Category Archives: Psychology
Toward a better definition of rationality
The heart of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, a book that discusses the way the mind works, is that dual cognitive forces, System 1 and System 2, control our decision making process. He argues that the rational model … Continue reading
Filed under Psychology
The moral button?
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal online is premised on whether the extent of individual human’s morality is determined by oxytocin. The article cites a number of studies showing that higher oxytocin amounts correlate with higher morality (such … Continue reading
Filed under Psychology, Social
Determinism; but what does that leave?
Jonathan Haidt’s article on Reason Online is an adaptation of his The Righteous Mind (the first post on this book appeared on Notable Tomes here), and the article presents a deterministic view of humanity. He writes about studies of twins … Continue reading
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Filed under Contemporary, Psychology
The Righteous Mind — Intriguing but lacking (Notable Tomes’s take)
Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind is an interesting and insightful read. It offers a picture of humanity that offers supporting evidence of why models that claim humanity is rational are incorrect. Particularly the evidence of mental illness (see, among other … Continue reading
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Filed under Contemporary, Psychology
Do groups evolve?
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, Post 3/3 Proponents of gene-culture coevolution argue that cultural changes prompt genetic changes, and vice versa, such that they create a feedback loop, the one … Continue reading
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Filed under Contemporary, History, Psychology
Haidt’s Continuity
One can understand Jonathan Haidt’s arguments in The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion more from reading his earlier works. A 2007 New York Times article entitled “Is ‘Do Unto Others’ Written Into Our Genes?” … Continue reading
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Filed under Contemporary, Psychology
Morality around the world
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, by Jonathan Haidt Post 2/3 “Moral matrices bind people together and blind them to the coherence, or even existence, of other matrices,” (110). Part II of Haidt’s tome, … Continue reading
Filed under Contemporary, Psychology
On inclusivity: can there be an inclusive (moral) system?
Post 1/3 Moral psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, argues that morality is innate, as opposed to a quality that comes through rationality. In his Introduction to The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, Haidt asserts that morality … Continue reading
Filed under Contemporary, Psychology