Jonathan Haidt Quotes

To discover the true principles of Morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods: They have need only of common sense.

Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good.

My company is called Talking Monkey, Inc. It's because that's what I think all people are: talking monkeys.

I think that moral philosophy is useful for framing questions, but terrible at answering them. I think moral psychology is booming right now, and we're making a lot of progress on understanding how we actually work, what our moral nature is.

The rules of morality are not the conclusion of our reason.

I'm very interested in good and evil and the moral natures of people.

Mencius said that human nature is good. I disagree with that.

My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries.

Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.

Truth is the object of philosophy, but not always of philosophers.

All men are born good.

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

Human nature is not nearly as bad as it has been thought to be.

Attempts to construct an ethic from the rules of evolution, or from psychology and sociology, end up being simply inadequate.

How can one preach goodness and love to men without at the same time offering them an interpretation of the World that justifies this goodness and this love?

Most people aren't good or bad. They're naive.

We accept that people are irrational for good Darwinian reasons. But I don't think we should be so pessimistic as to think that therefore we're forever condemned to be irrational.

Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good, and evil, in the conversation, and society of mankind. Good, and evil, are names that signify our appetites, and aversions; which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men, are different.

We need a moral philosophy in which the concept of love, so rarely mentioned now by philosophers, can once again be made central.

There are some who write, talk, and think, so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practice either the one or the other.

There is a universal moral law, as distinct from a moral code, which consists of certain statements of fact about the nature of man, and by behaving in conformity with which, man may enjoy his true freedom.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

I can only say that, while my own opinions as to ethics do not satisfy me, other people's satisfy me still less.

If you contemplate the Golden Rule, it turns out to be an injunction to live by grace rather than by what you think other people deserve.

Law never made men a whit more just.