Saturday, January 12, 2008

I love Steven Pinker.

Steven Pinker, a professor at Harvard University, has an article about the evolution and purpose of morality in this week's New York Times magazine.

It's a must read for just about everyone. He's got it spot on.

2 comments:

prophet said...

Spot on?

Sorry, Nee. I don't think so. Respectfully.

Trying to make morality into a "science" doesn't shed any more light on it than does calling it an "instinct." It's another way of saying we really don't know exactly how it works. Worse, it brings us down to animal level - effectively helpless in the bonds of our scientific makeup. And it leads us to an inevitable conclusion that immoral - and even evil - action must be the result of some sort of illness or physical mis/maladjustment.

Therein lies the death of personal accountability and the end of responsibility and imputability of action.

It all comes down - under this reading - to how we're wired. with no one to blame for faulty wiring. (Because - as Pinker claims - "Plato made short work of . . . . putting God in charge of morality . . . 2400 years ago.") Really?

Well, maybe the big drug companies can come up with another pill.

Non-Essential Equipment said...

Respectfully, what's the alternative?

I disagree that the inevitable conclusion is that immoral behavior is a disease. Although, we've certainly seen that plenty of diseases of the brain lead to immoral behavior -- or rather the inability to distinguish right from wrong, etc.

From my perspective, Pinker is bridging the gap. We have all this science and we have all this religion. The two parties seem to think that they are mutually exclusive. I think Pinker does a good job of pointing out that they don't have to be and that the two may be more linked that one might want to think.