Yesterday's New York Times Magazine has a long piece by cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker called "The Moral Instinct." It's typical New York Times fare: strong ideological bias, inattention to competing arguments, and perhaps most damning, the piece is entirely unoriginal. I recognized large parts that were lifted from Pinker's writings of several years ago.
Pinker's article is part of the Darwinian Cleanup Project. This project is an attempt to plug the holes in Darwinism which has a very hard time accounting for--a) the origin of life, b) consciousness and c) morality. Pinker begins with an interesting comparison between Mother Teresa, Bill Gates and Norman Borlaug (the father of the Green Revolution in agriculture). Pinker argues that while Mother Teresa may have had the noblest intentions, Gates and Borlaug probably did more to help people than the saint of Calcutta. In other words, morality is not simply a matter of intention but also of what one actually does to help people. Excellent point, but what does it have to do with an evolutionary foundation for ethics? Not much.
For the past several decades, leading neo-Darwinists have labored hard to provide a Darwinian basis for morality. The basic idea here is that morality is a form of extended selfishness. The mother who leaps into the burning car to save her children is acting unselfishly from her point of view, but from her genes' point of view, the action is entirely self-interested. The mother is simply trying to ensure that her genes make it into the next generation. Some evolutionists like Robert Trivers extend this logic to explain why we treat even strangers decently and fairly. This is called "reciprocal altruism," which may be translated as "I'll be nice to you, so that you can be nice to me."
This entire framework of Darwinian analysis does not even come close to explaining morality. It confines itself to explaining altruism, and at best it explains "low altruism." But humans also engage in "high altruism" which may be defined as behavior that confers no reciprocal or genetic advantage. A man stands up to give his seat on the bus to an old lady. She is nothing to him, and he is certainly not thinking that there may be a future occasion when she will give him her seat. He does it because he's a nice guy. There's no Darwinian rationale that can account for his behavior.
Consider the true story of the Catholic priest Maximilian Kolbe, who was imprisoned in a German concentration camp for his anti-Nazi activities. Each day the Nazis would choose one person from the group for execution. One of the first persons they selected was a man who pleaded for his life, saying he had a wife and children who were dependent on him and he needed to live in order to look after them. Just as the Nazis were about to drag him from the room, the priest stood up and said, "Take me in his place." The Nazis were baffled and refused, but the priest insisted. The man was equally uncomprehending, so the priest told him, "I don't have a family, I am old and won't be missed like you will." The Nazis finally agreed, and the priest went to his death. The man whose place he took survived the war and returned to his family.
Now what is the Darwinian explanation for Kolbe's behavior? It does not exist. Ernest Mayr, a leading evolutionary biologist, admits that "altruism toward strangers is behavior not supported by natural selection." Richard Dawkins concedes that Darwinism cannot even explain why people donate blood, an action he puts down to "pure disinterested altruism." I enjoy reading Pinker, Trivers and the others, but I don't think that the Darwin Cleanup Crew is going to come up with a comprehensive account of morality. The simple reason is that the evolutionary project is necessarily confined to the domain of survival and reproductive advantage--in other words, to the domain of self-interest--while it is the essence of morality to operate against self-interest. The whole point of morality is to do what you ought to do, not what you are inclined to do or what it is in your interest to do.
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The Un-Darwinian Sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe
Posted Jan 14th 2008 8:06AM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Science, Christianity, Controversy, Atheism
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Reader Comments ( Page 5 of 69)
61. brian,
Never been hung from a cross. My big brother once hung me from a hook my my elastic underwear strap. Once at a sleepover my friends tied me in my sleeping bag and hung it from a tree branch. Funny how I miss those days...
Being hung from your tighty-whiteys may not fall into the same level as flogging and crucifixion, but it's not a pain to be taken lightly either!
Mokele-Mbembe at 11:53AM on Jan 14th 2008
62. Hey Botts,
"So what Dinesh is doing with this article is pointless. "
And that's different from any other day how, precisely?!
Thought of you yesterday.
1) Watched "Pursuit of Happyness," about a guy who like you who was naturally very good with numbers and made it on Wall Street. Of course, the story is much more than that, but still, I remembered your story.
2) My fiancee and I are looking at buying a house on some land. But if the economy gets even worse in the next 4 years as you (and many others) predict, I'm a bit terrified to get into a payment cycle for something that will just lose value.
Here in Michigan, things are already so bad and property values so far down from where they were 3 or 5 years ago, I suspect the bottom has been reached. But I don't know.
brandon at 11:53AM on Jan 14th 2008
63. Hi Botts,
good point again. I think this is really what philosophy tries to address. Morality, if indeed motivated by instinct on some level, cannot purely be instinctive or it would only mirror animal altruism at best. This is where I think reason comes in. You are not simply following the rules. Think about how many laws have been abolished, because someone reasoned that it was immoral.
