The Extent to which People Lie
I read an interesting interview with David Livingstone Smith about the extent to which people lie and why they do it. I found it via Loren Rosson’s blog, in a post that included comments on Jesus’ historical identity.
The Five Primary Colours of Morality
Steven Pinker has written an article that was published in the New York Times on the science and philosophy of morality. I have created a diagram below that I hope accurately summarises the key points of the article.
The steps involved in forming a moral reaction to a given scenario.
- Some scenario occurs and is observed or some scenario is imagined.
- The brain reacts to the scenario.
- The brain examines the scenario from five perspectives, with some more relevant to different scenarios than others.
- Each perspective is given weight and priority. They are then balanced against one another.
- The moralisation ‘switch’ is either turned on or remains off. If it is switched on, rationalisation follows. If it remains off, any non-moral thoughts will win out.
Morality and Science
“We’re a species that is capable of almost dumbfounding kindness. We nurse one another, romance one another, weep for one another. Ever since science taught us how, we willingly tear the very organs from our bodies and give them to one another. And at the same time, we slaughter one another. The past 15 years of human history are the temporal equivalent of those subatomic particles that are created in accelerators and vanish in a trillionth of a second, but in that fleeting instant, we’ve visited untold horrors on ourselves—in Mogadishu, Rwanda, Chechnya, Darfur, Beslan, Baghdad, Pakistan, London, Madrid, Lebanon, Israel, New York City, Abu Ghraib, Oklahoma City, an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania—all of the crimes committed by the highest, wisest, most principled species the planet has produced. That we’re also the lowest, cruelest, most blood-drenched species is our shame—and our paradox.”
Read the full article on Time.com Although the article makes a few claims that I’m not too sure about, it was still an interesting one to read. The whole issue of morality is one that has been playing on my mind lately and the idea that many of the rules are ‘hard-wired’ into us is a fascinating one. It doesn’t make a particular moral tendency ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in an objective sense, but it is consistent with the theistic concept of a ‘moral law’ ‘written on our hearts’.
