Jonathan Haidt is a moral psychologist. He recently published a book called “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion”.

Jonathan Haidt is an American liberal. He suggests that liberals have long believed that their political positions have been developed through more reasoned, rational, informed and thoughtful processes than conservatives have. They also believe that conservatives don’t really care much about morality – that they are a bit mean spirited – caring only for themselves and not caring much about the fate of others – or even of the planet. A lifetime of research has convinced Haidt that these beliefs are inaccurate, even dangerous.

Haidt’s first conclusion is that nobody’s morality – liberal or conservative – is based initially on reason. Consider the following story:

Julie and Mark, who are sister and brother, are traveling together in France. They are both on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying alone in a cabin near the beach. They decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie is already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. They both enjoy it, but they decide not to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret between them, which makes them feel even closer to each other.

What is your reaction to the story? Did Julie and Mark do something wrong? Why?

Haidt has used this and hundreds of other stories to test reactions around the globe and in many cultures. He has found that people instinctively come to a conclusion about “right” or “wrong” long before they have had an opportunity to reflect on the issues at stake. He concluded that when people provide a rationale for their moral positions, the rationale is not really what brought them to their moral position, but rather what they used to explain why they have that moral position. The moral position itself came from a set of intuitive emotions, not from a process of moral reasoning.

Conscious reasoning is carried out largely for the purpose of persuasion, rather than discovery. The brain makes hundreds of judgments very rapidly, often based simply on the particular words that are used to describe a situation. If you are a partisan, and most of us are, then you are preprogrammed to act a certain way when you hear certain words. Words like Clinton, Bush, flag, taxes, welfare, and pro-life would all be examples of that. When those words are used in a phrase or sentence, we are ready to go in a certain direction long before our mind has had an opportunity to evaluate what is being said.

It is not that liberals are very moral and conservatives are very amoral. Rather it is that their moral frameworks are different. Liberals, for example, put a big priority on caring for others. They see the world as essentially unfair, where wealthy and powerful groups consolidate their privileges by creating victims – oppressing underdogs and less powerful groups. Conservatives also uphold caring for others, but the “others” they want to see cared for are more likely to be members of their own groups – especially folks who have sacrificed for the sake of the group e.g. soldiers.

Conservatives care a lot about loyalty, including loyalty to their own nation, sometimes at the expense of other nations. They care about order and justice and believe that we need to respect authority if we are protect order and fend off chaos. Liberals on the other hand, define themselves in part by their opposition to authority and power, and out of concern for vulnerable people in other nations are often critical of their own nation. This feels like betrayal to conservatives.

Liberals think of governments as agents of liberation. They look to governments to defend the weak against oppression by the strong. Conservatives see governments as agents of oppression. They resent government programs that restrict personal or corporate liberty through taxes, regulations and interference with the marketplace.

Haidt suggests that over the past few decades liberals and conservatives have become increasingly polarized in their views. It is difficult to have constructive dialogue between the two. This is a problem because both groups have important perspectives to contribute to the most important challenges of our time.

If we accept the author’s premise that there are good people on both ends of the political spectrum, and that each have something important to say about how to live together in healthy communities, then the increasing polarization is a big problem. If we bind ourselves to ideological groups that blind us to each other’s arguments, and that cause us to fight each other as though the fate of the world depends on our side winning each battle, then we will not move forward to create a better world for all.

Since our moral values are more a matter of intuition than of reasoning, the most important thing we can do to build bridges to the other side is to cultivate positive social connections with some folk who hold views different from own. If we really want to change someone's mind on a moral or political matter, we'll need to care about that person, and see things from that person's angle as well as our own. And if we do truly see it the other person's way – deeply and intuitively – we might even find our own mind opening in response. Empathy is an antidote to righteousness, although it's very difficult to empathize across a moral divide. If you want to change someone's mind about a moral or political issue, try to understand the other person’s position first.