I also don't think we just learn what is right and what is wrong. I have been taught many things that, through reason, I have found to be immoral on several levels. Consequently, I dismissed the teachings. In evaluating what is right or wrong (which sometimes is simply choosing the lesser evil), we also have to consider experience. In that way, like Aristotle argued, you can train yourself to be virtuous.
So we know that instinct alone can't be it, but may be the reason for the deeply imbedded need to act moral in many ways, reason alone can't be it (as Kant pointed out in Critique of Pure Reason) and experience alone can't be it, because it is a variable (the more experiences you have and the further they reach across cultural lines, the more material you have to reason about).
That's why I think the combination of the three is the essence of moral behavior.
emma at 11:55AM on Jan 14th 2008
64. Brian and Mark,
What does Jesus have to do with this topic today?
What Jesus did has nothing to do with Morality. What Jesus did was Sacrifice.
Sacrifice isn't a part of Morality. Sacrifice is beyond Morals. Morals are standards. What Jesus did wasn't the standard.
Lay off it. Try something else.
Botts at 11:54AM on Jan 14th 2008
65. brian,
"but jesus died for all. to minimize that is un-forgivable and that is what you will be judged on. "
He didn't die for me. If he died for you, then more power to ya. May his death make you feel better and etc.
brandon at 11:55AM on Jan 14th 2008
66. First off, I think it is difficult to describe the physical aspect of his sacrifice as mere pain. It was torturous brutality. He had his back ripped open by the flogging, probably exposing raw muscle and possible even bone.
xxx
compared to a great many victims of things like automobile accidents, torture and physical ailments he got off extremely light. I know a hell of a lot of people personally who suffered more and longer than jesus.
Clif Kuplen at 11:55AM on Jan 14th 2008
67. "Interestingly, it was NOT the physical aspect of His crucifixion that was so torturous"
#60 should read as above. Sorry for the word omission. I have a bad habit of that.
Mark at 11:56AM on Jan 14th 2008
68. emma,
Morality = instint, reason, and experience?
I like that very much.
brandon at 11:58AM on Jan 14th 2008
69. "compared to a great many victims of things like automobile accidents, torture and physical ailments he got off extremely light. I know a hell of a lot of people personally who suffered more and longer than jesus."
Read my follow up #60 (correction on #61)
Mark at 11:58AM on Jan 14th 2008
70. The correction for #60 is actually #64... sorry folks
Mark at 12:00PM on Jan 14th 2008
71. For once i am just going to say that trying to explain why a guy will lay down his life for people he barely knows is to say the least unexplainable.For me,I believe that God is the one who helps us do such a thing.Selflessness is,however not done cause you are going to benefit in some afterlife.We are selfless because someone else benefits,someone else whom we barely know.Instead of taking potshots at Maximmilian Kolbe,let us think about his example,whether we believe in God or not.Let us,if for one day,do something that demonstrates that we put other interests first,before our own.And it will make the whole world a much better place.
Thanks.
aniekan thomas at 11:59AM on Jan 14th 2008
72. Brandon,
Since you included Land, then I would go for it. Land is an asset. Who knows what can happend say 15 years from now. Yes house is an asset as well, but you're talking about Land. Different ballgame.
Like in one my safety deposit boxes overseas, I have no cash in it. I have Gold in it. Cash could be gone in the future, but Gold will have a value.
Same thing with Land. I would buy it soon, because the value will be at your advantage. Even if teh value were to go lower in the next couple years, don't think that is bad. Because it will get higher. Just takes time.
Michigan for example. Can it get any worse? What goes down must come up. Say in 10 years, Michigan recovers 4 fold. Your land will be worth something.
It all depends if you and your wife can stick it out through the next few years.
Botts at 12:00PM on Jan 14th 2008
73. **anti-theist
So how do god-believers think that humans developed morality? Before there was the bible, where did morality (or what I prefer to call it) - ethics come from. It is definitely in our nature and not something that was taught to us. Children are inherently altruistic and empathic when it comes to others. And this has nothing to do with religion or religious based teachings. Mothers nurture their young and in turn, teach them to nurture others. It is in our genes to do so, so that, yes - our species will continue on this earth. Because we have evolved to be so intelligent - we take it to a higher level and we as humans are generally altruistic towards our fellow humans.
TS
TJ at 10:16AM on Jan 15th 2008
74. aniekan,
Who's taking potshots?
Mokele-Mbembe at 12:05PM on Jan 14th 2008
75. Does the Christian God have morals? If so how could he ask or demand Jesus die for others sins?
Jerry Brown at 12:07PM on Jan 14th 2008