By GARY GUTTING
The Stone is featuring occasional posts by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, that apply critical thinking to information and events that have appeared in the news.
Steven Pinker’s impressive new book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined,” has been much reviewed and discussed since its publication last month—a rare occurrence for a book of ideas. The two key empirical claims that Pinker puts forward are suggested in the title: that the level of human violence (war, murder, etc.) has been decreasing over the centuries and that the human ability to reason has been correspondingly increasing. He goes on to explain the first claim by the second. Our ability to reason causes us to be less violent: “A smarter [more rational] world,” he says, “is a less violent world.”
In a book awash with empirical data and analysis, it is remarkable that Pinker’s capstone explanation (developed on pp. 647-650) is not based solely on empirical facts. It also depends on a philosophical argument that rationality logically implies a moral rejection of violence. Historians and psychologists will scrutinize Pinker’s empirical claims. Here I discuss his crucial philosophical argument, which I think faces some serious problems.
Pinker is talking about reason in a strong sense: the ability to think in abstract logical terms. The question he poses is, “Do we have any reason to expect that rationality should orient a reasoner to wanting less violence?” Yes, he says, provided I (the reasoner) meet two further conditions: (1) I am concerned about my own individual welfare and (2) I live in a community with others who can affect my welfare, and with whom I can engage in rational discussion.
Given these conditions — which obviously apply to us humans — the case against harming others goes like this. In virtue of (1), I will want to avoid having others harm me. In virtue of (2), I will, therefore, try to convince others that they shouldn’t harm me. But, Pinker asks, what reason can a human give other humans for not harming him that is not also a reason for his not harming them? “As soon as he says, ‘It’s bad for you to hurt me,’ he’s committed to ‘It’s bad for me to hurt you,’ since logic cannot tell the difference between ‘me’ and ‘you’. . . . So as soon as you try to persuade someone to avoid harming you by appealing to reasons why he shouldn’t, you’re sucked into a commitment to the avoidance of harm as a general goal.”
Pinker’s argument recalls many similar efforts by modern philosophers since Immanuel Kant to develop a rigorous case for morality. (Pinker mentions Peter Singer and Thomas Nagel as influences on his formulation.) It’s not clear, however, that the argument is sufficient to establish morality. Suppose, for example, King Henry claims that, because of his superior social status, he has a right to harm Peasant Peter, but that Peter, because of his inferior status, does not have a right to harm Henry. Henry’s claim is logically consistent as long as he agrees that, were their positions reversed, Peter would have a right to harm Henry and Henry would not have a right to harm Peter. Morality requires that superior social status alone does not give anyone a right to harm another. Logic requires only that we recognize the right to harm because of superior social status no matter who has the superior status.
Pinker’s argument needs, therefore, a further premise, one that asserts the moral equality of all human beings (or even perhaps of all rational beings). Logical reasoning alone does not yield this premise.
All right, you may say, but why can’t Pinker just add this premise to his argument? After all, isn’t it obvious that morality requires treating all human beings equally? Not really. If morality requires treating everyone equally, then it’s wrong to privilege, say, my spouse, children, friends, or neighbors over others. But suppose (to use a sort of example dear to philosophers) a house is on fire and two people are in danger of death. I’m fairly near to one, whom I could almost certainly save; the other is farther off, so that a rescue is possible but not highly likely. Morality no doubt would say, make the certain rescue. But suppose the person further off is my wife. The principle of treating everyone equally would imply that this should make no difference. But this is a difficult conclusion to accept. Shouldn’t I try to save my wife even if the likely result is that both she and the stranger will die?
A similar problem arises from a famous line of thought developed and endorsed by Peter Singer (who, as we noted, influenced Pinker’s ethical ideas). We all agree that it would be morally wrong not to pull a drowning child from a nearby lake, even if that meant ruining a suit of clothes worth, say, $500. But suppose we know that a donation of $500 to Oxfam is virtually certain to save a child in Africa from starving to death. If there’s no moral difference between the child starving in Africa and the child drowning nearby, then donating to Oxfam (or similar groups) is not an optional act of charity but a moral obligation. In particular, if a couple spend $500 on an anniversary dinner instead of giving it to save starving children, they have acted immorally.
Both of these conclusions—that it’s wrong to try to save my wife and wrong for a well-off couple to spend $500 on an anniversary dinner—are counter-intuitive. But they seem to follow from Pinker’s assumption that “you can’t favor members of your own group [family, neighborhood, country, etc.] over members of another group.” At a minimum, then, this key assumption of Pinker’s argument from reason to morality requires a lot more support than he gives it. If, as I suspect, this support can’t be provided, then we may have to accept that morality has its roots more in feeling than in reason.
