The irrationality of Iowa first

NPR and some other media outlets have aired interviews with Iowans on why Iowa always gets to go first. Who goes second get far less coverage, but the same logic presumably applies. If what some Iowans say is representative of at least half of its residents, most are an arrogant bunch. More disturbingly but not surprisingly, Iowans are not logical.

The Iowa is best “rationale”

Like most empty political rhetoric, there is usually a big disconnect between rhetoric and the real world. The rational for why Iowa and New Hampshire should always go first and second fits that pattern. For Iowa first, one politically active Iowan argues this: “The real reason we're first in the nation now is because of what we do. We take this real seriously . . . . You know, we ask really good questions. We ask follow-up questions . . . . We look them in the eye like I am you right now. It's real. It's one-on-one vetting of candidates. Are you for real? Not a TV spot, not money — what's in your heart?" Ah yes, that’s the good old, tried and true, being serious, asking questions and follow-ups and looking into someone’s eyeballs to see their hearts rationale.

Looking into eyes and hearts falls short of former president Dubya’s more sophisticated analytic technique of looking into eyeballs and souls tactic, but it’s a good start. As Dubya put it regarding his tactic as applied to the murderous Vladimir Putin: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. . . . I was able to get a sense of his soul.” That worked out well, didn’t it? Anyway, eyeball and heart looking is one reason for Iowa first.

Among other things, that vacuous drivel ignores the fact that candidates don’t spend nearly as much time in other states. Most residents (maybe 99.999%) in most other states have essentially no chance to look any candidate in the eye and ask anything. In states other than Iowa or New Hampshire, there is nothing to take seriously in person or any candidate eyeballs and heart to stare into. How many cozy town hall meetings have all major candidates held in California, Texas, Colorado, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Montana, Ohio, Nebraska or dozens of other states since last June? None is much closer to the mark than 20. Zero is probably the correct answer for every one of those of states.

Obviously, the feeble “Iowa is best rationale” says that since Iowans pay attention, that implies that no one else does and thus no other state deserve to go first. That’s sheer nonsense. And offensive.

Another Iowa first rationale rejects the obvious differences between Iowa and the rest of the country. An Iowan rebuttal to that argument is this: “Is it fair that Iowa goes first? What's fair in politics? I mean, seriously. Yeah, OK, we're like 97 percent white, and we're really rural, and we don't look like a microcosm of America. But so what?”

Ah yes, that’s the good old rock-solid “but so what” rationale coupled with the “politics isn’t fair” sucker punch. At least the admission of unfairness strikes a chord of reality. That’s one plucked string of the harp that rings true.

Yet another rationale is the good old, “if not Iowa then who?” argument. The obvious answer to that non-rationale is easy: Anyone but Iowa and New Hampshire. Who goes first and second could rotate among one or more states or regions of the country.

An indefensible, irrational process

The enormous impact of Iowa and New Hampshire on selecting presidential candidates is indefensible and irrational. In Iowa, it skews the process at the national via an indefensibly arcane caucus process. For Iowa, only 20-25% of the voting age population usually participate in its caucuses. With a population of 3.1 million and about 2.1 million registered voters, a grand total of about 420,000 to 525,000 Iowa voters get to significantly decide who the rest of us get to support or not. Some of those lucky few out of the over 150 million registered American voters have a chance to look into candidate’s eyes, see candidate hearts, ask their questions, follow-up questions and then decide in their cozy, small state comfort who the rest of us gets to vote for.

To be fair, many or most Iowa and New Hampshire residents may not feel superior about their unwarranted role. Americans are not always blinded by their ideology or morals. Some understand the unfairness inherent in our system of politics. With America’s corrupt two-party system, things usually are the way they are because that serves the two parties’ perceived needs. If Iowa forever goes first and New Hampshire forever second, that is because the two parties see that serves their own interests. Rationality and fairness have nothing to do with it.

