Steven PinkerI think moralistic science is bad for morals and bad for science.
About This Quote
Moralistic science is bad for morals and bad for science. Moralistic science is the notion that all behavior can be scientifically explained, which means that there are no shades of gray in morality. If something is wrong, it’s always wrong. A person may say they aren’t evil, but if you talk to them long enough they will always make one more terrible act than they did before.
A person may say they aren’t evil, but if you talk to them long enough they will always make one more terrible act than they did before. A moralistic scientist believes that everything can be judged based on some objective scale of right and wrong, good and bad. The problem with this view is that it fails to recognize the complexity of human nature.
It assumes that everyone is either perfectly moral or perfectly amoral, when in fact many people are somewhere in between. A person may say they aren’t evil, but if you talk to them long enough they will always make one more terrible act than they did before. A person may say they aren’t evil, but if you talk to them long enough they will always make one more terrible act than they did before.
A moralistic scientist believes that everything can be judged based on some objective scale of right and wrong, good and bad. The problem with this view is that it fails to recognize the complexity of human nature. It assumes that everyone is either perfectly moral or perfectly amoral, when in fact many people are somewhere in between.
Source: How The Mind Works
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