Jonathan Haidt does it again, unfortunately

by Massimo Pigliucci

I have criticized social psychologist Jonathan Haidt before, specifically for what I think is his badly researched and argued contention that the Academy discriminates against conservatives (I rather think it is many conservatives who are not attracted to the academy — with all that open inquiry and low salaries). On the other hand, I do like his more nuanced research on the different sets of moral criteria assumed by liberals and conservatives, though even there he has a tendency to step over from “is” to “ought” in the sort of seamless way that rightly annoyed David Hume.

And now he has done it again. In a flabbergasting editorial published in the New York Times after the news of bin Laden’s death came out, Haidt once more begins with interesting science — a mix of (as we shall see, a bit sloppy) evolutionary biology and sociology — and ends up into moral philosophical territory, where he predictably blunders.

Before I tell you what he wrote and where I think he went wrong, let me make clear my own position on the complicated issue of bin Laden’s killing. First, I rejoiced, as any decent human being, I think, ought to do on that occasion. Second, I did not “celebrate,” i.e. went to a party, shouted in the streets, drank beer or sang God Bless America. Third, I do think the US did the right thing, all things considered. Fourth, however, the US did indeed act in defiance of international law and used its usual double standard based on American exceptionalism (just imagine what would have happened if another country had conducted a commando raid on American soil to kill an international criminal that had somehow escaped the FBI’s attention...). As I hope you can see, I hold complex and perhaps even partially contradictory views on this, which I think are appropriate to the complexity of the situation itself.

Okay, now here is Haidt. He starts out by wondering why so many people were critical of, even disturbed by, the street celebrations that spontaneously erupted in the US after the news of bin Laden’s death. And he says (emphasis mine):

“Why are so many Americans reluctant to join the party? As a social psychologist I believe that one major reason is that some people are thinking about this national event using the same moral intuitions they’d use for a standard criminal case. For example, they ask us to imagine whether it would be appropriate for two parents to celebrate the execution, by lethal injection, of the man who murdered their daughter. Of course the parents would be entitled to feel relief and perhaps even private joy. But if they threw a party at the prison gates, popping Champagne corks as the syringe went in, that would be a celebration of death and vengeance, not justice. And is that not what we saw last Sunday night when young revelers, some drinking beer, converged on Times Square and the White House?”

To which very reasonable question he astoundingly answers: “No, it is not”! And why not? Because according to Haidt “you can’t just scale up your ideas about morality at the individual level and apply them to groups and nations.” One wonders whether that “can’t” is a principle of logic, a scientific law, or what, because I thought that actually the idea that what is decent for an individual to do is also decent for a group of individuals to do is one of the cornerstones of what we like to call civilization.

But Haidt has different ideas, informed by his (mis)understanding of evolutionary theory. He proceeds to tell his readers that humans evolved by a two-step process: individual selection for selfishness and group selection for cooperativeness, just like “bees, ants and termites.” First off, the hypothesis that group selection had anything to do with human evolution is just that, a (controversial) hypothesis, far from having been established (pace my good colleague David Sloan Wilson). Second, bees, ants and termites did not evolve their social behavior by group selection, but by a different mechanism known as kin selection, which is actually closer in nature to individual selection (because it acts on “extended fitness,” i.e. the fitness you enjoy by means of propagating your genes not just on your own, but also by way of your relatives’ survival and reproduction). This, incidentally, agrees with the obvious observation that human cooperation and societal structure is nothing like that of eusocial insects.

Haidt then moves on to territory that is more familiar to him, and where the actual insightful contribution of his op-ed piece is more clearly visible. He tells us that sociologists since Émile Durkheim have written about different levels of social sentiments. At a lower level we show affection and respect for individuals, but we also engage in group-level, “collective” emotions (an oxymoron, really, since emotions are by definition experienced by individuals, not groups, but let’s let that slide), which according to Durkheim and sociologists since, explain a variety of human phenomena from team sports to warfare.

Here is how Haidt elaborates on the dynamics of collective emotions: “One such emotion [Durkheim] called ‘collective effervescence’: the passion and ecstasy that is found in tribal religious rituals when communities come together to sing, dance around a fire and dissolve the boundaries that separate them from each other. The spontaneous celebrations of last week were straight out of Durkheim.”

I’m sure they were. But were they a good thing? Haidt too asks this question, and that’s were things go badly again, as he steps from sociology (what is) to moral philosophy (what ought to be), and makes a predictable blunder. He distinguishes between nationalism and patriotism, arguing that the former is bad (because it leads to hostility toward other countries), while the latter is good (because...?, he doesn’t really say). You can think of the difference as waging aggressive war against another nation vs celebrating your team’s winning the World Cup. Clearly, the first one is bad, the second one is morally neutral (which is not at all the same as saying that it is morally good, by the way).

Now, how do we know that last week’s street celebrations were a matter of patriotism and not nationalism? We don’t, actually, but Haidt performs a nice slight of hand and tells us that research has shown that the coming together of people after the attacks of 9/11 (for instance, in donating blood for the victims) was motivated more by the former than the latter. I completely believe that, but I don’t see how it licenses the extension of the same findings to the new situation. Is blood donation on the same moral level as shouting and drinking beer?

More damning of all, Haidt concludes his piece by writing: “This is why I believe that last week’s celebrations were good and healthy. America achieved its goal — bravely and decisively — after 10 painful years. People who love their country sought out one another to share collective effervescence.” Besides the already noted fact that the “brave and decisive” action was, while justified, a bit marred by hypocrisy and the flaunting of international law, it seems to me that the people who rejoiced without celebrating were showing patriotism and compassion for the victims of 9/11, while those who were chanting “USA, USA” in the streets while holding beer cans were engaging in the most obvious and deplorable type of nationalism — again, that behavior is appropriate after winning the World Cup, not after killing someone.

Perhaps the best criticism of Haidt’s piece came from one of his own readers, Grigori Guitchounts (interestingly, a neuroscientist), from Cambridge, MA, who wrote: “Just because something is natural doesn’t mean that it is morally acceptable. This is obvious when it comes to an issue like sexual predation: men may have strong sexual urges, but most of those cannot be acted on in a morally defensible way. Science can guide our morality, but it does not determine it. Morality must be determined by philosophy rather than facts alone. We can choose whether we want to celebrate the killing of a monster, but no science will ever justify that decision.” Amen to that.