I've previously written about Jonathan Haidt's approach to human moral psychology. His approach is termed the "Social Intuitionist Model" of moral motivation and it suggests that
moral behaviors are typically the product of multiple levels of moral functioning, and are usually energized by the "hotter" levels of intuition, emotion, and behavioral virtue/vice. The "cooler" levels of values, reasoning, and willpower, while still important, are proposed to be secondary to the more affect-intensive processes.
Haidt has used the metaphor of an
intellectually-nimble lawyer riding on top of a huge emotion-permeated elephant to illustrate his counter-intuitive approach, suggesting that the small articulate lawyer on top often lacks meaningful control over the elephant. Moral judgments are usually dominated by emotions such as empathy and disgust (the strength of these is represented by the big-ness of the elephant). In short, Haidt is quite sympathetic to David Hume's suggestion that moral reasoning is essentially "the slave of the passions."
In the March 25, 2010 edition of
Nature (
available here), Paul Bloom expressed concern that something important has been left out of Haidt's model. In reaction, Haidt defended himself against Bloom’s attack (see below), indicating that Bloom (whose work
Haidt admires, for the most part) has misconstrued Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model. I believe that summarizing this exchange between Haidt and Bloom sharpens the focus on the meaning of Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model.
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