Steven Pinker’s Half-Hearted Defense of Rationality

Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker's latest book, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, and Why It Matters is a rarity: an intelligent examination of a core issue in philosophy that is also written for a general audience and that debuted at the top of bestseller lists.

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Elan Journo and Ben Bayer discuss Steven Pinker’s latest book, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, and Why It Matters, and whether it makes a solid argument for rationality.

Among the topics covered:

• The Objectivist framework as a context for analyzing Pinker’s book;
• Strengths of the book;
• Pinker’s self-refuting “humility” about the scope of rationality;
• Pinker’s narrow “instrumentalist” definition of rationality;
• Pinker’s view that rationality cannot evaluate ultimate ends;
• Pinker’s case for a form of quasi-rational morality;
• Cognitive biases at work in Pinker’s own case for morality;
• Pinker’s and Rand’s contrasting conceptions of rationality;
• Shortcomings in Pinker’s explanation for today’s irrational political tribalism;
• Rand’s alternative approach to a rational ethics (and affinities to some of Pinker’s views).

Mentioned in the discussion are Ayn Rand’s essay “The Objectivist Ethics,” Onkar Ghate’s “Finding Morality Without God” and Ben Bayer’s “Why Scientific Progress in Ethics Is Frozen.”

0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:05 Objectivism as context
0:03:36 Strengths of the book
0:09:37 Self-refuting "humility"
0:16:21 Narrow "instrumentalist" definition
0:21:55 Can reason evaluate ultimate ends?
0:26:51 Pinker's quasi-rational morality
0:33:27 Cognitive biases at work
0:41:50 Contrasting Pinker and Ayn Rand
0:44:35 Today's irrational political tribalism
0:55:22 Rand's alternative approach

[claudiodambrosio]

Thanks for introducing me to the book, and for the enlightening commentary.

[DublinDapper]

Would love you guys to debate these points with Pinker. Great commentary folks.

[GiovanniH]

Thanks so much for your analysis on this book! 🙌🏻

[Oldcoots]

Thank You so so much for helping this layman to more fully understand so many issues such as: the nature of the Human Condition; etc.

[jessicastrat]

Regarding “self refuting humility”, Pinker is simply stating that there is an objective truth, as opposed no objective truth, while being open to criticism so that he can be brought closer to the truth.

[ohsweetmystery]

Not a fan of Pinker, but yes, in this case he is correct. Just because you disagree with what a 'mean' person wants does not make them irrational.
What someone wants is NEVER rational, by definition. It is an emotion and is a completely separate thing from rational thinking.

[michaelbennett]

Finally, a response to Pinker, who has many snake-fascinated by his use of the words “Enlightenment” and “Rationality.” Pinker’s un-reason was implicit in his previous books. Now it’s been made explicit. My only complaint is that this critique doesn’t go far enough and is still too apologetic. The greatest destroyers of reason today are its most staunch defenders- and Pinker leads that pack.

[TheMichaelMove]

Yeah he has some good thoughts but falls apart when confronted with facts that threaten his lecture circuit.

[blamtasticful]

I can helpfully summarize this critique now: Moral Realists whine that others aren't moral realists.

[TeaParty]

Ignorance of the principles of reasoning is not bias. It's natural ignorance, before learning those rules. The hidden context is a mystical or subjective ideal: man "should" automatically know those rules. Man does not live up to this ideal, thus man is flawed and needs those who have been initiated into the mysteries for guidance. This, of course, is merely epistemological Original Sin and no more rational.

[davidhunt]

*_Human Life (and even life in general) has intrinsic value in and of itself._* Is this a *Normative* statement or a *Factual* statement (or something _else_ even)?

In a free society, .. while there are many things free people *should* do, .. what *must* free people do? What do free people owe each other just by being free people?
For instance, .. how can search warrants work in a manner that is compatible with Murray Rothbard's *Non-Aggression Principle?*

How is the limited amount of socially sanctioned initiatory violence, that even a free society occasionally requires, .. to be created and restrained?
This is the question I find all Anarcho-Capitalists will tied themselves up in knots over, .. to avoid having to acknowledge and confront it.

[ptbuse]

Wanted to add something to the Hitler topic, as I'm watching the video move on from that topic.

Hitler was irrational when selecting his end. Specifically, his weird racially centered world view you can see in Mein Kampf. He thought race was the prime mover of history/civilization. Purer Aryan civilizations only fell when the inferior that they conquered began mixing into the pure blood, resulting in a decay to eventual collapse. Incorrect. Biology shows that race basically is an arbitrary category. It doesn't exist. Hitlers' end was based on something that doesn't exist. Same principle as accepting an end gained through revelation from god. Irrational. He had other irrational ideas that fed into and motivated him in other ways as well. This is the big one though.

Hitlers' end was irrational, therefore his means to his end is also irrational, as it helps to achieve an irrational end. A little support for that: If it's true that irrationality is bad for humanity.(easy to prove as true for most) If it's true that 'doing' something that is bad for humanity is irrational.(only if human life is your standard of value can this one be “wholly” true)

[paulcohen]

Please stop speeding up the videos. Very annoying and hard to follow b

[TeaParty]

Pinker evades reason as conceptualization.

[blamtasticful]

Yeah not impressed with the beginning of the analysis. The argument that Pinker's claim that we cannot know the ultimate truth falls by asking if that is the ultimate truth is like an analysis from a cocky kid who has taken a philosophy class for the first time; it's rubbish. Pinker never claims that we cannot know truth. He claims we cannot know everything. This comment is like saying hey do you know that you cannot know everything? Regardless of if the claim that we cannot know everything is true or false such a line of reasoning doesn't undermine the claim in the slightest.

[TeaParty]

Let me get this straight. "Scientists" needed experiments to know or prove that irrationality is destructive?! Common human experience and literature are insufficient? How did man survive before science? Rand satirized this kind of absurdity in her fiction.

[TeaParty]

God hath revealed Himself to me. How? How could I, merely human, know?

[thegroove]

It amazes me that steven researches the concept of rationality but comes across as lacking when it comes to goverment fraud and corruption against the people and he also.

[louislemar]

Is Pinker's view of Rationality, i.e., that rationality is "the use of knowledge to achieve some goal, " an example of what Rand called the 'fallacy of the frozen abstraction'? Based on his comment that if your goal is the extermination of the jews then Hitler behaved "rationally", it seems to me to suggest that Pinker's conception of rationality is just an understanding or recognition of causality. If you want an effect - the extermination of the jews - then the cause - concentration camp - is rational. He's substituting reason with causality.

[WhoIsJohnGaltt]

I would beg the question to whether women are the reason we live in a country that is no longer guided by reason but feeling. There’s a lot of psychological research that women, not all women, but a general majority abide by care based morality not justice based morality. Care based morality that seeks to sacrifice and compromise on private property for the sake of helping those with “need”. This along with other incentives such as not having to take part in selective service gives them no reason to vote against war which they will never fight, their male counter parts will. Now I don’t know if taking the voting rights away from women is good or bad but I would be vary curious to see where we would be today if women were never given the right to vote.