Pinker on the Moral Sense
Nice overview. But I found the ending part on why the Haidt calibration view doesn’t imply relativism a bit shady—a bit Straussian even!
Pinker struck me as arguing that there are real external facts about human flourishing that help underpin the authority of the harm and reciprocity dimensions of the moral sense, whereas the new science of morality helps us to see that we are subject to all sorts of “illusions” when it comes to the authority, in-group, and purity dimensions.
Now, I agree about a trillion percent with what I imagine Pinker is going for here: improving real human well-being by establishing the cultural dominance of a distinctively liberal calibration of the moral sense. That is, in fact, the ticket. But I simply don’t see how this stands as an adequate reply to someone who says that it is better that millions suffer and/or die for the greater glory of the tribe, or the Prophet, or to prevent the defilement of the blood of the Motherland. Yes, it is an objective fact of the world that if the well-being of each is our aim, then liberal morality, and its concomitant institutions, such as the extended order of market cooperation, are the necessary means. But, tragically, we do not all share this aim.
Must we? From the perspective of morality per se and not just from the perspective of one among many moralities? Is human flourishing of overriding importance–does it get greater weight than alternatives—because of it’s very nature. Or are those of us with an already liberal moral sense simply willing to go to the mat for the idea? To my mind, Haidt’s views do leave us with relativism. And the obviously correct thing to do is to fight and win a global culture war for a liberal morality. The ongoing fight against liberal morality is sometimes so savage because, well, because the people fighting it are not liberals for one thing, but also because the advantages of liberalism—greater wealth, better health, longer lives, more deeply satisfying individuation, etc.—are so attractive, so enticing, and therefore so dangerous to those whose sense of meaning is bound up in an illiberal calibration of the moral sense.
Why not just say that a more thoroughly liberal calibration of the moral sense will deliver a huge list of incredibly attractive goods for everyone in the world, and leave it at that? If some can’t be persuaded to care about those goods, then their kids can be. And their happy, health, wealthy, long-lived kids will little lament the loss of their backwards ancestral codes.
My unpublished essay on Haidt and politics, here.
January 13th, 2008 13:27
Will,
As one who both agrees with most of your political positions and is a liberal Protestant, I find much of what you’ve written here a bit confusing. Why is the success of liberalism necessarily tied to a move toward the kind of moral code possessed by those Haidt calls liberal?
The sacredness variables are ones that need not be abandoned. Instead, they can be reoriented in a way that buttresses liberalism. Most of history’s great liberal movements were either led or support by many Protestants. Protestants have often (and often not, to be fair) seen liberty and choice as a sacred gift from God, even though they have often had a traditional Christian position on social morality (condemnation of homosexual practices, abortion, divorce, even birth control, etc.). It seems to me that the kind of person that has a social morality that includes these sacredness variables can be well-suited to be liberal depending on how sacredness is articulated.
Anyway, I’m worried because the loss of the sacredness variable is associated with secularization. And tying secularism and liberalism together is a mistake, not only philosophically but prudentially. It is unlikely that a liberal movement can be permanently successful if it is not acceptable and supported by (probably even enthusiastically supported by) a great multitude of persons of faith. Instead of fighting a ‘global culture war’ for the kind of liberal morality you prefer, it seems better for liberals to show that liberalism is compatible with certain conceptions of sacredness that will likely always be a deep part of the social morality of many religious persons.
January 13th, 2008 13:42
Self, If any aspect of the moral sense can be recruited to reinforce liberal morality, then I’m all for it. Using the sense of the sacred may be a savvy tactic. But I think in the end we need to keep it pretty well dampened. The fact that many of the world’s most successfully liberal places are among the most secular is a good clue. The U.S. is a bit of an anomaly in this.
January 13th, 2008 16:47
Will, I dunno. That may be so for social liberalization but not for economic liberalization. I see little correlation between being secular and being economically liberal. The least liberal economic regimes have been the most secular.
January 13th, 2008 16:59
Take a look at this, for example:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_marapr_2004/religion.gif
January 14th, 2008 04:05
From outside the Western experience, the ‘liberal morality’ is appallingly immoral. In more than a few places around the globe, Westerners are fighting to the death non-Westerners who are fighting to the death any adoption of ‘liberal morality,’ and both sides make the argument that their fight is ‘moral.’
Hitler’s argument was made in moral terms, as was Marx’s; both are moralizers born out of the Western tradition of ‘liberal morality,’ albeit gone bezerk. But then, Madonna’s tongue down Britney’s throat is widely perceived as the exact metaphor for people to use to reject ‘liberal morality.’
