Morality

Last summer, I read Jonathan Haidt's book The Happiness Hypothesis. It was one of the best books I read all year--basically teases apart the idea of "happiness" and tries to establish how and why we ever feel happy.

Haidt's gone on from there to do some really powerful work on morality. He's even got a site where you can test your own moral compass. This talk at the TED Conference lays out the premises of his newest work. According to Haidt, morality is a complex of several different values, all of which at work simultaneously; the values have to do with whom we respect, how we deal with purity, and how we see loyalty and fairness. No surprise there, right? The great piece of Haidt's theory comes at the end: none of us has "the right" morality. Effective moral reasoning seems to emerge from the interplay of different moral perspectives.

Basically, liberals and conservatives see the world through different moral frames; both have strengths, and a healthy society needs both frames to be morally balanced.

I love Haidt's work because it seems to validate my own suspicion: I'd rather be a liberal in relationship with conservatives than a liberal in relationship to other liberals. I'd rather be in a church with liberals and conservatives than a church with too many liberals.

Balance, within any institution, is essential. If balance is lacking, blindness, if not death, is inevitable. Check out the video (it's about 20 minutes) and see if you agree.