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Toward the end of his book, Jonathan Haidt finds that his "Social Intuitionist" model of ethics would include fascists and cult members (who are obviously not ethical), so he finds he needs to borrow an ethical theory from philosophy, utilitarianism, to make his theory normative, i.e., to establish norms or standards to rule out fascists and cultists. But his book relies on the claim that he can "scientize" ethics (i.e., take it away from philosophy and make it scientific, purely descriptive), so the fact that he can't do this, because he must borrow back from philosophy, proves that the so-called scientific basis for his claims (about why people are divided by politics and religion) is an illusion. Haidt believes that every human has six "intuitions," or "virtues," which, of course, not everyone makes use of equally. Favored conservatives use all six; less favored liberals use only three. This is why "good" people are divided by politics and religion: conservatives operate on all six virtue cylinders, liberals use only three. There are many serious problems with these six intuitions, which are at the heart of his book. One problem is that they are weighted in favor of conservatives: loyalty, authority, and sanctity are not typically in the top six of what liberals value. Never mind that at least three of these so-called "virtues" are not obviously virtues: liberty, authority, sanctity. These may refer to states of affairs, or human characteristics, or what people value, but an argument is required to show, e.g., that "sanctity" is a virtue in the same way, say, generosity is taken to be a virtue. Moreover, Haidt insists that these six virtues, and only these six, had an "evolutionary origin," but his arguments for this are weak, and his view of evolution sometimes seems to have more in common with "intelligent design" than with a scientific view. Another problem is that he provides little or no evidence to establish that these six are "the" universal virtues for every culture, everywhere (and what would such evidence look like, anyway?). Moreover, and inexplicably, among those "virtues" not included on the list are cooperation, honesty, courage, generosity, open-mindedness, etc. Finally, very puzzling is Haidt's failure to attempt to explain where immoral, unethical behavior comes from. Sadism, genocide, torture, etc. are not mentioned. He doesn't explain why "bad" people are divided by politics and religion. Haidt is not only careless with evidence and with arguments, he's careless with words. E.g., he somehow believes that the ethically important word "normative" means "specifies what is really and truly right, regardless of what anyone thinks" rather than the standard meaning: "of or establishing a norm or standard." He believes he needs a normative element (utilitarianism, borrowed from philosophy) in part because he doesn't think his Social Intuitionist Model is normative, but, incredibly, he seems to believe this only because he doesn't understand the word "normative." His book is normative throughout, including the claim that humans all have six innate "virtues." A virtue is, if nothing else, a desirable characteristic, and "desirable" is a normative term! (Here is another one of scores: "If voters like Republican messages, then there's something in Republican messages worth liking.") And yet, near the end of the book he says, "So far in this book I have been entirely descriptive." Haidt believes in the inherent weakness of reason (though he provides no argument to show how he knows what "the" function of reason is, which he believes to be a "press secretary"). If the only function of "weak" reason is to be a press secretary for oneself (and one's group), and not to seek the truth, as Haidt states adamantly, and Haidt himself uses reason-as-press-secretary to try to convince us of his Social Intuitionist Model of ethics, then why should we bother to read his book, and why was he convinced of its truth? And if he wasn't convinced of its truth, then why did he bother to write it? I have no answer to these questions.