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Firstly, Haidt presents Moral Foundations Theory as a cognitive theory of moral attitudes. It proposes that there are brain modules attuned to different 'flavours' of morality. These spark automatic, intuitive and emotional responses to certain scenarios that we can express as attitudes. For example, if we think about the scenario of a person engaging in animal cruelty, this activates our care/harm module and we feel a wave of negative emotion. When asked for our attitude to a case of animal cruelty, the care/harm module prompts us to answer that we believe it is wrong, because it is associated with a negative emotion. 

This is the crucial difference between the MFT and other theories of moral development that stress the importance of being able to give reasons for moral attitudes. Instead, Haidt sides with the philosopher David Hume and holds that moral judgements come first of all from the emotions that scenarios elicit. He uses the idea of a moral dilemma to illustrate this; for instance, there is no harm we can reason involved in the case of a man who (disgust ahead) privately has intercourse with a chicken carcass before cooking it and eating it alone - yet it feels very, very wrong. This becomes a moral question because there are moral intuitions beyond the prevention of harm to sentient creatures - namely disgust, which Haidt links to the moral foundation of "sacredness." We can't explain why something is wrong, it just is. He calls this moral dumbfounding. 

The research that Haidt and others have done gives a very reasonable account of moral judgements, the key findings show that emotions are strongly implicated in such judgements. However, we are far from able to say that it is watertight as a cognitive theory. One objection is that Haidt's initial five modular foundations are arbitrary; further research led to Haidt's proposal of another foundation and a six-module theory. It is quite possible to imagine multiple different foundations, perhaps 'tradition/progress' or 'strength/weakness'. There is also the question of whether the modules can be defined in terms of how they are produced as emotions by the brain - the neuroscience of emotion is still being researched. Further, can we tell the difference between a moral emotion and an aesthetic one? Or even a regular emotion?

It is also not clear that MFT completely rules out the effect of moral reasoning from moral judgements. Haidt himself states that some students presented with the chicken dilemma above eventually conceded that there was nothing socially wrong with the actions of the man; his actions were not morally relevant. This might still be an unpalatable conclusion, and I agree, but it does show that reason can lead judgements to different conclusions, and produce a different social reality in which the man is not condemned for his actions. It might be enough to say, "that's disgusting, don't do that, it makes me feel sick." Joshua Green, an opposing moral psychologist gives another example: the famous nineteenth century utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham struggled to produce reasons to condemn homosexuality, even though he "felt" that it must be wrong. Instead of continuing to do so in his discourses, he concluded that homosexuality was actually morally not relevant, and should be a private matter. This kind of reasoning, starting from the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill, eventually resulted in our contemporary sexually liberated society. 

Haidt's response would likely be to say: "not so fast." Emotions do not just change, they are genetically innate; though some of us can reason around our unreasoned objections to certain scenarios, there are just as many who will not, and who will insist that their emotions reveal moral truths. Indeed, Haidt argues that Bentham was a particularly unusual character because his moral compass was almost completely oriented around questions of avoiding harm and increasing happiness. Because Betham did not experience a full range of moral emotions, he was blind to the moral sentiments of others. In so arguing, Haidt expands MFT into the world of personality and individual differences, which he feels he can support given the wide individual differences of his survey respondents. People have different attitudes, and underlying these we can theorise a variable mix of moral emotions felt in different strengths. 

The data he provides do indeed show that across people and societies, moral attitudes can differ considerably. But does a modular cognitive theory explain the variation? Between people, we understand that genetics and environment both play a role in the way that people view the world and experience emotions. But are distinct modules necessary to explain why people experience emotions differently? One theory is that we can understand emotions as fixed action patterns evoked by certain stimuli. Early behaviourist research (on poor 'Little Albert') shows us that fear can become attached to almost any object given the correct conditions of development. I'm not sure that it is necessary to imagine a specific module for moral emotions, in the same way there is likely no specific module for being afraid of balloons (globophobia), the colour yellow (xanthophobia), or the fear of long words (Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia). 

The cognitive psychological theory of moral intuitions (that emotions spur moral reasoning) seems to be a genuinely useful contribution to understanding why we react so strongly to certain moral scenarios. However the modular cognitive theory of moral foundations is far from stable, if you'll pardon the pun. It could be argued that it is not a parsimonious theory, but multiplies entities unnecessarily; instead of modules, what we are perhaps left with are patterns of agreement and disagreement between people's moral attitudes, which I'd argue is intriguing enough to start with. In the next instalment, I'm going to look at MFT as an evolutionary psychological theory, and then go on to look at Haidt's extrapolation of the theory into the political, sociological and philosophical realms.