Mr. Wilkinson is correct, though, that it is economics which is going to be decisive in the morality/ideology/theology wars. But what drives worldwide exponential growth in economic prosperity over the past five hundred years has very little to do with morality. The ‘liberal morality’ is not the engine up front, leading humanity and prosperity; it’s the caboose, vaingloriously taking credit. And most definitely, the engine leading humanity is not found in any theology.
I’m surprised that Dr. Pinker is not further along in his moral inquiry. He writes brilliantly about human identity formation, so one would think he’d make the connection that Watson pointed out will dominate the 21C: the meld of psychology with biology.
In that interdisciplinary meld in the century ahead, we’ll learn that the origin of all moral systems, all theologies, all social codes, all ideologies and all political theories over the past five thousand years is biological, not philosophical. When that happens, both moral absolutism (homicidal at its extremes) and moral relativism (suicidal at its extremes) will become treatable pharmacologically (because Watson & Crick proved that all of biology obeys the laws of chemistry).
In short, no more thugs. Not because of ‘liberal morality,’ but because they are on a drug regimen for what ails them. Throw into the 21C biology/psychology meld the nascent subdisciplines of evolutionary psychology and political psychology, and I should think Dr. Pinker might like to re-think his views about morality. He sounds dated already.
January 14th, 2008 11:19
Marx wasn’t a “moralizer,” he offered practical advice:
The rich band together…the poor should, too.
January 14th, 2008 11:20
Fascinating article and replies. For what it’s worth, there is a free, non-profit educational web site that has several full interviews with Dr. Norman Borlaug about his work in agriculture. Go to http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org and click on the “Media Resouces” for video podcasts of his interviews. Or go to the “Farming in the 50s-60s” section and click on the “Crops” subsection to see longer articles about the history and debate about the Green Revolution. Again, it’s totally free and non-profit.
January 15th, 2008 23:11
I agree with a different Edge contributor on morality.
Why not just say that a more thoroughly liberal calibration of the moral sense will deliver a huge list of incredibly attractive goods for everyone in the world, and leave it at that?
Illiberal people may not find those goods attractive.
If some can’t be persuaded to care about those goods, then their kids can be. And their happy, health, wealthy, long-lived kids will little lament the loss of their backwards ancestral codes.
I find it funny that supposedly godless types have some belief in a “zeitgeist” that must be on their sides. By the standards of Haidt I suppose I would be a liberal, or perhaps more liberal than liberal with an even more reduced set of moral intuitions. At the same time I recognize it is entirely possible that everything I cherish is doomed and that human history and progress are absurd. What to me is an plausible explanation of why liberalism will ultimately be defeated by illiberalism is found in The Return of Patriarchy. I also discussed that a bit in the Marginal Revolution thread Defeat the modernity.
January 16th, 2008 22:44
I will fight; will fight with my heart.
I will fight; will fight with understanding.
Here In my mind, the weather never changes
Skill overcomes, difficult situations.
A straight line exists between me and the good things.
I have found the line and its direction is known to me.
Absolute trust keeps me going in the right direction.
Any intrusion is met with a heart full of the good thing.
Try to compare what I am presenting.
You will meet with much frustration.
Try to find … similar situation.
You will always find the same solution.
As the heart finds the good thing, the feeling is multiplied.
Add the will to the strength and it equals conviction.
As we economise, efficiency is multiplied,
To the extent I am determined the result is the good thing.
So I say:
I have adopted this and made it my own:
Cut back the weakness, reinforce what is strong.
February 18th, 2008 22:58
People are getting all sorts of disparate ideas from Pinker’s article. To me it has nothing to do with liberalism. Pinker merely points out that we’re inspired to morality genetically, which means, by Darwinian evolution. What he fails to point out is that the particular moral rules we’re inspired to adopt and follow arise not directly from the moral sense, but from the use of intelligence and learning in response to the moral sense. It’s like language: we have the urge and the ability to learn and speak language, but we couldn’t learn English or Chinese unless we were taught. Pinker alleges that the moral rules he considers illusions, or impulsive, or intuitive, are innately tied to the moral sense, whereas the moral rules he advocates (without admitting or explaining the advocacy) aren’t. That’s wrong. All moral assertions get their power from the moral sense, including those Pinker favors. By the way, he advocates utilitarianism, which may or may not be liberal. However, his moral orientation leads him in startling directions. He justifies incest under certain circumstances. I think his rationale for that could easily excuse some forms of pedophilia. He thinks Bill Gates is a better role model than Mother Teresa. Leave all that aside. The insight that the moral sense lies in each of us as an evolutionary legacy is worth knowing. Just don’t fall for the fallacy that some moral rules escape the influence of the moral sense, while others arose in the total absence of intelligence and learning.
February 24th, 2008 04:00
does anyone knows if there is any other information about this subject in other languages?