February 7, 2013 at 1:52 P.M. I experienced additional obstacles to accessing these sites today. I hope to continue writing from multiple branches of the NYPL. So far, no fire alarms have gone off.
January 28, 2013 at 1:25 P.M. The article commented upon in this essay demands some kind of response from readers. Is this article typical of American social science or the ethics of U.S. journalists today? I hope not.
The following strange calls have been received by me: January 18, 2013 at 7:16 P.M. 516-656-4112, C4C FOP, NY; January 18, 2013 at 10:22 P.M. 516-490-8826 HICKSVILLE, NY; January 17, 2013 at 12:53 P.M. 973-273-7847 NEWARK, N.J. I am sure that there is a rational explanation for these mysterious calls.
Abigail Tucker, "Born to be Mild: Are we born knowing right from wrong?," in Smithsonian, January, 2013, at pp. 34-76. http://www.smithsonian.com (Isn't right and wrong all "relative"?)
Margaret Westheim, "Many Hands Make Fractals Tactile," in The New York Times, January 23, 2013, at p. D3. ("Science Times.")
Richard Lewontin, "Let DNA Fit the Crime," in The New York Review of Books, February 23, 2012, at p. 28.
Richard Lewontin, The Doctrine of DNA: Biology as Ideology (New York & London: Harper/Collins, 1992), pp. 39-59. ("Causes and Their Effects.")
Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry (London & New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 79-155. ("Mind and Body: The End of Apartheid.")
John L. Carti, The Cambridge Quintet: A Work of Scientific Speculation (Canada: Helix Books, 2012).
Jerry Fodor, The Mind Doesn't Work That Way: The Scope and Limits of Computational Psychology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2001).
Robert Coles, The Mind's Fate: A Psychiatrist Looks at His Profession (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1995). (Summarizes and updates findings in Dr. Coles' Pulitzer Prize-winning trilogy focusing on the Moral Life, Spiritual Life, Political Life of Children. Notice the discussion of Piaget's work in relation to the great psychoanalysts and phenomenologists, like Professor Coles, whose books on Walker Percy and Simone Weil are highly recommended.)
Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (New York: HBJ, 1963).
Stanley Milgram, Obedience to Authority (New York: Harper, 1974).
"Nice Babies" and Bad Psychologists.
An article in Smithsonian magazine by "Abigail Tucker," whose style is amazingly similar to the golden prose of "Jerry Adler" in Scientific American, raises more questions than it answers. ("Erasing Painful Memories" and "The Galatea Scenario and the Mind/Body Problem.")
The article is occasionally suggestive and interesting, if marred by a tendency to anounce with a drum roll the proverbial reinvention of the wheel by offering conclusions that can best be described as banal and, sometimes, absurd.
Strangely, the classic works in the field of infant studies are not mentioned (or recognized) by the author or the so-called scientists interviewed by the author. I suspect that at least some of these scientists and their studies may be fictional.
Journalistic ethics requires that this publication apologize to readers if, in fact, some or all of this article is based on lies. Echoing the work of discredited Harvard researcher, Mr. Hauser, this journalist focuses on alleged experiments with infants (12 to 16 months in ages) concerned with the question of whether moral behavior is innate or learned through social interaction.
At the outset of this article several philosophers and scientists are mentioned without being quoted who have, clearly, also not been read by this author: Thomas Hobbes is contrasted with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Noam Chomsky is mentioned along with Jean Piaget. Tell us why they are important, Ms. Tucker, if you know.
More worrisome is the possibility that none of the scientists involved in this curious research seem to have read these thinkers or classic sources on the origins of human moral faculties.
The scientists have completed "fascinating research" which suggests (to them) conclusions that are already known to readers who have read the sources and to philosophers and psychologists working in this field today. Incidentally, Schopenhauer and Freud -- neither of whom are mentioned or quoted -- observed and commented upon the behavior of infants.
As we "spin our wheels" -- to quote Ms. Tucker who is (or was) a lawyer in New Jersey, perhaps -- thinking about these matters, a few reservations become especially important: 1) methodological problems arise surrounding the integrity of the process by which these conclusions were reached, allegedly, exclusively from pristine observations of "nice babies"; 2) ethical concerns focusing on the scope and limits of the alleged "consent" obtained by researchers, manipulations, comparisons and equating of these babies with adult apes on the basis of knowledge and capacity to acquire knowledge that are said to be "the same" for adult apes in relation to, or compared with, human infants.
I find this claim about babies and apes ludicrous because it is unsupported by any evidence cited in this article and defies common sense.
Human babies are admitted to possess a priori linguistic and social capacities that allow for moral life. This is what thinkers describe as "innate knowledge." I have yet to see or read of an ape that is equally well endowed, intellectually or emotionally.
It does not seem to occur to this writer -- who cannot have heard of, or read, structuralist psychologists -- that the "structural" facility for absorbing social-linguistic skills and/or moral dispositions ("disposition" is not a word or concept that is defined or used appropriately in this article) is also a kind of "knowledge" that permits "understanding" to emerge, moral and aesthetic understandings very much included. (Chomsky, Coles, Piaget and others agree on this much.)
Such deeply-ingrained knowledge and knowledge-capacity has been "known" to be BOTH inherent and socially developed by philosophers and psychologists for generations.
What is new is recent discoveries suggesting a similar "ingrained" mathematical knowledge in persons that is likened to an aesthetic faculty in all humans. Fusions of realism in the philosophy of mathematics with hermeneutics in philosophy seems promising as a future direction for students in these fields as well as in quantum physics. ("Dialectics, Entanglements, and Special Relativity" and, soon, "Let's be realistic about Realism.")
