Category: Psychology

The scientific study of the nature, functioning, and development of the human mind

Pinker on intelligence

Here is an interesting passage from Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate:

In any case, there is now ample evidence that intelligence is a stable property of an individual, that it can be linked to features in the brain (including overall size, amount of gray matter in the frontal lobes, speed of neural conduction, and metabolism of cerebral glucose), that it is partly heritable among individuals, and that it predicts some of the variation in life outcomes such as income and social status. (p.150 paperback)

Conceptually, we can separate the question “Is there a physical/biological/genetic basis to intelligence” from the question “What moral implications does that have for society?” Still, it seems clear to me that there are moral implications that arise from the diversity in human intelligence. They are, however, connected to tricky moral problems, like what it means to ‘deserve’ one’s level of success or failure.

Commonalities in Marxist and Nazi ideology

There is an interesting passage in Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate in which he argues that the Nazi and Marxist ideologies share important ideological assumptions that partly explain why each produces large-scale human suffering:

The ideological connection between Marxist socialism and National Socialism is not fanciful. Hitler read Marx carefully while living in Munich in 1913, and may have picked up from him a fateful postulate that the two ideologies would share. It is the belief that history is a preordained succession of conflicts between groups of people and that improvement in the human condition can only come from the victory of one group over the others. For the Nazis the groups were races; for the Marxists they were classes. For the Nazis the conflict was Social Darwinism; for the Marxists, it was class struggle. For the Nazis the destined victors were the Aryans; for the Marxists, they were the proletariat. The ideologies, once implemented, led to atrocities in a few steps: struggle (often a euphemism for violence) is inevitable and beneficial; certain groups of people (the non-Aryans or the bourgeoisie) are morally inferior; improvements in human welfare depend on their subjugation or elimination. Aside from supplying a direct justification for violent conflict, the ideology of intergroup struggle ignites a nasty feature of human social psychology: the tendency to divide people into in-groups and out-groups and to treat the out-groups as less than human. It doesn’t matter whether the groups are thought to be defined by their biology or by their history. Psychologists have found that they can create instant intergroup hostility by sorting people on just about any pretext, including the flip of a coin.

The ideology of group-against-group struggle explains the similar outcomes of Marxist and Nazism. (p.157 paperback, emphasis mine)

To me, the key corrective to the excesses of any ideology that tries to build utopias is to recognize that human thinking and planning are flawed, and that we must respect the welfare and rights of individuals. We should not become so convinced in the rightness of our cause that we become willing to utterly trample others in order to achieve it. Even when confronted with hostile ideologies which we cannot tolerate, we should not be ruthless toward our opponents. Rather, we should consider the extent to which the aims we are seeking to achieve justify the means through which we are seeking to achieve them. We should also bear in mind the possibility that we are wrong or misled, and design systems of government to limit how much harm governments themselves can do.

Fostering cooperation

Coordination of technical standards is probably the most routine sort of international relations. Everyone can agree that it is useful when phone calls and letters can successfully operate across international borders, and that it is useful when roads, rail lines, electrical connections, and other linkages are available and standardized.

The practicality of these tasks aside, it does seem probable that they would help to foster good relations between countries. When engineers from Country X see that engineers from Country Y are a lot like them, it is plausible that they generalize that feeling into a certain sense of general commonality.

It would be interesting to see some data and analysis on the role technical cooperation has played in fostering good relations. Routine work like communication interlinkages could be one topic of study. The same could be true for more exotic undertakings, like joint space missions.

As discussed before, it is also possible that the existing level of cooperation between states could break down if the world became sufficiently unstable.

Planet Money on drug legalization and ‘Freeway Rick’

In a recent episode of NPR’s Planet Money podcast, they interviewed a former L.A. drug dealer about the economics of his profession. He was apparently a high-ranking member of the illegal drug industry, operating with 30-40 employees and sometimes handling daily revenues of $3 million per day.

He largely confirms the new conventional wisdom: that prohibition massively increases the price of drugs (1000 fold, he says) and substantially increases how much crime and violence is associated. As the episode concludes in saying, the question is whether the supposed benefit of fewer people using drugs justifies all the costs and harms associated with prohibition.

