JOLLY DAYS

Steven Pinker

Many theoretical discussions are great at framing the dilemma. If they maintain their honor though, at the end, the complexity and ambiguity of things makes clear answers less easily prescribed. That is a minor problem in this brilliant article by Steven Pinker.

The article is about the moral instinct, which he models as something perhaps physiologically based. Fairly dry, and possibly true. But this article is filled with subtle distinctions and deep understanding. As much a philosophical meditation as a posited idea about a moral sense, the article digs deeply into current research and historical understanding with clarity, transparency. The article gives a basic human instinct, to be fair and good, its due. It is worth reading every word.

Here are some snips:

The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal…The other hallmark is that people feel that those who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished…Much of our recent social history, including the culture wars between liberals and conservatives, consists of the moralization or amoralization of particular kinds of behavior. Even when people agree that an outcome is desirable, they may disagree on whether it should be treated as a matter of preference and prudence or as a matter of sin and virtue…People don’t generally engage in moral reasoning,…but moral rationalization: they begin with the conclusion, coughed up by an unconscious emotion, and then work backward to a plausible justification…

Some more snips about a predisposition to moral behavior:

The idea that the moral sense is an innate part of human nature is not far-fetched. A list of human universals …including a distinction between right and wrong; empathy; fairness; admiration of generosity; rights and obligations; proscription of murder, rape and other forms of violence; redress of wrongs; sanctions for wrongs against the community; shame; and taboos… moral concerns across the globe, … find that a few themes keep popping up from amid the diversity. People everywhere,… think it’s bad to harm others and good to help them. They have a sense of fairness: that one should reciprocate favors, reward benefactors and punish cheaters. They value loyalty to a group, sharing and solidarity among its members and conformity to its norms. They believe that it is right to defer to legitimate authorities and to respect people with high status. And they exalt purity, cleanliness and sanctity while loathing defilement, contamination and carnality.

Pinker's discussion about “moral spheres” is particularly current,

…The five moral spheres are universal, a legacy of evolution. But how they are ranked in importance, and which is brought in to moralize which area of social life — sex, government, commerce, religion, diet and so on — depends on the culture. Many of the flabbergasting practices in faraway places become more intelligible when you recognize that the same moralizing impulse that Western elites channel toward violations of harm and fairness (our moral obsessions) is channeled elsewhere to violations in the other spheres. Think of the Japanese fear of nonconformity (community), the holy ablutions and dietary restrictions of Hindus and Orthodox Jews (purity), the outrage at insulting the Prophet among Muslims (authority). In the West, we believe that in business and government, fairness should trump community and try to root out nepotism and cronyism. In other parts of the world this is incomprehensible — what heartless creep would favor a perfect stranger over his own brother?

Brilliant piece.

On the other hand…I have to admit after thinking about Pinker's ideas, a day later, that my unmoderated admiration needs… moderation.

I think Pinker is such a gentleman scholar — if you have ever seen him speak, he is a gentle soul, very smart, articulate, yes, truly admirable biped — that I missed some important things. I missed that Pinker's argument rationalizes moral equivalence. There is a moral sense, he is justified in theorizing about that, but equating a society as outraged that its authority figure is insulted and thence taking depraved retribution is quite different than a society — in one of his examples — which fears nonconformity and therefore ostracizes an individual. No moral equivalence there.