Definition of Morality and Boundaries of the Moral Domain in the Psychological Theory of Jonathan Haidt

Abstract

The ways of solving two central problems of studying morality (the problem of defining morality and the problem of distinguishing the moral domain, or the sphere of morally significant phenomena) by american psychologist Jonathan Haidt are reconstructed and evaluated. The scientist warns against the use of normative and substantive definitions of morality in psychology, because their authors cannot overcome the bias towards value systems that have developed within the framework of Western culture over the past several centuries. J. Haidt considers the best definition of morality to be a functional one, treating morality as a set of “values, virtues, norms, practices, identities, technologies... psychological mechanisms” that serve to maintain co-operative communities. This definition of morality is accompanied by the expansion of the moral domain beyond the boundaries drawn by psychologists of the second half of the 20th century and contemporary moral philosophers. The moral domain, for Haidt, includes not onlythose actions that are evaluated on the basis of the concepts of care/harm, fairness/cheating, freedom/oppression. He adds to the list of moral foundations such evaluative criteria as loyalty/betrayal, authority / undermining authority,purity/impurity. The author of this paper points out several reasons why Haidt's concept of morality comes into question. Firstly, within the framework of Haidt's methodology, the search for a definition of morality and the demarcation of the moral domain are not in a relationship of mutual correction. Secondly, the american psychologist distinguish the moral domain not on the basis of his own functional definition of morality, but on the basis of a standard set of its formal characteristics (objectivity, universality, overridingness). Thirdly, in his works, Haidt often operates with an implicit normative definition of morality, which shows the inevitability of itsusing.