continues: Okay. Let's stop right there and go over some basics. First, we are all moral hypocrites. Studies show this. We judge others more harshly than we judge ourselves. Second, morality leads to unethical acts. Again, science. Okay, back to Haidt's ideas ...

Sex and food

According to Haidt, Boyle reports, conservatives tend to focus on sex, while "liberals are getting increasingly concerned with food." [I see a poll in the making.]

Haidt's ideas have been floating around a while, and they get a lot deeper. In 2007, he published his thoughts in the journal Science. Here's some of the questions he asks as a way to — let's use a cosmologist's jargon — probe dark morality:

"How much money would it take to get you to stick a pin into your palm? How much to stick a pin into the palm of a child you don't know? How much to slap a friend in the face (with his or her permission) as part of a comedy skit?" [Total aside: Researchers will do this for free. Check out the video provi

Wouldn't having dark morals be the same as being called morally bankrupt or close to it?