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Steven Pinker’s impressive new book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined,” has been much reviewed and discussed since its publication last month—a rare occurrence for a book of ideas. The two key empirical claims that Pinker puts forward are suggested in the title: that the level of human violence (war, murder, etc.) has been decreasing over the centuries and that the human ability to reason has been correspondingly increasing. He goes on to explain the first claim by the second. Our ability to reason causes us to be less violent: “A smarter [more rational] world,” he says, “is a less violent world.”
In a book awash with empirical data and analysis, it is remarkable that Pinker’s capstone explanation (developed on pp. 647-650) is not based solely on empirical facts. It also depends on a philosophical argument that rationality logically implies a moral rejection of violence. Historians and psychologists will scrutinize Pinker’s empirical claims. Here I discuss his crucial philosophical argument, which I think faces some serious problems.
Pinker is talking about reason in a strong sense: the ability to think in abstract logical terms. The question he poses is, “Do we have any reason to expect that rationality should orient a reasoner to wanting less violence?” Yes, he says, provided I (the reasoner) meet two further conditions: (1) I am concerned about my own individual welfare and (2) I live in a community with others who can affect my welfare, and with whom I can engage in rational discussion.
Given these conditions — which obviously apply to us humans — the case against harming others goes like this. In virtue of (1), I will want to avoid having others harm me. In virtue of (2), I will, therefore, try to convince others that they shouldn’t harm me. But, Pinker asks, what reason can a human give other humans for not harming him that is not also a reason for his not harming them? “As soon as he says, ‘It’s bad for you to hurt me,’ he’s committed to ‘It’s bad for me to hurt you,’ since logic cannot tell the difference between ‘me’ and ‘you’. . . . So as soon as you try to persuade someone to avoid harming you by appealing to reasons why he shouldn’t, you’re sucked into a commitment to the avoidance of harm as a general goal.”
Pinker’s argument recalls many similar efforts by modern philosophers since Immanuel Kant to develop a rigorous case for morality. (Pinker mentions Peter Singer and Thomas Nagel as influences on his formulation.) It’s not clear, however, that the argument is sufficient to establish morality. Suppose, for example, King Henry claims that, because of his superior social status, he has a right to harm Peasant Peter, but that Peter, because of his inferior status, does not have a right to harm Henry. Henry’s claim is logically consistent as long as he agrees that, were their positions reversed, Peter would have a right to harm Henry and Henry would not have a right to harm Peter. Morality requires that superior social status alone does not give anyone a right to harm another. Logic requires only that we recognize the right to harm because of superior social status no matter who has the superior status.
Pinker’s argument needs, therefore, a further premise, one that asserts the moral equality of all human beings (or even perhaps of all rational beings). Logical reasoning alone does not yield this premise.
All right, you may say, but why can’t Pinker just add this premise to his argument? After all, isn’t it obvious that morality requires treating all human beings equally? Not really. If morality requires treating everyone equally, then it’s wrong to privilege, say, my spouse, children, friends, or neighbors over others. But suppose (to use a sort of example dear to philosophers) a house is on fire and two people are in danger of death. I’m fairly near to one, whom I could almost certainly save; the other is farther off, so that a rescue is possible but not highly likely. Morality no doubt would say, make the certain rescue. But suppose the person further off is my wife. The principle of treating everyone equally would imply that this should make no difference. But this is a difficult conclusion to accept. Shouldn’t I try to save my wife even if the likely result is that both she and the stranger will die?
A similar problem arises from a famous line of thought developed and endorsed by Peter Singer (who, as we noted, influenced Pinker’s ethical ideas). We all agree that it would be morally wrong not to pull a drowning child from a nearby lake, even if that meant ruining a suit of clothes worth, say, $500. But suppose we know that a donation of $500 to Oxfam is virtually certain to save a child in Africa from starving to death. If there’s no moral difference between the child starving in Africa and the child drowning nearby, then donating to Oxfam (or similar groups) is not an optional act of charity but a moral obligation. In particular, if a couple spend $500 on an anniversary dinner instead of giving it to save starving children, they have acted immorally.
Both of these conclusions—that it’s wrong to try to save my wife and wrong for a well-off couple to spend $500 on an anniversary dinner—are counter-intuitive. But they seem to follow from Pinker’s assumption that “you can’t favor members of your own group [family, neighborhood, country, etc.] over members of another group.” At a minimum, then, this key assumption of Pinker’s argument from reason to morality requires a lot more support than he gives it. If, as I suspect, this support can’t be provided, then we may have to accept that morality has its roots more in feeling than in reason.
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