Jonathan Haidt

If I have a mission in life, it is to convince people that everyone is morally motivated - everyone except for psychopaths.

— Jonathan Haidt

Trying to run Congress without human relationships is like trying to run a car without motor oil. Should we be surprised when…

— Jonathan Haidt

Understanding the simple fact that morality differs around the world, and even within societies, is the first step toward understanding your righteous…

— Jonathan Haidt

People can believe pretty much whatever they want to believe about moral and political issues, as long as some other people near…

— Jonathan Haidt

If our goal is to understand the world, to seek a deeper understanding of the world, our general lack of moral diversity…

— Jonathan Haidt

Liberals tend to be much more concerned about business and corporations as the oppressors. They look to government as the solution. On…

— Jonathan Haidt

“Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines delusion as “a false conception and persistent belief unconquerable by reason in something that has no…

— Jonathan Haidt

I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right…

— Jonathan Haidt

“The god Krishna says: I love the man who hates not nor exults, who mourns not nor desires … who is the…

— Jonathan Haidt

On the religious Right and religious people in general have the feeling that the world is not just material, the world is…

— Jonathan Haidt

Happiness requires changing yourself and changing your world. It requires pursuing your own goals and fitting in with others. Different people at…

— Jonathan Haidt

“But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the…

— Jonathan Haidt

“life is much like a movie we walk into well after its opening scene, and we will have to step out long…

— Jonathan Haidt

I think that we are passionate creatures who really live our fullest life when we are deeply engaged, when we feel successes,…

— Jonathan Haidt

I think of myself as a social scientist. In order to get hired and to get promoted, we're forced to declare a…

— Jonathan Haidt

“The social intuitionist model offers an explanation of why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: because moral reasons are the tail…

— Jonathan Haidt

Psychotherapy can help some people, especially people who are neurotic, who are always making problems for themselves. We are like a rider…

— Jonathan Haidt

We scientists have way too much a tendency to simplify problems. I guess it actually comes to us naturally. Take the simplest…

— Jonathan Haidt

I think moral philosophy is speculation on how we ought to live together done by people who have very little clue how…

— Jonathan Haidt

Some comedians really are funnier than others. Some people really are more beautiful than others. But these are true only because of…

— Jonathan Haidt

Religion and science, for example, are often though to be opponents, but as I have shown, the insights of ancient religions and…

— Jonathan Haidt

“Words of wisdom, the meaning of life, p e r h a p s even the answer sought by Borges's librarians—all of…

— Jonathan Haidt

“Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into…

— Jonathan Haidt

In college, I was dead set on being a philosophy major, because I wanted to figure out the meaning of life. Four…

— Jonathan Haidt

I'll suggest that the happiness hypothesis offered by Buddha and the Stoics should be amended: Happiness comes from within, and happiness comes…

— Jonathan Haidt

“I find it ironic that liberals generally embrace Darwin and reject “intelligent design” as the explanation for design and adaptation in the…

— Jonathan Haidt

“If you find yourself in a Whole Foods store, there’s an 89 percent chance that the county surrounding you voted for Barack…

— Jonathan Haidt

“Moral matrices bind people together and blind them to the coherence, or even existence, of other matrices. This makes it very difficult…

— Jonathan Haidt

In real life, however, you don't react to what someone did; you react only to what you think she did, and the…

— Jonathan Haidt

“transformational leaders understand (at least implicitly) that human beings have a dual nature. They set up organizations that engage, to some degree,…

— Jonathan Haidt

The consistent finding of psychological research is that we are fairly accurate in our perceptions of others. It's our self-perceptions that are…

— Jonathan Haidt

You can see the rider serving the elephant when people are morally dumbfounded. They have strong gut feelings about what is right…

— Jonathan Haidt

Once you understand the power of stimulus control, you can use it to your advantage by changing the stimuli in your environment…

— Jonathan Haidt

If you are in passionate love and want to celebrate your passion, read poetry. If your ardor has calmed and you want…

— Jonathan Haidt

Do people believe in human rights because such rights actually exist, like mathematical truths, sitting on a cosmic shelf next to the…

— Jonathan Haidt

The most important thing to realize is we're not blank slates at birth. We don't start off with nothing in our heads,…

— Jonathan Haidt

The social intuitionist model offers an explanation of why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: because moral reasons are the tail…

— Jonathan Haidt

Even if you have a brain predisposed to liberalism, you might end up with some conservative friends or find inspiring conservative role…

— Jonathan Haidt

I think sociologists are among the best at thinking about emergence, of thinking about the ways that the society is more than…

— Jonathan Haidt

Societies that exclude the exoskeleton of religion should reflect carefully to what will happen to them over several generations. We don’t really…

— Jonathan Haidt