The Blank Slate

“Humans, then, are just rats with bigger blank slates, plus something called ‘cultural devices’” 

In an ironic tone, Pinker summarizes the conclusions of a study by psychologists David Rumelhart and James McClelland. Pinker notes that modern psychology often relies on animal testing to support its theories about human nature, but it fails to distinguish meaningfully between laboratory animals and people. For Pinker, each are governed by their own their own impulses and instincts. It is these impulses—which cannot be explained through culture alone—that we should seek to understand. 

“A fixed collection of machinery in the mind can generate an infinite range of behavior by the muscles” 

Pinker writes about how Noam Chomsky’s revolutionary concepts of language have helped us understand that the mind that can generate infinite numbers of outputs. In other words, language follows a system of governing patterns, and the creative possibilities of these patterns is essentially endless.  

“The fact is that no one knows what these numbers mean” 

Pinker discusses the fact that the Human Genome Project discovered 34,000 unique human genes. This was a lower number than some people expected leading them to believe that the impact of genes on human nature is not as important as the environment and culture. one. Pinker points out that the idea that 34,000 is a low number is entirely subjective. The investigation of the behavioral effect of genes has only just begun. 

“Simple logic says there can be no learning without innate mechanisms to do the learning” 

Pinker argues that the debunking the Blank Slate may be as simple as thinking logically. In order to learn, we have to have some basic faculties that allow us to acquire and retain knowledge which shows that the Blank Slate is a fallacy. 

“In the twentieth century the Blank Slate became a sacred doctrine that, in the minds of its defenders, had to be either avowed with a perfect faith or renounced in every aspect” 

Pinker argues against the prevailing cultural attitude that discourages inquiry and investigation into human nature for fear that the results will be used for harmful ends. Throughout the book, Pinker explores how the Blank Slate is an idea that is promoted by the political left and right, and both sides ignore nuance and complexity in favor of theories that are consistent but fallacious.

“If behavior is controlled instead by circuits in the brain that follow the laws of chemistry, choice and value would be myths and the possibility of moral responsibility would evaporate” 

Pinker notes that defenders of the Ghost in the Machine—the idea that the mind and body are separate—are afraid that believing otherwise devalues human existence, depriving life of meaning and higher purpose. In other words, if we are the products of neural circuitry in the brain, we may fall prey to nihilism or feel no obligation to act morally. Pinker does not accept this, however, and notes that people who do believe in a human soul with no biological component still behave in morally reprehensible ways, sometimes in the name of their religious beliefs. Pinker believes that the goodness of human morality is not dependent on the fiction of the Ghost in the Machine. 

“The question is not whether human nature will increasingly be explained by the sciences of the mind, brain, genes, and evolution, but what we are going to do with the knowledge” 

Pinker believes that cognitive science has already shown that our minds are governed by biological processes and genes, and that future scientific discoveries will only further validate this thesis. He says that it is now time for us to figure out how this knowledge will govern our legal and moral choices. Pinker recognizes how bad actors have justified atrocities using science, but he still believes that we can use scientific knowledge of human nature and behavior to create a just society.

“The Blank Slate is today’s Great Chain of Being: a doctrine that is widely embraced as a rationale for meaning and morality and that is under assault from the sciences of the day” 

During the Renaissance, the discovery of the heliocentric universe challenged a hierarchical view of the universe that included the justification of monarchical power known as the Great Chain of Being. Pinker posits that discoveries about cognitive science are similarly threatening the belief in the Blank Slate today. Pinker writes that the idea of the Blank Slate will disappear as in the same way as the Great Chain of Being without deleterious effects on our sense of life’s meaning or morality. 

“The greatest moral appeal of the doctrine of the Blank Slate comes from a simple mathematical fact: zero equals zero. This allows the Blank Slate to serve as a guarantor of political equality. Blank is blank, so if we are all blank slates, the reasoning goes, we must all be equal” 

Pinker understands that the Blank Slate holds appeal as a means of justifying and guaranteeing political equality. If we are all born the same, we all have the same potential, and it is easy to justify the idea that we should all be treated equally. In the book, Pinker argues that the moral defense of human equality can and will survive the dismantling of the Blank Slate theory. 

“Men’s natures are alike; it is their habits that carry them far apart” 

Pinker refers to a quotation by the ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius. Pinker believes that Confucius could be correct and that there is a biologically supported universality to basic human nature, though he also argues throughout the book that explanations for human difference are not solely cultural; they are also biologically based. 

“Discarding the Blank Slate has thrown far more light on the psychological unity of humankind than on any differences” 

People are afraid to discard the idea of the Blank Slate because they fear it will justify and give rise to inequality, but this fear is unjustified. Research into brain science supports the idea that we are more similar than we are different. Understanding the nature of these differences is not a threat to the basic ideal of human equality. 

