- In the text, Steven Pinker tries to explain how our moral instinct works, what it actually is and how we use it. According to Pinker, the moral instinct, or moral sense, is considered to be a sixth sense. Thanks to this sense, we are able to rationalize our decisions and judgements. To me, the most interesting part was when Pinker talks about the universality of the moral instinct. He says that the moral sense is universal, however, its shape is dependant on our own culture and that we judge what is moral and what is not based on our lifestyle.
- From my point of view, the chapter discussing “The Genealogy of Morals” was pretty provocative, especially the paragraph 37 where Pinker talks about Richard Dawkins’s book “The Selfish Gene” and where they discuss altruism affecting the fairness. He mentions that reciprocal altruism comes out of a robotlike calculation but then introduces the opinion of Robert Trivers who argues that argued altruism is implemented in the brain as a suite of moral emotions and consequently explains how the process works, which I find interesting yet a little one-sided.
- When it comes to the persuasive strategy of Pinker’s text, I find this text very strong in this matter. Pinker uses a lot of evidence (logos) by presenting a wide range of studies and scientists which adds credibility and diversity.
- I personally found very interesting the part mentioning harm, fairness, community (or group loyalty), authority and purity as “the primary colors of our moral sense”. To me, it is a new and complex way how to think about our moral judgements. I also found interesting when he says that we usually base our opinions on emotions and then try to rationalize them backwards.
Extra credit fun:
1. Harming One to Save Many
From my point of view, it is not morally acceptable to smother your baby to death in order to save myself and the other people. I would compare this scenario to the example provided by Pinker when he mentions the possibility of heaving the guy from the bridge to save more people. Not only I would murder an innocent person but I would murder my own baby at the same time which I think no parent would have ever done and rather sacrifice their own life than to kill their own child. Not even for the price of saving more people. Plus, in my head, there would always be a possibility of figuring the situation out in a different way (the soldiers would potentionally not hear us or maybe they would let us go thanks to having the baby or something else).
2. Frying Fido
This scenario is a good example of how our lifestyle and culture affects our moral instinct. Eating the dog would be wrong at least because of several reasons. First, it is a family dog, a loved one. I do not actually think that even cultures who find eating dogs acceptable or normal woul eat a dog they loved. On the other hand, many people breed rabbits, give them names, talk to them and then they kill them and eat them. However, these are usually predestined to be eaten from their first day even though people get emotionally attached to them. Therefore, I think it is still easier to eat a loved rabbit than a loved dog but again – here it is a good example of how our culture influences our moral sense because dogs are our lovely pets we would have never eaten.
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RWS-510 Rhetoric and Culture 