Imagine anybody could buy one shot of heroin at the LCBO (Ontario’s liquor store) for $5. Suddenly, there would be no illegal market. Nobody would buy heroin of unknown purity from an illegal dealer if it was available for a low price from a government-sponsored source. People would not have to commit major crimes to buy drugs, and they would get drugs of assured priority and consistent potency. More people might use heroin, but it would be less dangerous and harmful for society as a whole.

The episode also argues that it is the hopelessness within their communities that drives people to become drug addicts and to join the illegal drug industry. The lack of better employment options makes the special costs in terms of jail or violence less of a deterrent than they would be for people with better options.

The episode is called: “#266: A Former Crack Dealer On the Economics of Dealing”. It is available for free through the iTunes Store.

Politics and seeming genuine

In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker argues that “the best liar is the one who believes his own lies”.

I wonder if this has anything to do with who succeeds in politics. Often, people think favorably of those who promise things they want. At the same time, they want people who seem genuine. The ideal candidate, then, is someone who genuinely believes that they will keep their promises. That is easier to do when your plans are vague or when you assume the sheer force of your personality will produce your desired outcome.

Science endorses bling

I knew designer labels had a psychological effect on people who see them, but I am surprised by the size of the effects discovered by researchers at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. They found that people in designer labelled clothes were rated as significantly higher status and wealthier than those in the same clothes sans labels. They found that 52% of people would take a survey from a person in a Tommy Hilfiger garment, compared with 13% for the same garment without the logo. They also found people more willing to give a job to someone bearing a designer logo, with a recommended salary 9% higher.

The strategies suggested by this data are pretty obvious: even if it seems a bit tasteless, it may be wise to emblazon yourself with labels, especially when dealing with strangers.

The Moral Landscape

Traditionally, science is understood as having limited authority on ethical questions. While scientific knowledge is useful for understanding the world better – including in ways that change our moral thinking – the idea that you can have a scientific answer to a moral question is usually rejected. That position is itself rejected by Sam Harris in The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values. Harris argues that we can use science to develop an objective sense of what is good for human beings and what is not, and that we can judge various practices using that scale. The book sharply and effectively criticizes both religious perspectives on the nature of the world and moral relativism. Indeed, the author’s principle project seems to be the development of a non-religious alternative to relativism, based around cognitive science. For the most part, his argument strikes me as a convincing one. That, in turn, has some important implications for political debates.

Harris’ book is a complex one that makes many different arguments and points. Often, he is able to illustrate his logic through clear examples, though some of them feel a bit cliched. He could also have devoted more attention to criticizing intuitive moral reasoning within western societies. He manages some elegant and convincing rebuttals, such as his response to the scapegoat problem on page 79 of the hardcover edition.

One key element of Harris’ argument is the view that it is the conscious life of animals that matters, when it comes to the basis of ethics: “[Q]uestions about values – about meaning, morality, and life’s larger purpose – are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures”. He argues this point convincingly, and suggests that we can build from that claim and from factual understanding of cognitive science to robust ethical judgements. Harris pays relatively little attention to non-human animals, but that is clearly an area into which such thinking can be extended, when it comes to questions like factory farming or veganism. Harris says that: “The only thing wrong with injustice is that it is, on same level, actually or potentially bad for people”. A richer ethical theory might incorporate the interests of other conscious organisms in some way.

Some of Harris’ concerns do seem a bit exaggerated. For instance, when he walks about the danger of “the societies of Europe” being “refashion[ed]” into “a new Caliphate”. He also has a bit too much faith in the power of brain scans as they now exist. Being able to track which parts of the brain receive more blood flow than others is useful, but doesn’t necessarily allow us to develop nuanced pictures of complex ideas and thought processes. As such, his argument that since functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of people thinking about mathematical equations resemble those of people considering ethical propositions, we should consider that evidence that the two are similar things.

Ultimately, the argument made in The Moral Landscape is utilitarian. We can come to know the basics of what makes up a good human life, and we should arrange states and global society so that people can experience them (and so that they avoid experiencing the worst things, like slavery and total personal insecurity). He makes the important point that we cannot expect to know all the consequences of particular choices, but we can nonetheless reach firm conclusions about important problems. Societies that provide education for women are better than societies that keep them in ignorance. That claim can be justified, according to Harris, by carefully examining the mental lives of people living in both kinds of society.