Reason can be compatible with intuition in politics

At least since Greek philosopher Plato’s time (427-327 BC), people have considered the roles of intuition and reason in human thinking and cognition or perception. Intuition and reason are different biological processes. Intuition is defined as a rapid understanding or cognition of something without conscious reasoning or thinking. Intuition includes making moral judgments and eliciting personal emotions or passions. By contrast, reason is defined to be a conscious application of logic or analytical thought to situations or problems. Reason is a necessarily conscious process or something within our awareness. Sometimes an intuition or desire and reason conflict with either one capable of shaping a person’s ultimate judgment, decision and behavior.

The question is what are the roles, approximate or precise, that intuition and reason play in shaping our thinking, beliefs and behavior? Over the centuries, the tree basic theories arose. Plato believed that reason, being superior to our intuition and passions, ought to generally dominate our thinking and passions. Later, the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) argued that intuition or passion governs human behavior with reason playing only a subordinate role. Hume argued that reasoning based on premises (inductive reasoning) and resulting causality cannot be justified rationally. He believed that human belief in causality results from experience and custom, not logic. Finally, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) concluded that intuition and reason were and should be more or less in balance, with either one having a similar or equal capacity to decide our beliefs and actions.

One social scientist, Johnathan Haidt, criticized Plato’s perception of our cognitive biology. He argues that as “an intuitionist, I’d say that the worship of reason is itself an illustration of one of the most long-lived delusions in Western history: the rationalist delusion.” Available evidence argues that Hume was more right than Plato and Jefferson. Social science research strongly suggests that humans are fundamentally intuitive, with reason usually playing a role largely limited to defending or justifying personal morals, intuitions or beliefs. For politics, personal judgments and beliefs are mostly matters of intuition, while morals are personal, hard-wired beliefs that shape our intuitions and beliefs.

Assuming that intuitionists such as Haidt are correct, what does that say about the role of reason and conscious logic in politics? Are humans forever doomed to endure politics and unavoidable conflict because our thinking is dominated by personal morals and passions, with only a limited role for conscious reason? Haidt argues something like that. He asserts that because we evolved to be “narrowly moralistic and intolerant . . . . our righteous minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will always be cursed by moralistic strife.”

Despite that bleak picture, Haidt argues that we should “at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, each one certain of its righteousness.” In his 2012 book The Righteous Mind, Haidt asserts that “my goal . . . . is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity.” He asserted that Hume “went too far” by arguing that reason is the “slave” of the passions. In addition, Haidt argues that although intuition dominates, it is “neither dumb nor despotic” and it “can be shaped by reasoning.”

Collectively, those statements sound much more like an appeal for reason than an assertion that it is delusional to want a bigger role for reason in politics. Haidt’s assertion that we “will always be cursed by moralistic strife” is his explicit moral judgment that our intuitive, righteous nature is a curse, not a blessing or a source of wisdom. In this regard, he is closer to Plato’s moral judgment about how things ought to be than Hume or Jefferson.

Reason and intuition are compatible

It is reasonable to believe that by acknowledging our inherently intuitive nature, Haidt is being rational and advocating for a more prominent role for rationality in politics. He is explicit about this: “I’m not saying we should all stop reasoning and go with our gut feelings. Gut feelings . . . . are often disastrous as a basis for public policy, science, and law.” Although human cognition is fundamentally intuitive, that does not mean that reason has no significant role to play.

Nor does it mean that ways to enhance the role of reason and/or decrease the error-proneness in our political thinking and judgments can never be found. It is not reasonable to conclude that all people will be the same. The cognitive science that Haidt and others rely on is new. Well-defined biological limits have not yet been proven. There is no data to prove that reason can exert no more than, say, 1-5% of anyone’s cognitive power or influence.

Social science is not even at a point where it can conclude with reasonable confidence that all people are cognitively alike. Given the vast differences in individual talents, interests, morals and personal motivations, it is entirely possible that some people can be found whose thinking is closer to Jefferson’s postulated 50:50 intuition-reason power split than Hume’s postulated ~99:1 power split in favor of intuition being served by the rational slave. It may even be the case that a few people are closer to Plato’s vision of cognition where reason can dominate intuition. Data from Philip Tetlock’s Good Judgment Project and the discovery of a few superforecasters of future events strongly suggests that reason plays a much larger cognitive role in some people than Hume postulated.

What about the rationalist delusion?

