Stephen Pinker (pictured above) is the rockstar of the world of neuroscience. Not only does this Harvard professor sport a hairstyle that would make Robert Plant proud, his writing also possesses the rare qualities (at least among professional scientists) of clarity, wit, and humor. I did not make this post, however, to magnify Pinker’s personal magnetism but rather to critique his staunch materialism as set forth in this Time article. I will pay particular attention to his materialistic basis for morality.
Pinker’s article, The Mystery of Consciousness, presents humans as being incredibly complex material objects: “meat machines” if you will. Professor Pinker argues that things like the soul or the concept of a single, controlling “I” (or center of consciousness) are mere illusions. Indeed, Pinker goes so far as to state that we can practically “read thoughts” through technological wizardry such as MRI scans (funny, I never knew that thoughts were splotches of color on a doctor’s computer screen). Although he does concede that phenomenology and qualia present a “hard problem” for contemporary psychology, he practically dismisses the problem by arguing that perhaps evolution did not “wire” our brains to understand these things. Despite all of this however, I consider his primary philosophical gaffe to reside in a statement that he makes about ethics:
“the conviction that other people can suffer and flourish as each of us does is the essence of empathy and the foundation of morality… the biology of consciousness offers a sounder basis for morality than the unprovable dogma of an immortal soul. It’s not just that an understanding of the physiology of consciousness will reduce human suffering through new treatments for pain and depression. That understanding can also force us to recognize the interests of other beings [which is the] the core of morality. As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty. Yet once we realize that our own consciousness is a product of our brains and that other people have brains like ours, a denial of other people’s sentience becomes ludicrous. “Hath not a Jew eyes?” asked Shylock. Today the question is more pointed: Hath not a Jew–or an Arab, or an African, or a baby, or a dog–a cerebral cortex and a thalamus? The undeniable fact that we are all made of the same neural flesh makes it impossible to deny our common capacity to suffer.”
Pinker’s ethical argument could be given as follows:
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My material structure allows me to experience pain and suffer.
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I observe others who have the same material structure as myself.
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Therefore, I ought not do things to others which, if such were done to me, would cause me pain. (a materialist form of the golden rule I suppose)
Simple enough, right? I don’t think so. Now, as every student in Philosophy 101 learns (to use Pinker’s rhetoric), “is” does not imply “ought”. In other words, you cannot derive an imperative statement from a declarative statement. In other, other words, describing the physiological makeup of human beings in no way implies what is morally right for human beings. Indeed, if we are simply matter in motion, how can there even be a concept of right and wrong? Do we hold a rock morally responsible for rolling down a hill and crushing someone?
Pinker never explains why we should not hurt other human beings (although if pressed, he would probably hold to some form of consequentialism). Sure they will suffer, but what difference does it make? What if hurting others is what makes me happy? Professor Pinker and his materialistic ethic can offer no answer to these questions.
January 13, 2008 at 3:15 pm
[...] some of you already know, I have already posted on Pinker’s perniciouis problem of a materialistic morality. Although his most recent article is somewhat longer than his earlier article in Time magazine, [...]
January 13, 2008 at 3:18 pm
“Professor Pinker and his materialistic ethic can offer no answer to these questions. ”
Supposing that’s true, it in now way affects the truth or falsehood of materialism. (If you imagine it does, then you engage in the fallacy known as appeal to consequences.)
January 13, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Hi there scaryreasoner. Thanks for commenting!
I completely agree with you. My argument against Pinker’s ethical theory is in no way an argument against materialism (although I am indeed ideologically opposed to materialism). Neither am I arguing that Pinker is an unethical person (I’m quite sure that he is a moral man). I’m simply pointing out that Pinker’s ethical theory is logically fallacious (an ontological category error to be exact).
Besides this, Pinker, himself, commits the genetic fallacy in his argument against moral realism (NY Times article). Even if human moral intuition were to have evolved according to natural processes, this does not invalidate moral realism at all.
I’m quite willing to acknowledge, as well, that there are other materialistic-friendly ethical theories that do not fall prey to Pinker’s fallacy (utilitarianism for example). Although I do not hold to them myself. However, that is another post entirely
Stop by anytime!
January 13, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Ok. I thought that might be the case, which was why I began that last sentence with the word “if.” You do see arguments of that form floating around rather frequently though, so I tend to reflexively defend against them, whether they’re they’re being made or not.
January 13, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I have the same reflex.
There is a lot of fuzzy logic floating around on the web, and it doesn’t do anyone any good at all (it just confuses the issues).
January 14, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I can see how if Pinker is using this argument to explain a foundation for some sort of immutable, universal moral code it is fallacious. But I wonder if there is a biological base for a moral impulse (read: basic social skills) which is then shaped by the culture and environment?
January 14, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Hi petersonion! Good to hear from you again!
A foundational basis for morality is exactly what Pinker is arguing for. This can even be seen in the brief snippet of his Time article which I quoted in my post. As a matter of fact, I would say that, besides his theory of language development (which is quite interesting by the way), Pinker’s materialistic ethical theory is probably his most well-known position.
As to a biological basis for moral intuition…I’m not sure. I guess it depends on how you define “morality”. I suppose that it’s possible that God could have encoded a moral sensibility into our DNA or something. Indeed, this would be a wonderful way to explain things like sociopathic behavior. However, this theory still provides a metaphysical basis for morality (divine intervention).
However, if “morality” is equated with instinctual social behavior (like ants, bees, herd mammals, etc.), then I would say that we have left the realm of ethics all together. As I argued in my post, our biological constitution may explain why we behave in a certain way (declarative statements), but it cannot tell us how we ought to behave (imperative statements).
March 16, 2008 at 11:00 am
So many of these issues are really discussions, and confusions I think, of the question of “root and branch.” The basic example is this: plant an acorn, wait many years and, lo, you have an oak tree!
Is the might oak the SAME as the acorn? Is the OAK potentially IN the acorn? There is an unbroken continuum of existence from acorn to oak. Since one inevitably leads to the other, can we not equate them?
This is the simple, I think simplistic materialism, Darwinian position. It says, “altruism has survival value – evolution selects for features with survival value – ergo, human altruism is SIMPLY a selected biological feature.”
Just because something has something as its origin and root doesn’t mean that that origin and root explains in toto the result. Yes, our emotions and ethics have roots in Darwinian selection over millions of years – I think this is so. Still, we have language and a symbolic realm – there is more to it now.
I would make a similar argument against Pinkers tool simple materialism. I AM a materialist – but physicality has a way of becoming mentality.
March 16, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Hi lichanos, thanks for the comment. You said, Just because something has something as its origin and root doesn’t mean that that origin and root explains in toto the result. I agree with you completely. As a matter of fact, this type of reasoning is known as the ‘genetic fallacy’ and it is the exact fallacy that Pinker commits in the NYT article.
It appears that you would hold to some form of’reductionism’ or maybe even ‘property-dualism’ (i.e. the mental supervenes upon the physical when the underlying physical structure is arranged to a certain complexity [like a dot matrix making a picture] so that mental properties can ‘emerge’ in a physical substance).
While I would disagree with this position, (I am not a materialist),your position (if I have correctly identified it) holds an advantage over Pinker’s in relation to ethics. As a matter of fact, I think Pinker is a strict physicalist and simply ignores the problem of phenomenological perception.
Again, the bottom line of Pinker’s Time article is that he is seeking to derive an ethical position (an ‘ought’) from a mere description of the human organism (an ‘is’). This is a logical fallacy and is just not possible (unless you totally redefine ethics).
Thanks for the comment lichanos! Stop by anytime!