The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology

2007/05/18 by Jonathan Haidt · 2,416 citations
Neuroscience · Psychology · #Cultural Differences and Values #Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion #Environmental ethics #Epistemology #Harm #Law #Loyalty #Moral authority #Moral development #Moral disengagement #Moral psychology #Moral reasoning #Morality #Philosophy #Political science #Psychology #Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment #Social cognitive theory of morality #Social psychology #Sociology

paper · doi:10.1126/science.1137651

published in Science 316(5827), 998-1002 (American Association for the Advancement of Science)

openalex publication_date 2007/05/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

People are selfish, yet morally motivated. Morality is universal, yet culturally variable. Such apparent contradictions are dissolving as research from many disciplines converges on a few shared principles, including the importance of moral intuitions, the socially functional (rather than truth-seeking) nature of moral thinking, and the coevolution of moral minds with cultural practices and institutions that create diverse moral communities. I propose a fourth principle to guide future research: Morality is about more than harm and fairness. More research is needed on the collective and religious parts of the moral domain, such as loyalty, authority, and spiritual purity.

Citations

• The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.
• The unbearable automaticity of being.
• The case for motivated reasoning.
• Evolution of indirect reciprocity
• The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism
• An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment

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• Moral Foundations Theory
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• Social Justice and Social Order: Binding Moralities across the Political Spectrum
• On the Wrong Track: Process and Content in Moral Psychology
• Searching for Moral Dumbfounding: Identifying Measurable Indicators of Moral Dumbfounding
• Mind Perception Is the Essence of Morality
• Shunning [wikipedia]

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