How can square Haidt’s assertion that one of the most long-lived delusions in Western history is the rationalist delusion with an assertion that reason can and should play a bigger role in politics? Wasn’t Haidt’s comment a direct repudiation of a hope for more rationality in politics? If taken out of context, that is a reasonable way to see his comment.

But, for context, Haidt also said this in The Righteous Mind:

“Western philosophy has been worshipping reason and distrusting the passions for thousands of years. . . . . I’ll refer to this worshipful attitude throughout this book as the rationalist delusion. I call it a delusion because when a group of people make something sacred, the members of the cult lose the ability to think clearly about it. Morality binds and blinds. The true believers produce pious fantasies that don’t match reality, and at some point somebody comes along to knock the idol off its pedestal. That was Hume’s project, with his philosophically sacrilegious claim that reason was nothing but the servant of the passions.”

Asking for a greater degree of rationality in politics in the face of our acknowledged intuitive nature isn’t necessarily delusional. Wanting more reason doesn’t elevate reason to the level of being either sacred or requiring cult-like moral rigidity. It is just a simple, common sense plea for a bigger role for reason in politics, nothing more. As asserted before, Haidt is being a rationalist in asking for more rationality in politics. He does that while being fully cognizant of the danger of distorting or denying our innate intuitive nature.

Does morality always bind and blind?

From my point of view as a rationalist or objectivist, Haidt’s most interesting assertion is that “morality binds and blinds.” Is that necessarily always true? It apparently has always been in the past, so it’s tempting to assume it has to be that way in the future. The problem with that is that it ignores what we now know about our cognitive biology. Mankind has never used a political ideology or set of morals that are (1) based on modern science in light of all of mankind’s relevant knowledge, and (2) designed to increase the role of reason in politics, while decreasing the power of our morals and biases to distort fact and logic.

Since the cognitive science is so new, such an ideology could not have existed until now. It is possible in theory at least that a political ideology or morals can be selected that are intellectually freeing and foster both undistorted perception and reason. To deny the possibility of rationalizing morals is irrational because there has never been a direct test of any unblinding and unbinding political morals hypothesis. Who knows, Jefferson may yet turn out to be closer to the mark than Hume at least for some individuals, if not entire societies.

The Righteous Mind - Book Review

Book Review

The Righteous Mind:

Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

Johnathan Haidt

Pantheon Books 2012

Dr. Haidt is a social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He wrote The Righteous Mind to “at least do what we can to understand why we are so easily divided into hostile groups, each one certain of its righteousness.” He explains: “My goal in this book is to drain some of the heat, anger, and divisiveness out of these topics and replace them with awe, wonder, and curiosity.” In view of America’s increasingly irrational political polarization and growing mutual partisan distrust, Haidt clearly has his work cut out for him.

To find answers, Haidt focuses on the inherent moralistic, critical and righteous judgmental nature of human cognition and thinking. He observes that human righteousness is self-righteousness. Because of that, our morals and judgments tend to be more subjective and emotional than objective and rational. Haidt points out that we are designed by evolution to be “narrowly moralistic and intolerant.” That leads to self-righteousness and the associated hostility and distrust of other points of views that self-righteousness so easily and quickly generates. Regarding the divisiveness of politics, “our righteous minds guarantee that our cooperative groups will always be cursed by moralistic strife.”

Haidt’s focus on subjective personal morality in politics echoes the work of George Lakoff, a cognitive linguist. Lakoff described the fundamentally moral basis of liberal vs. conservative politics in his 1996 book Moral Politics (and in this fascinating 2005 lecture). The evidence from social science is now overwhelming: In dealing with politics, humans slip unconsciously (or are easily tricked) into subjective emotionalism at the expense of objective rationality (here, here, here).

Part 1: The forceful moral elephant and the lazy, sleepy rider

Righteous Mind is organized into three parts. The first part describes the process of human cognition, which boils down to intuitions that come first with strategic reasoning second. In the process, “moral intuitions (i.e., judgments) arise automatically and almost instantaneously, long before moral reasoning has a chance to get started, and those first intuitions tend to drive our later reasoning.” Initial intuitions driving later reasoning exemplifies some of our many unconscious cognitive biases, e.g., ideologically-based motivated reasoning, which distorts both fact and logic.

