I was being interrogated.
The room was dark and stale, the kind of air that clings to your clothes.
A single bulb hung above me, buzzing faintly, throwing a hard circle of light across my face.
I sat in a metal folding chair.
My back throbbed.
My mouth was dry.
And the copper taste of blood sat on my tongue.
I don’t remember how I got there.
But I knew why.
“Are you moral?”
The voice came from somewhere beyond the light, low, firm, too calm.
I shifted in my seat. My hands weren’t tied, but I knew better than to move.
Something in the silence warned me that standing up would end badly.
“Are you moral?” the voice repeated, sharper this time.
I squinted into the dark, trying to make out a face.
Nothing.
Just the light. Just the question.
I wanted to answer.
Anything to end it.
But an odd thought hit me instead:
How would I even know?
The room softened. The light dimmed.
And then I heard my name, softly, from somewhere far away.
I woke up.
The dream ended.
The interrogation didn’t.
Because now the question was coming from me.
The Wrong Question
I have a thesis: most conflict comes from a difference in priorities.
I’ve written before that shared goals aren’t enough. If our priorities aren’t aligned, we’ll push against each other no matter how clear the target is.
But I’m also realizing that it’s generally not enough to agree upon a list of priorities. We need to know how we weigh the importance of them.
How does this relate to my dream?
I recently read Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Righteous Mind, and it taught me it’s not enough to just know the answer.
Understanding how we arrive at an answer tells us more.
Hence, the question of “Am I moral?” is the wrong question.
The right question is “How do I know I’m moral?”
Let me explain and why it helps clarity.
The Moral Framework
Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind argues that much of our moral conflict comes from how differently we weigh six core moral foundations:
- Care / Harm – protect others; avoid causing pain
- Fairness / Cheating – reciprocity, trust, proportionality
- Loyalty / Betrayal – commitment to the group
- Authority / Subversion – order, rules, hierarchy
- Sanctity / Degradation – purity, disgust, what feels “sacred”
- Liberty / Oppression – resist domination; preserve freedom
We all have these foundations.
But we don’t weigh them equally.
Imagine you come across someone dying. Your instinct (Care/Harm) says: help them.
Then you learn they murdered someone minutes earlier.
Now other foundations jump in: Authority. Fairness. Loyalty.
Some people still help immediately.
Some pause.
Some walk away.
Same scenario.
Different weighting.
And that’s where conflict begins.
Not because one person is “moral” and the other isn’t, but because they’re using different criteria to decide.
Haidt’s advice is simple:
If you want someone to hear you, stop arguing from your values.
Start speaking in theirs.
We can’t persuade someone using a moral grammar they don’t use.
The Hidden Source of Conflict
What Haidt helped me see is that my own thesis has a second layer.
Conflict isn’t just different priorities.
It’s also the different weights we give those priorities.
And that’s where most teams get tangled.
Take a simple business example.
Everyone agrees the goal is to grow revenue.
Everyone agrees the priorities include website visits, demo requests, and proposals.
On paper, we look aligned.
But the weighting is silent.
If the CEO believes proposals matter most, every question will revolve around that.
Conversely, if Marketing believes website traffic matters most, their world organizes around that.
Both sides think they’re right.
Both sides think the other is missing the point.
The fight isn’t about the priorities.
It’s about the meaning each person assigns to them.
This is why I care so much about how someone thinks.
Because “how” tells me the weight they’re placing, the silent hierarchy behind the work.
Without understanding that, we can agree on everything and still end up in conflict.
Unless and until we understand how each other are thinking – the weight we are placing on certain attributes – the “what” will be misinterpreted, and conflict will be inevitable.
So, if you find yourself approaching or in a conflict, check first whether you truly understand the “how” behind the “what”.
You’ll learn more by finding the “how” and be better able to address the situation.
TL;DR
Conflict usually isn’t about right or wrong.
It’s about different priorities and the different weight we give those priorities.
Haidt shows this in morality.
We see it every day in business.
If we don’t talk about how we’re weighting things, we’re not aligned even when we think we are.
Agreement is not alignment.
Weighting is.
