tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post8287687917635635533..comments2024-03-28T17:53:43.541-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Pinker & MoralityDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-18132062764790380512008-01-22T13:29:00.000-05:002008-01-22T13:29:00.000-05:00Pinker also misses a fundamental concept of God. ...Pinker also misses a fundamental concept of God. God IS truth and love and goodness. So the idea that God could order us to torture children is an impossibility. It's fine if Pinker wants to reject God. But he can't trick believers with that little nonsensical question.Tippyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04939378134321548044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-34787535276408833032008-01-22T13:26:00.000-05:002008-01-22T13:26:00.000-05:00Pinker's concept of morality is based entirely on ...Pinker's concept of morality is based entirely on our evolved responses. The obvious counter to this is, "Why should our evolved responses hold any sway whatsoever?" If we are all just sets of randomly evolved chemical reactions and our genes are all going to die out sooner or later anyway once the Sun explodes in a few billion years, well, who cares what we think?Tippyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04939378134321548044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-85584132746449757742008-01-21T12:35:00.000-05:002008-01-21T12:35:00.000-05:00Patrick,Fair enough.I assume that Pinker does in f...Patrick,<BR/><BR/>Fair enough.<BR/><BR/>I assume that Pinker does in fact know his Plato -- or at least ought to. I've heard the meme before (appropriate use here perhaps?) that Plato destroys any possibility of believing in God, and science destroyed any possibility in believing in Plato. However, that set of claims seems to rest on enough a-historical claims that I would think an expert wouldn't use it so blithely.<BR/><BR/>Of course, the other possibility, perhaps likely, is that Pinker is simply using Plato as a quick traditionalist cover for what amount to simply being his own views. If so, it's a rather shabby trick to attempt on his readers.Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-16975360442609696452008-01-20T16:33:00.000-05:002008-01-20T16:33:00.000-05:00Oh, I have to agree that Pinker badly misrepresent...Oh, I have to agree that Pinker badly misrepresents Plato, but I don't quite think it's from ignorance.<BR/><BR/>This may be an overly charitable reading, but I think that Pinker just doesn't feel there's enough space to explain why he holds his assumptions (i.e. moral a-realism and non-relativism) without cutting out vital material on the trolley experiments and evolutionary psychology. And frankly, explaining the assumptions would consist of (for one segment of the readers) preaching to the choir or (for the other segment) spouting ugly heresy; so I assume he decided to skip it in favor of material that would be new and enlightening to those who already shared his presuppositions.<BR/><BR/>I'll write my thoughts on moral realism and relativism soon enough.Patrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04633871907076984715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-6717303053730069352008-01-18T18:12:00.000-05:002008-01-18T18:12:00.000-05:00Patrick,Certainly, I recognize that Pinker takes i...Patrick,<BR/><BR/>Certainly, I recognize that Pinker takes it as an assumption that God does not exist, and it is mainly because of his decision not to accept that (or some other strictly Platonic hierarchy of universals) that my answer on the incest question would be a non sequitor to him. My issue is that that, however is dual:<BR/><BR/>1) He dispenses with any sort of moral realism with a "that's too rich for our blood" comment which indicates nothing other than taste. (Which I suspect is mainly what it indeed is.)<BR/><BR/>2) He imagines that he can still somehow get absolute prohibitions of things he believes uncivilized, yet makes no real case for how he can do that.<BR/><BR/>And now I think about it, 1) above follows from:<BR/><BR/>3) He massively mis-represents (though perhaps through ignorance) Plato's reasoning to make it seem that getting morality from religion was dispensed with as a logical possibility 2500 years ago -- when that was very much not the case.Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-23099984615031079882008-01-18T17:55:00.000-05:002008-01-18T17:55:00.000-05:00Well, I should probably post on the question of wh...Well, I should probably post on the question of why biological explanations of moral thought don't necessarily imply relativism; but I can say something to the first point you raised, since I in essence agree with Pinker here.<BR/><BR/>He makes some prior assumptions that you reject (first among them being atheism), and fails to make them clear in the article. In particular, he presumes that there are no such things as objective moral facts- in particular, that such things as the "intrinsic meaning of sex" are fictions. There are of course causal relationships to be found in human psychology- acts do have internal as well as external consequences- but they no more amount to an intrinsic meaning of an action than gravity amounts to the "intrinsic meaning of matter".<BR/><BR/>Frankly, that's the part you need God to make sense of- facts about the universe could have intrinsic meaning only if the facts were <EM>authored</EM>. To steal a <A HREF="http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/01/quotes-2.html" REL="nofollow">quote I just found</A>, in response to a question about the meaning of life:<BR/><BR/>"The definition of the word "meaning," is something that is conveyed. So, who is conveying this "meaning" that you speak of? To put it another way, if "life" is a painting, then who is painter? Whoever is the painter is the one who decides what meaning the painting has. Now, depending on your outlook, the painter is either yourself, or God. Depending upon how you answer that question, you should now be able to figure out the answer."Patrickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04633871907076984715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-17390014079260547142008-01-18T16:29:00.000-05:002008-01-18T16:29:00.000-05:00Darwin, thank God you read this stuff so the rest ...Darwin, thank God you read this stuff so the rest of us don't have to. :)<BR/><BR/>Excellent points.Jennifer @ Conversion Diaryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11894992378619176830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-65481473069173423272008-01-18T16:07:00.000-05:002008-01-18T16:07:00.000-05:00My good man, this is why I forwarded the article t...My good man, this is why I forwarded the article to you; because I knew you'd take it apart like a cheap piece of cotton candy.<BR/><BR/>Pinker wants to have it both ways: he wants to reduce morality to mere biological programming so that he can debunk the morals he doesn't like, but he wants to keep some things (like genocide and slavery) in the realm of universal wrongs. If he were being intellectually honest about his position, he'd state that there isn't anything inherently "wrong" about genocide and slavery, just that we've developed pretty strong revulsion against them because of our evolutionary development.<BR/><BR/>Or he could go back and reconsider his statements about Plato and those silly Thou-Shalts.<BR/><BR/>Clearly, Pinker operates with a truncated form of reason. If it doesn't show up on an MRI or in a petri dish, it's not reasonable. He criticizes Leon Kass' "Wisdom of Repugnance" for its supposed lack of rational argument against human cloning, yet that essay clearly shows our repugnance for human cloning points to rational objections. Unless you think that it's irrational to be concerned about a new technology that has the potential to radically alter everything we know about human and social relationships...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com