Pinker's Theory Of Moral Definition

Pinker goes through several ways that moral instinct can be looked at: scientifically, religiously, culturally, systematically, expressing the fact that the moral instinct varies on personal adaptations. This argument is similar to the one of nature vs nurture; is it simply how we were designed to be that dictates how we calculate morality? Or is it that environment and circumstances under which we were raised? Piner would agree with the latter, and possibly quote psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, in saying that there are five themes of moral thinking - “ … harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty) authority and purity - and suggests that they are the primary colors of our moral sense” (53). Pinker goes on to reinforce his premise, that our …show more content…
Pinker refers to Plato in his section titled Is Morality a Figment?: “Putting God in charge of morality is one way to solve the problem [of what is considered moral], of course, but Plato made short work of it 2,400 years ago” (58). Hereby declaring that while Plato, and other philosophers of his time, strongly argued that God is the source of knowing what is moral and immoral. Pinker goes on to question the moral compass that is God, by posing a series of questions. One of them being: “[s]uppose that God commanded us to torture a child. Would that make it all right, or would some other standard give us reasons to resist?” (58). Here it can be interpreted that Pinker is alluding to the theory that our morality would thereby be influenced by our culture and what we see as moral. From the five themes that Haidt provides, the one that would come into play here would be harm - and the idea is that if you are in a culture where causing harm is highly ranked on the immortality scale, you would be deeply inclined to go against this command. Furthering his attack on the idea that there is only one sense of morality, Pinker states “[m]oral realism … is too rich for many philosophers’ blood Yet a diluted version of the idea - if not a list of cosmically inscribed Tou-Shalts, then at least a few If-Thens - is not crazy‘ (59). Moral realism is this idea that Pinker’s essay is about; there are moral fact and values that are based on independent beliefs, values and experiences. With this statement he is coming after philosophers and their heavy belief that the only moral compass there is lies within “a list of cosmically inscribed” commandments and rules from God. Plato’s dispute and dissent of this statement would be galactic, because he is one of the philosophers of whom Pinker is referring to as not being able to handle the idea of