Jonathan Haidt Quote
But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. This is why it's so important to have intellectual & ideological diversity.
Jonathan Haidt
But if you put individuals together in the right way, such that some individuals can use their reasoning powers to disconfirm the claims of others, and all individuals feel some common bond or shared fate that allows them to interact civilly, you create a group that ends up producing good reasoning as an emergent property of the social system. This is why it's so important to have intellectual & ideological diversity.
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About Jonathan Haidt
Haidt's main scientific contributions come from the psychological field of moral foundations theory, which attempts to explain the evolutionary origins of human moral reasoning on the basis of innate, gut feelings rather than logic and reason. The theory was later extended to explain the different moral reasoning and how they relate to political ideology, with different political orientations prioritizing different sets of morals. The research served as a foundation for future books on various topics.
Haidt has written multiple books for general audiences, including The Happiness Hypothesis (2006) examining the relationship between ancient philosophies and modern science, The Righteous Mind (2012) on moral politics, and The Coddling of the American Mind (2018) on rising political polarization, mental health, and college culture. In 2024, he published The Anxious Generation, arguing that the rise of smartphones and overprotective parenting has led to a "rewiring" of childhood and increased mental illness.