Highly moral - yet highly irrational. Steven Pinker and the colors of morality

When we hear people who express horror at things like homosexuality, stem cell research, abortion, taboo language, inter-racial marriage etc. we tend to think they are either irrational in their world view or evilly attempting to exert their power over others and shamelessly using these issues as an extension of that purpose.

What we often fail to consider is that most people react on these issues from a moral viewpoint. They genuinely want what they believe is the best for everyone in society and just see things from a different moral viewpoint. What is the mechanism within each human being that makes this so? What could go on inside of the heads of two people, who are both loving, caring, giving and tolerant, to have totally divergent ideas about something like abortion?

I don't claim to have the answers. I don't think anyone yet has close to a rigorous theory of mind that would account for it. But it seems clear that Harvard Professor of Cognitive Science, Steven Pinker, is on the right track and certainly identifies some major points for further research and study. Pinker got my attention (and a whole lot of other people's) when he published The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, back in 2002. At the time The Blank Slate came out, Publishers Weekly said this about it –

"Drawing on decades of research in the 'sciences of human nature,' Pinker, a chaired professor of psychology at MIT, attacks the notion that an infant's mind is a blank slate, arguing instead that human beings have an inherited universal structure shaped by the demands made upon the species for survival, albeit with plenty of room for cultural and individual variation."

Anyone who has read this blog for any period of time will know that I completely buy into the direction of Pinker's studies and conclusions. I very much see evolution as being not only the driving force in species but even in human nature. Certainly my friend The Exterminator is well aware of my position and my feelings about Pinker – that he is one of the truly exceptional researchers and writers working on some of these intriguing problems. With that background, it’s easy to see why Ex recently emailed me a link that I’ll be referring to in this post, and that I hope you’ll take the time to read.

Ex’s link was to this strongly recommended article by Pinker that appeared in The New York Times just a couple of weeks ago entitled The Moral Instinct. Reading it will greatly illuminate my following comments. It's a rather long article, but I feel certain that anyone who takes the time to read it will (a) get the opportunity to see what a scintillating mind Pinker possesses and (b) gain valuable insights into the reasons for moral differences between equally fine people. I'll tell you what - go read it and then come back. I'll wait right here.

You are a fast reader. It took me a lot longer!

I'm sure you read the entire article, but I'm going to ask you to review this short two paragraph excerpt:

"When anthropologists like Richard Shweder and Alan Fiske survey moral concerns across the globe, they find that a few themes keep popping up from amid the diversity. People everywhere, at least in some circumstances and with certain other folks in mind, think it’s bad to harm others and good to help them. They have a sense of fairness: that one should reciprocate favors, reward benefactors and punish cheaters. They value loyalty to a group, sharing and solidarity among its members and conformity to its norms. They believe that it is right to defer to legitimate authorities and to respect people with high status. And they exalt purity, cleanliness and sanctity while loathing defilement, contamination and carnality.

"The exact number of themes depends on whether you’re a lumper or a splitter, but Haidt counts five — harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity — and suggests that they are the primary colors of our moral sense. Not only do they keep reappearing in cross-cultural surveys, but each one tugs on the moral intuitions of people in our own culture."

If we assume this to be correct - that there are five "primary colors" of our moral inclinations (in no order of greater or lesser importance), "(no) harm", "fairness", "group loyalty" (also called "community"), "authority" and "purity" - then let's see how these could play out across cultures and even between individuals within a culture.

Now recall that research shows that virtually everyone has these "primary colors of morality" and that everyone has all of the colors in his or her toolkit. None of us (save those handicapped by a disease or disorder, such as psychosis or brain damage) are lacking a single "color". Then why wouldn't rational beings tend to congregate at near-identical conclusions about the moral imperative in any given situation?

Let's think first about two distinct cultures - and I'll use Southeast Asian and Western European. It's very likely, as Pinker shows us, that different cultures would have distinct "colors" that are more heavily emphasized than others. We might expect that in Southeast Asia, the moral values of "authority" and "purity" are given higher moral emphasis. For the Western European cultural community, we might see "harm" and "fairness" as more heavily expressed moral features, while each may treat "group loyalty" approximately the same.

Within cultures you will have this same sort of dichotomy based on politics, religions, race, ethnicities, etc. One group may most heavily weigh "group loyalty", another "purity" and yet a third group views "harm" as the highest moral consideration (and so on).

Remember that we are not talking about mutually exclusive concerns. Everyone will have moral diligence regarding all five of the "primary colors of morality". It's just that the more important ones (for that individual or group) will tilt the scales in their moral reasoning on each issue they confront.

If a woman happens to have a brain that puts its highest moral importance on, first, “authority” which she personally gets from reading a bible and then “harm” which she interprets the bible as indicating that abortion causes, then this is where her emphasis on the issue will reside and one can at least understand the basis for her moral decision about abortion.

No one reading this blog will think I would argue that all belief systems are equally valid or that a so-called “holy book” is a legitimate source of authority. Indeed, as an atheist, I suggest that she has engaged in a flawed use of reasoning and I reject the framework that she is attempting to patch rationality on to. Still, that doesn’t mean that she is in any way acting out of an ulterior motive of “getting us”. To the contrary we are dealing with human beings striving to live morally. Once those of us who attempt to use reason as a major tool in our day to day method of interacting with our environment understand this, we will then be better positioned to deal with irrational belief systems.

Because once we have an understanding of the structural underpinnings of how they arrive at moral intuitions, then we can deal more exclusively with the rational (and evolutionary) basis for morality itself. It’s probably going to be an easier task if we are not approaching the process from the idea that we are dealing with malignant personalities.