If our goal is to understand the world, to seek a deeper understanding of the world, our general lack of moral diversity here is going to make it harder. Because when people all share values, when people all share morals, they become a team.

Haidt is arguing that intellectual inquiry benefits from moral and ideological pluralism. When a community becomes morally homogeneous, shared values can shift people from truth-seeking into coalition-maintenance: members implicitly coordinate to defend the group’s moral narrative, reward conformity, and punish dissent. In that “team” mode, disagreement is treated less as a source of information and more as disloyalty, which narrows what questions can be asked and what answers can be entertained. The quote reflects Haidt’s broader work on moral psychology and groupishness: our moral intuitions bind us into groups, but those same bonds can distort reasoning and impede understanding.