I also found the book fascinating and the elephant metaphor convincing. However I found the subtitle of the book underanalyzed. “Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion”—what makes these people “Good” is a question never considered. There’s just a sort of unstated assumption that the majority of human beings must be “Good” even as he aknowledges the presence of evil people in history (i.e. Hitler.) What makes someone a good person is to me a necessary analysis to make the moral foundations theory sensical.
@Yanima—A few reviewers have noted the various unstated and uninterrogated assumptions and biases in Haidt’s book. It’s what make it difficult to review.
If one is to state and interrogate all of those assumptions and biases, in order to clarify and critique, then one ends writing a very long book review. An example is Dennis Junk’s “THE ENLIGHTENED HYPOCRISY OF JONATHAN HAIDT’S RIGHTEOUS MIND.”
But that isn’t to say there isn’t much of interest as well, if he oversteps the evidence provided on too many occasions, and even as he fumbles some of his interpretations.
I also found the book fascinating and the elephant metaphor convincing. However I found the subtitle of the book underanalyzed. “Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion”—what makes these people “Good” is a question never considered. There’s just a sort of unstated assumption that the majority of human beings must be “Good” even as he aknowledges the presence of evil people in history (i.e. Hitler.) What makes someone a good person is to me a necessary analysis to make the moral foundations theory sensical.
@Yanima—A few reviewers have noted the various unstated and uninterrogated assumptions and biases in Haidt’s book. It’s what make it difficult to review.
If one is to state and interrogate all of those assumptions and biases, in order to clarify and critique, then one ends writing a very long book review. An example is Dennis Junk’s “THE ENLIGHTENED HYPOCRISY OF JONATHAN HAIDT’S RIGHTEOUS MIND.”
But that isn’t to say there isn’t much of interest as well, if he oversteps the evidence provided on too many occasions, and even as he fumbles some of his interpretations.