In particular, Harris highlights how societies that are based upon secular ethics consistently do better in measurable ways than those which are most explicitly modeled on religious ethics. “Countries like Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands”, Harris explains, “which are consistently the most atheistic societies on earth – consistently rate better tan religious nations on measures like like expectancy, infant mortality, crime, literacy, GDP, child welfare, economic equality, economic competitiveness, gender equality, health care, investments in education, rates of university enrollment, internet access, environmental protection, lack of corruption, political stability, and charity to poorer nations, etc”. He attributes the claim to P. Zuckerman’s 2008 book Society Without God.

Harris’ purpose is not a dispassionate one, focused on description. He says clearly that: “[c]hanging people’s ethical commitments… is the most important task facing humanity in the twenty-first century”. I am not sure if I quite agree. You can argue that people need to change the fundamental basis of their ethical views in order to deal with a world of 6.7 billion people. Alternatively, you can see the problem as the disconnect between the choices people make and the ethical views they already possess. If people could directly see the consequences of their choices, I think their existing ethical systems would often drive them to behave otherwise. It is because the consequences are mostly hidden – largely imposed on people in other places, and in the future – that people often make choices that are so oblivious to the harm they are forcing upon other conscious creatures. Harris argues that “one of the great tasks of civilization is to create cultural mechanisms that protect us from the moment-to-moment failures of our ethical intuitions”. I think that is especially true when it comes to economics, public policy, and the environment.

On sexual education

A friend of mine works for an organization that teaches sex education classes in high schools. After a recent presentation, there was a barrage of complaints from parents who were offended that their high-school-aged children were being told how to put on condoms, and that masturbation is a risk-free alternative to sex. I can somewhat understand the psychology of parents, insofar as I can recognize the signs of people struggling desperately to retain control of something they feel as though they own. At the same time, I think their complaints should be dismissed completely.

Human bodies are incredibly complex things, which is why medical school is one of the most challenging intellectual undertakings people can take on. At the same time, every human being possesses such a body and has a right to understand at least the most important things about it. Those include understanding their own nature as sexual beings (and, yes, twelve-year-olds are already sexual beings), as well as knowing the facts about human sex and reproduction. They have the right to know about the risks associated with different sexual acts, and the mechanisms that are available for reducing those risks. They also have the right to know about the psychology and sociology of human sexuality: that being gay isn’t a sign of being unhealthy, that there is a whole spectrum of preference when it comes to sexual acts and partners, and that standards of sexual morality vary across time and space.

There is an especially insidious argument made sometimes that suggests that children should be made fearful of sex, in order to keep them from trying it. Firstly, this argument fails on a factual basis. Keeping kids ignorant will not stop them from experimenting. What it will keep them from doing is taking precautions like using barriers and contraception, talking with their parents and doctors, and generally making informed choices. This argument also fails from a moral perspective. For one group of people to decide that a thing should not be done, then agree to use misinformation to trick everyone else into acting that way, is insidious, paternalistic, and duplicitous. By all means, if you can use logic and evidence to convince people to agree with your views, do so. If you need to lie to them, however, there is a good chance that your perspective is actually incorrect.

Parents obviously have a role in keeping their children safe and in shaping their views about the world. At the same time, they have no right whatsoever to keep their children in ignorance about something as important as their own health and safety, or the functioning of their own bodies and reproductive systems. When schools cave to parental pressure and intentionally maintain the ignorance of some children, they are making the same kind of ethical mistake as fundamentalist governments make when they ban heresy or censor the news. One person’s patronizing impulse doesn’t create a valid justification for the suppression of important knowledge and information. Children should be educated about sex, and it should be done by taking the best scientific evidence we have available and making it as comprehensible as possible for people who have their level of general education.

More controversially, I think it is appropriate to tell students that sex is a natural and joyful part of human life, not something they should be fearful or ashamed of. It can be argued that this steps outside the bounds of science and objectivity, but I would question that on the basis of Sam Harris’ general argument about science and ethics. It is possible to distinguish between societies that enable human flourishing and those that suppress it, and those distinctions are valid in a way that can be demonstrated scientifically. Societies that treat sex exclusively as something shameful, dangerous, and secret seem likely to be comprehensively worse than those that treat it as something positive with risks that can be managed in intelligent ways.