Over de ‘moral foundations’ van Jonathan Haidt

Culturen verschillen. De Fransen houden van baguettes en existentialisme, Amerikanen van barbecue en onbegrensd optimisme, en Belgen van frieten en zichzelf afvragen of ze überhaupt een nationale identiteit hebben. Toch bestaan er fundamentele gelijkenissen. Bijvoorbeeld gedeelde moraal of wetgeving. Tijdens een interview voor Farnam Street sprak Shane Parrish met Jonathan Haidt, auteur, sociaal psycholoog en professionele duider van waarom mensen elkaar zo graag moreel veroordelen. Haidt bespreekt de zes gedeelde “moral foundations” die overal ter wereld opduiken: van een hip koffiezaakje in Brooklyn tot een afgelegen stam in het Amazonewoud die geen woord heeft voor “cappuccino met haver-melk.”

What is morality? Morality is a thing that people do. People in the world do similar things: cooking, cuisine, music, language. And people will make judgements about each other. People talk about or judge others. Humans create normative worlds. Norms emerge quickly. For example. How do we address each other? What is appropriate? Can I take that thing you were using? When humans interact, they almost immediately develop behavioural norms. And then they judge each other based on those norms. That’s morality.

How can it be that morality is very different around the world? There are feudal societies, egalitarian societies, cannibalistic societies, trading societies. How can that be? The elements of morality are often similar. As in a psychologist, I thought that was cool. I used to read Carl Jung, and he talked about archetypes. And he got rather mystical about it.

I took an evolutionary view. As our tongues contain receptor cells for five different properties of the world. We can taste: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Because our ancestors ate fruit and meat, we evolved to have tongues responsive to this.

In the same way, what are the taste buds of the moral sense? We scanned anthropological and evolutionary literature looking for matches. We hypothesised that the best candidates as taste-buds of the moral sense form our moral foundation.

1. Care and compassion, because we’re mammals and we nurture our young.
   • We love: attachment, protection, and empathy
   • We hate: injury, suffering, and pain
2. Fairness and reciprocity, versus cheating. We’re all sensitive to that.
   • We love: justice, reciprocity, and altruism
   • We hate: unfairness, inequality, and dishonesty
3. Loyalty. Group loyalty versus betrayal.
   • We love: patriotism, self-sacrifice, and allegiance
   • We hate: treachery, duplicity, and selfishness
4. Authority versus subversion. We’re hierarchical creatures, like most primates.
   • We love: respect, tradition, and customs
   • We hate: usurpation, insubordination, and defiance
5. Sanctity or purity, versus degradation. Here we’re different from other primates because we have a sense of disgust.
   • We love: purity, righteousness, and holiness
   • We hate: contamination, immorality, and sin
6. Liberty or autonomy. For example, if you restrain a kid’s arm or an animal’s arm, they will want to escape. The Hebrew Bible tells the story of the Jewish escape from bondage in Egypt.
   • We love: freedom, choice, and autonomy
   • We hate: bullies, oppression, and slavery

We assume that every human in the world has these taste bust. But your culture may or may not build on them.

Oftewel, we hebben allemaal het potentieel om deze morele principes te omarmen, maar het hangt sterk af van of we zijn opgegroeid met een liefde voor democratische idealen of een diepgeworteld geloof in de kracht van bureaucratie. Haidt’s werk biedt een manier om te begrijpen waarom sommige mensen hun morele fundamenten stevig bouwen op vrijheid en autonomie, terwijl anderen kiezen voor autoriteit en loyaliteit, en waarom iedereen ervan overtuigd is dat zíj het bij het rechte eind hebben.

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Bron: Jonathan Haidt: When Good Intentions Go Bad, aflevering 61 van The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish, 2 juli 2019, vanaf 1:05:00 achteraan de podcast.