Am I saying don't try? To turn to Seng-tsan and abandon the effort to be for or against something? No, not at all. I'm not saying that. There are many groups working very hard, using a great deal of their talent, to make the world a better place, fighting wrongs, solving problems.

But as we learned from Samantha in her story, you can't just say, "You're wrong and I'm right." Because as you heard, everyone thinks they are right. There are many problems to solve; we are needed to create change in other people. And if you want to change other people, you first have to understand who we are — what our moral psychology is, understand that we all think we are right — then step out — even for a moment, step out and measure it against Seng-tsan. Step out of the moral matrix, try to see it as a game where everyone thinks they are right, and everyone, at least, has a reason for themselves — even if you disagree with them — step out. And if you do that, you have taken the first essential step toward moral humility, toward pulling yourself out of the self-righteousness that is a normal human state. Think of the Dalai Lama. Think of the vast scope of the Dalai Lama's moral authority — all of that power stems from his humility.

I think my goal at this conference and the goal of TED is that we are a group passionate about making the world a better place. The people here are passionate about bettering the world. And there is also an emotional commitment to this fact. So I think the answer is to use this emotional commitment, in the direction of building a better future. Thank you. (Applause)

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