The human moral sense can excuse any atrocity in the minds of those who commit it, and it furnishes them with motives for acts of violence that bring them no tangible benefit.
Interpretation
Human morality can rationalize even the worst actions, leading individuals to commit violence without seeking personal gain.
This quote by Steven Pinker highlights the disturbing capacity of human moral reasoning to justify atrocious acts. It suggests that individuals can convince themselves that their violent actions are acceptable or even noble, despite the absence of any tangible benefits from those actions. This speaks to the complexity of morality and the potential for people to engage in harmful behavior under the guise of moral justification.
In practice
In a discussion about the justification of war, this quote can serve to illustrate the moral complexities involved.
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.
Intellectual liberty is the air of the soul, the sunshine of the mind, and without it, the world is a prison, the universe is a dungeon.
Reality doesn’t impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me. I escape, one way or another. No more walls.
It is a very rare man who does not victimize the helpless.
And I ran after that voice through the streets so as not to lose sight of the splendid wreath of bodies gliding over the city, and I realized with anguish in my heart that they were flying like birds and I was falling like a stone, that they had wings and I would never have any.
Whatever one does for a living, three questions need to be confronted before it is too late: What really matters to me? What price do my spouse and kids pay for my career success? What price does my soul pay?
We should daily feel a deeper union with Life, a greater sense of that Indwelling God - the God of the seen and of the unseen - within us.
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