As every student in Philosophy 101 learns, nothing can force me to believe that anyone except me is conscious. This power to deny that other people have feelings is not just an academic exercise but an all-too-common vice, as we see in the long history of human cruelty.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the challenge of recognizing others' consciousness and emotions, which can lead to cruelty if ignored.
Steven Pinker emphasizes that understanding and accepting the consciousness of others is fundamental to empathy and morality. The ability to deny others' feelings is not merely intellectual; it reflects a serious moral failing that has historically contributed to human cruelty. This awareness is crucial for building compassion and understanding in societal interactions.
In practice
In a classroom discussion about ethics, a teacher might use this quote to illustrate the importance of empathy in understanding others.
The foundation of individual rights is the assumption that people have wants and needs and are authorities on what those wants and needs are. If people's stated desires were just some kind of erasable inscription or reprogrammable brainwashing, any atrocity could be justified.
The linguistic clumsiness of tourists and students might be the price we pay for the linguistic genius we displayed as babies, just as the decrepitude of age in the price we pay for the vigor of youth.
If we are not to abandon values such as peace and equality, or our commitments to science and truth, then we must pry these values away from claims about our psychological makeup that are vulnerable to being proven false.
We adults protect ourselves with laws, police, workplace regulations and social norms and there is no conceivable reason why children should be left more vulnerable, other that laziness or callousness in considering what life is like from their point of view.
The idea that children are passive repositories to be shaped by their parents has been massively overstated. A child's peer group is a far greater determinant of its development and achievements than parental aspiration.
Reason is non-negotiable. Try to argue against it, or to exclude it from some realm of knowledge, and you've already lost the argument, because you're using reason to make your case. ... We don't "believe" in reason.
I have a total irreverence for anything connected with society except that which makes the roads safer, the beer stronger, the food cheaper and the old men and old women warmer in the winter and happier in the summer.
The point is not to completely understand God but to worship Him. Let the very fact that you cannot know Him fully lead you to praise Him for His infiniteness and grandeur.
A man who goes forth to take the life of another whom he does not know must believe only one thing: that by his act he will change the course of history.
Art thou angry with him whose armpits stink? Art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul?
When people evaluate their life, they compare themselves to a standard of what a successful life is, and it turns out that standard tends to be universal: People in Togo and Denmark have the same idea of what a good life is, and a lot of that has to do with money and material prosperity.
To believe in God for me is to feel that there is a God, not a dead one, or a stuffed one, who with irresistible force urges us towards more loving.
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