Pinker Passage

The passage in the Pinker article that most resonated with me was, "One more point before concluding. Even if our moral sense is a product of evolution, it does not imply that morality is somehow a figment of our imagination or a human construction. One could argue that morality, even without a God, has an inherent logic that the human moral sense implements." Overall I thought maybe the article was inappropriately titled as to better catch the eye. It seemed to be arguing more against the blank slate than society and culture's impact on human development.

With apologies to the religious, this passage did, however, affirm a belief I've held for a while. Basing morality on something other than societal standards and your own combination of common sense and experience can be dangerous. However, by accepting a larger held system of what is right and wrong, society is better able to function. Pinker demonstrates this with the Calvin and Hobbes comic in which Hobbes shows Calvin how problematic it would be for everyone to exclusively use a self servicing Machiavellian approach to everyday life.

I suppose the biggest reason why people should care is so that people can better understand and function with one another. I was asked once in a high school classroom setting, "If you don't believe in God, what's to stop you from killing someone." I found the question ludicrous and appalling. The idea that all that separated humans from total chaos was unwavering dogma was, to me, laughable. I feel if people weren't so blindly willing to accept one view or the other, that scientists and post modernists might better be able to understand each other and coexist.