"I Feel You"

On 'A Point of View' this morning someone called Tom Shakespeare quoted the American psychologist, Jonathan Haidt who says that most of our judgements on the moral nature of the behaviour of others are, in fact, post hoc rationalisations of our more visceral-based prejudices towards those people. We force the reality to fit the prejudice post hoc. I agree with Haidt that most rationalisation is post hoc to experience. However, I don't agree with him that all that rationalisation has to work on is prejudice. I think this is, with undue pessimism about humans, to underestimate the sophistication of moral instinct. We can tell a great deal pre-rationalisation about our fellow men and women through gut feeling, emotional intelligence and the reading of body language. I like a phrase used frequently by the character played by Idris Elba in 'The Wire.' He plays a drug baron in Baltimore and commonly reassures his colleagues with the phrase - 'I feel you.' A great deal happens in human affairs propter hoc at the animal level and should not be underestimated or looked down on.