Part 1’s central metaphor “is that the mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning—the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99 percent of mental processes—the ones that occur outside of awareness but that actually govern most of our behavior.” Notice that most of our mental processes are going on unconsciously.

Haidt’s elephant corresponds to our cognitive “System 1” that other social scientists, e.g., Daniel Kahneman and Philip Tetlock, refer to regarding our subjective moralistic, unconscious cognitive processes. The rider corresponds to “System 2”, which is our conscious, more rational (but easily deceived) mental processes. The elephant is motivated and moral, while the rider is lazy, distracted and, if given the chance, potentially much less morally constrained. Dealing rationally with our irrational biology requires real moral courage and two psychologically uncomfortable ingredients, self-awareness and a motivation to change.

Dealing with the psychological discomfort is where the moral courage comes in.

Part 2: Our six social receptor moral palette

In part 2, Haidt argues that our righteous mind “is like a tongue with six taste receptors” and “there’s more to morality than harm and fairness.” In his taste receptor analogy, Haidt asserts that “morality is like cuisine: it’s a cultural construction, influenced by accidents of environment and history, but it’s not so flexible that anything goes. . . . . Cuisines vary, but they all must please tongues equipped with the same five taste receptors. Moral matrices vary, but they all must please righteous minds equipped with the same six social receptors.”

Haidt’s six identified moral receptors (and associated emotions) are (1) harm-care (compassion or lack thereof), (2) fairness-unfairness (anger, gratitude, guilt), (3) loyalty-betrayal (group pride, rage at traitors), (4) authority-subversion (respect, fear), (5) sanctity-degradation (disgust) and (6) liberty-oppression (resentment or hatred at domination). These six foundations of morality are posited to be evolved response triggers to threats or adaptive challenges our ancestors faced along their road to survival and success. Modern triggers can differ from what our ancestors faced, e.g., loyalty to a nation or sports team can trigger the loyalty-betrayal moral in some or most people in different ways.

Massive surveys that Haidt conducted led to his observation that in going from politically very liberal to moderate to very conservative, the importance of the care and fairness morals decreased in most people, while the loyalty, authority and sanctity morals increased. The moral palettes of liberals and conservatives are such that you can usually tell one from the other simply by asking what qualities they would want in their dog. This kind of morals-based thinking and preferences spill over into every contested issue in politics. The biological cognitive basis for the polarization and distrust that now dominates and gridlocks American politics becomes crystal clear when politics is viewed through this lens of differing moral palettes.

Part 3: The obscuring narrowness of personal morality

The third part of Haidt’s book focuses on the limiting and blinding nature of personal morality. He observes: “Individuals compete with individuals within every group, and we are the descendants of primates who excelled at that competition. This gives us the ugly side of our nature . . . . We are indeed selfish hypocrites so skilled at putting on a show of virtue that we fool even ourselves.” That self-deceit is a product of the elephant creating a personal moral framework that the lazy rider works within. Our individual moral frameworks are what unconsciously distorts both reality (facts) and logic (common sense).

It is easy to see why a policy choice that a liberal sees as perfectly logical based on a given set of facts is completely illogical when a conservative looks at the same facts and arrives at a completely different policy.

Conclusion

In trying to attain his goal of reducing subjective emotion and increasing objective rationality, Haidt is a little fish swimming upstream against a powerful, mindless partisan current. America continues its sad, needless descent into increasing polarized, subjective partisan irrationality. That may serve a self-interested two-party political system, including the major (not minor) interests that fund it. Unfortunately, those narrow gains in defense of our inept, corrupt status quo come at the expense of the public interest.

In essence, Haidt argues for political rhetoric that is more rational. His recognition of differing subjective moral palettes forces more nuance into how people think about and talk to each other, assuming they want to persuade people of different views. Such persuasion requires the rider to assume a bigger role to remain consonance between one’s own morals and people with different moral palettes. 

The few people like Haidt who argue for more rationality and less self-righteousness in politics probably represent America’s best hope for future global peace and continuing economic prosperity. Good luck to that rational little fish.