On The Moral Instinct

Harvard Professor and author Steven Pinker‘s "The Moral Instinct" in tomorrow’s New York Times Magazine addresses a handful of topics we vegans frequently talk about. I think everyone should read it and ponder it in relation to their own activism and beliefs. Here are some highlights:

• "[M]oral judgments differ from other kinds of opinions we have on how people ought to behave. Moralization is a psychological state that can be turned on and off like a switch, and when it is on, a distinctive mind-set commandeers our thinking. . . .The first hallmark of moralization is that the rules it invokes are felt to be universal." So far so good.
• "The other hallmark is that people feel that those who commit immoral acts deserve to be punished." I ask you, do you think those who use animals should be punished? You do think they’re acting immorally don’t you? And if there is punishment, is there a line of some kind? Everyone wanted to punish Michael Vick, but what about the average non-hunting, non-fur wearing meat eater who rescues cats? Anyone want to punish that person?
  
• "Moral vegetarians avoid meat for ethical reasons: to avoid complicity in the suffering of animals. By investigating their feelings about meat-eating, Rozin showed that the moral motive sets off a cascade of opinions. Moral vegetarians are more likely to treat meat as a contaminant — they refuse, for example, to eat a bowl of soup into which a drop of beef broth has fallen. They are more likely to think that other people ought to be vegetarians, and are more likely to imbue their dietary habits with other virtues, like believing that meat avoidance makes people less aggressive and bestial." This isn’t really the whole story or the accurate story for many vegans, though. Pinker doesn’t address social justice or nonviolence, and therefore doesn’t appear to have a thorough understanding of veganism (nor does he claim to or even mention it, although he will rely on Peter Singer in a moment). I’ll have to read his latest book and see if he addresses it, and write him if he doesn’t.
• Smoking has been moralized, however, "many behaviors have been amoralized, switched from moral failings to lifestyle choices. They include divorce, illegitimacy, being a working mother, marijuana use and homosexuality." Food has, for us, been moralized, but I don’t agree that we necessarily want retribution for those using animals (I don’t). We simply want them to stop. (Do you agree? Will it only "stick" if there is punishment involved? Then there’s the practical matter of punishing so many people. Is that the direction anyone’s going or should we only punish for acts there is a law against, as we do now–or at least attempt to do? Of course that makes some abuses more legitimate abuses than others. See the problem(s)? )
  
• Pinker mentions universal morality, which I’ve written about before, and the idea that we’re all wired with a moral sense (like we’re all wired with universal grammar, according to Chomsky). In other words, "moral sense . . . may be rooted in the design of the normal human brain."
• "I can’t act as if my interests are special just because I’m me and you’re not, any more than I can persuade you that the spot I am standing on is a special place in the universe just because I happen to be standing on it. Not coincidentally, the core of this idea — the interchangeability of perspectives — keeps reappearing in history’s best-thought-through moral philosophies, including the Golden Rule (itself discovered many times); Spinoza’s Viewpoint of Eternity; the Social Contract of Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke; Kant’s Categorical Imperative; and Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance. It also underlies Peter Singer’s theory of the Expanding Circle — the optimistic proposal that our moral sense, though shaped by evolution to overvalue self, kin and clan, can propel us on a path of moral progress, as our reasoning forces us to generalize it to larger and larger circles of sentient beings." (And I do agree with Singer’s theory as it is stated, which doesn’t mean I’m a fan of his or agree with anything else in particular).
• "The science of the moral sense also alerts us to ways in which our psychological makeup can get in the way of our arriving at the most defensible moral conclusions. The moral sense, we are learning, is as vulnerable to illusions as the other senses. It is apt to confuse morality per se with purity, status and conformity. It tends to reframe practical problems as moral crusades and thus see their solution in punitive aggression. It imposes taboos that make certain ideas indiscussible. And it has the nasty habit of always putting the self on the side of the angels." Enough said.

Finally . . . "Far from debunking morality, then, the science of the moral sense can advance it, by allowing us to see through the illusions that evolution and culture have saddled us with and to focus on goals we can share and defend. As Anton Chekhov wrote, ‘Man will become better when you show him what he is like.’"

Have a peaceful day.