Jonathan Haidt’s Three-Axis Model

I recommend this half-hour video. He talks about a near-far axis, in which people close to you matter more than people far away. He talks about a hierarchy axis, in which you treat people higher on the totem pole differently from people who are lower down. And he talks about a divinity axis, where some actions are considered sacred and others disgusting. However, there is much more in his talk, which I think you will find stimulating.

For politics, I prefer my own three-axis model, but Haidt is very interesting. You can see that I have borrowed his views on libertarians as logical thinkers.

3 thoughts on “Jonathan Haidt’s Three-Axis Model

  1. Haidt’s thesis, which I first encountered in his book, immediately resonated with my instincts on morality.

    The idea in the video that I don’t remember from the book comes only at the end, when he describes the shift in the objects of the purity dimension. Liberals’ aversion to “chemicals”, GMOs and vaccines are direct replacements for kosher/halal proscriptions. “Vermin” and corpses (now in the form of zombies and vampires) still produce disgust among liberals.

    There was a political effort to characterize all hetero sex as rape, that is somewhat now echoed in campus behavior seminars. I’d say it’s a safe bet that liberals will eventually come to treat some sex practices as abhorrent, although I can’t say what they’ll be. Perhaps (stretching) when we have sex robots, recreational human/human sex, or as per Asimov, any physical contact will take on that character.

  2. I like Haidt’s models, the 5 senses and the three axes, but i think he maps ideology onto them incorrectly, and thus gets the 20th century wrong. He over weights views on sex and misses how much progressive ideology is neo-puritanical in every other way. In many ways, conservatives and liberals are flip sides on the same coin, each caring about separate group level problems. Libertarians are the only ones who lack a strong sense of disgust. It makes sense their numbers are small. In this way, I prefer your model to his when it comes to predicting moral beliefs of political groups.

    Your new blog is excellent, btw

  3. I like Arnold’s 3-axis model, but I think it maps best onto actual politics in Britain around 1895-1914:

    Tories – Authority, Civilization
    Liberals – Liberty (shading toward Equality over time)
    Labour – the Oppressed

    Pre-WWI Britain was, in many ways, a fabulously successful society that probably had more impact on the rest of the world than did American politics, which have always been distorted by the 2-party system.

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