“People are qualitatively the same but may differ quantitatively” 

Pinker means that we are quite similar with regard to our human natures including our motivations, instincts, drives, and impulses. We share certain universal human qualities. However, we might differ with regard to specific features and phenotypes such as skin color, resulting from environmental adaptations.

“Far from being conducive to discrimination, a conception of human nature is the reason we oppose it” 

Pinker believes that an accurate and developing understanding of human nature supports the idea that discrimination is wrong. Recent brain science supports the idea that we are quite similar as humans. However, political equality does not require that we all be exactly the same. Instead, it necessitates policies that treat people as individuals with rights regardless of difference. 

“Darwin made me do it” 

This is Pinker’s humorous way of explaining the fear of an evolutionary explanation of human behavior, which is that it will allow people to blame their choices and immoral behavior on an evolutionary adaptation. In other words, blaming Darwin’s theory of natural selection as a way of avoiding responsibility, free will, and personal choice. 

“It is a confusion of explanation with exculpation” 

Pinker writes that critics of biological and environmental explanations of human behavior confuse explaining behavior with justifying it. For example, believing that some people are more predisposed to violence than others is not the same as excusing violent behavior. The goal of understanding the origins of human behavior is to use scientifically supported knowledge in combination with our moral faculties to create a better society. 

“A moral sense is part of the standard equipment of the human mind” 

Speaking of morality, Pinker writes that it is an essential and ingrained part of human nature. The human mind comes wired to cooperate with others, protect kin, and behavior in other ways we think of as moral. Therefore, people do not need to fear that jettisoning the Blank Slate theory means the end of morality. 

“But just because the world we know is a construct of our brain, that does not mean it is an arbitrary concept” 

Pinker acknowledges that a fear of nihilism is one reason people support the idea of the Ghost in the Machine. Overall, we want to believe that life has meaning and that we are endowed with a purpose. For Pinker, these are worthy ideals but they do not need the support of the Ghost in the Machine fallacy. The idea that our conception of reality is biologically determined does not render it meaningless.

“First, all the talk about genes that influence behavior does not mean that we are cuckoo clocks or player pianos, mindlessly executing the dictates of DNA” 

Another criticism Pinker addresses is that biological explanations of behavior reduce human beings to thoughtless automatons enslaved to the basic biological impulse of spreading our genes and reproducing. Pinker does believe that our minds our influenced by genes, but this does not eliminate free will, conscience, or moral choice. In fact, it is genes that allow for the cognitive capacity needed to form and understand those moral systems in the first place. In other words, heredity, behavior, and free will are not mutually exclusive.  

“The moral sense is a gadget, like stereo vision or intuitions about number. It is an assembly of neural circuits cobbled together from older parts of the primate brain and shaped by natural selection to do a job” 

Pinker compares our sense of morality to other mechanisms of our brain. Like them, it arises from parts of our brain that have been shaped by natural selection. Morality is not imaginary; it is part of our brain that has helped us survive by punishing aggressors and cheaters and working at times with others. At the same time, Pinker cautions against equating the morally neutral process of natural selection with the moral

“Moralization and scholarship thus often find themselves on a collision course” 

People have at times been resistant to accepting the findings of science because they do not want them to undermine deeply held moral principles. Throughout the book, Pinker’s goal is to show that morality and science are not adversaries and that acknowledging scientific advances that explain human behavior does not negate or invalidate systems of moral thought.

“It is time for the left to take seriously the fact that we are evolved animals, and that we bear the evidence of our inheritance, not only in our anatomy and DNA, but in our behavior too” 

Pinker quotes the philosopher Peter Singer in this excerpt. Pinker worries that the political left stifles scientific research that shows evidence of difference. Like Singer, Pinker believes that the political left has to embrace the idea that human nature is at least partly governed by genes, that this can show some evidence of difference between people, and that acknowledging this fact does not need to undermine an interest in political equality.

“If anything, it is the belief that violence is an aberration that is dangerous, because it lulls us into forgetting how easily violence can erupt in quiescent places” 

Pinker’s contention is that violent impulses are an inherent part of human nature, contradicting the doctrine of the Noble Savage which posits that violence is the reaction to the ills of civilization. People also like to believe that violence is pathological. However, Pinker writes that sane, rational, healthy people can also be violent. Understanding the origins of violence can help us prevent it. 

“With violence, as with so many other concerns, human nature is the problem, but human nature is also the solution” 

Pinker writes about the ways in which violence can be an advantageous tactic within the process of natural selection. However, we also have a sense of right and wrong and are capable of understanding the damaging consequences of violence. Our minds are endowed with a recursive function that can look for new solutions to problems previously addressed through violence, can also come up solutions to the problem of violence itself. In this way, we reflect two sides of the same coin: the capacity for violence and the means to prevent it.