Jonathan Haidt: He Knows Why We Fight

The Wall Street Journal:

Nobody who engages in political argument, and who isn’t a moron, hasn’t had to recognize the fact that decent, honest, intelligent people can come to opposite conclusions on public issues.

Jonathan Haidt, in an eye-opening and deceptively ambitious best seller, tells us why. The reason is evolution. Political attitudes are an extension of our moral reasoning; however much we like to tell ourselves otherwise, our moral responses are basically instinctual, despite attempts to gussy them up with ex-post rationalizations.

Our constellation of moral instincts arose because it helped us to cooperate. It helped us, in unprecedented speed and fashion, to dominate our planet. Yet the same moral reaction also means we exist in a state of perpetual, nasty political disagreement, talking past each other, calling each other names.

Read the whole story: The Wall Street Journal