The implications of this so-called "new" research for scientists seeking to model human consciousness and intelligence, mathematically, in order to produce consciousness in computers, is not recognized nor can it be discussed by this author. ("Mind and Machine" and "Consciousness and Computers.")
Methodology.
No discussion is offered concerning the selection process for these infants, or so-called "nice babies," that make up the base group studied, nor are we told whether a control group was created to correct for any bias in the base group or distorting influences created by scientists themselves.
Social scientists tend to observe and discover exactly what they decide to find before examining the evidence, very much like judges. After telling us of the importance of culture, to take one example, the author of this article fails to comment on the academic and so-called scientific culture among social science researchers that tends to mirror the culture of the people participating in this research and of their "nice" babies.
A great deal has been learned by infants in the first year of life long before they get to these researchers. Not surprisingly, the base group of nice babies is likely to be mostly, one infers, white, middle to upper-middle class, as determined from the observations of a handful of "scientists" (I use the word loosely) of similar backgrounds to the subjects.
How different they (nice people) must be from the persons who, we are told, assaulted one of the scientists interested in researching "goodness."
Generalizations are made about all human infants and, indeed, about chimpanzees on the basis of this tainted and selective group of "nice" babies. I have yet to find a group of "not-nice babies."
Speaking of "cultural" issues, for example, in most places in the world there would be shock at parents willing to lend themselves and their infants to such so-called scientists' manipulations that may well be extremely harmful to the healthy emotional development of their babies' lives.
Anxiety resulting from concern that a scientists' "stuffed animals" have been taken or harmed could be a serious problem for babies, if not (perhaps) for adult apes. I doubt that the scientists doing this alleged experimentation -- if they exist -- are "nice scientists." These scientists may need a little time out:
" ... researchers outfit them [babies] with miniature wire skullcaps to monitor brain waves, scrutinize them like shoplifters through wall cameras and two-way mirrors, and conduct exceedingly clever and tightly-controlled experiments, which a good portion of their subjects will refuse to sit through anyway. Even well-behaved babies are notoriously hard to read: their most meditative expressions are often the sign of an impending bowel movement." (pp. 35-36.)
I suspect that the babies, by defecating, are making an eloquent comment on the scientists' experiments. I concur.
This research is said to point to natural capacity or a priori "dispositions" toward moral behavior as opposed to learned behavior. The greatest mistake may be to think of an opposition between these kinds of explanations and theories, nature or nurture, when it is clearly nature and nurture that matters to "niceness."
This author and these scientists seem -- and, indeed, they are -- thoroughly confused about these matters.
"It's all relative!"
Locating goodness in human nature -- at least when discussing nice babies -- rather than the nasty criminals who participate in "gang initiations" by beating up scientists -- may involve racist assumptions and generalizations. This is to fail to appreciate, again, the very concept mentioned as important to all findings "culture."
The very same nice babies admired by the author and scientists, if placed in an environment in which survival requires development of the capacity for violence, will become criminals capable of assaulting researchers. The discussion of human potentialities is more subtle and complex than this article's author supposes.
Capacity for ethical concern or awareness, apparently, is not relative at all. Capacity for moral life, inherent goodness -- like the capacity to acquire a language -- is a feature of human cerebral functioning and, only then, subject to social development that is not reducible to Darwinian dismissals, nor to "self-interest" or "advantage," either for individuals or groups of individuals. Regrettably, the statements of the author (or authors) of this article, as we will see, are self-contradictory on these issues.
Ms./Mr. Tucker first dismisses ethical dispositions in humans as Darwinian adaptations or a matter of "self-interest" (survival?) then self-interest is specifically rejected as an explanation for ethical behavior:
"Natural selection has operated as much or more on social behavior" -- Does behavior evolve? Or do persons evolve? -- "as are more basic things like perception." Is perception distinguishable from social behavior? Does some experience take place outside of behavior? Emotions? You can observe behavior, but not necessarily experience. ("R.D. Laing and Evil" and "John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism.")
"In our evolution survival and reproduction depend more and more on social competence as you went from basic mamals [sic.] to primates to human ancestors to humans." (p. 37, emphasis added.)
Human ancestors are humans by definition even if they are also something else. This section of the article is reminiscent of Richard Dawkins' "selfish genes" and memes. It is the kind of talk that will delight Richard Posner and adherents of law and economics. Immediately after this statement, however, we are told:
" ... a child arrives in the world provisioned with rich, broadly pro-social tendencies and seem ["seems"?] predisposed [what's that?] to care about other people. Children can tell, to an extent, what is good and bad, [It's not all relative?] and often act in an altruistic manner." (p. 37.)
This goodness in infants is found even when there is inconvenience to the child and no reward is offered or given for the altruism displayed. (pp. 37-38.)
Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, Kant and Jefferson agreed with this observation and said as much about humanity -- even accounting for Kant's skepticism about the "crooked timber of humanity" -- because of human reason and natural rational CAPACITIES and DISPOSITIONS towards goodness.
Rationalism is vindicated in much of this research as a viable and important contributor to "our" understanding of the human mind.
Schopenhauer and Freud expressed reservations about "innate" capacities for aggression. Konrad Lorenz deserves a mention as devil's advocate. What about Milgram and Zimbardo? ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script" and "The Wanderer and His Shadow.")
Several obviously fictional scientists quoted ("Allison Gopnick"?) were astonished to discover that "nice babies" will persist in compassionate behavior out of affection or empathy ...
" ... even at a cost to themselves, growing concerned if someone shreds another person's artwork" -- Or inserts "errors" in the on-line creative works of others? -- "and divying-up [sic.] earnings after a shared task, whether the spoils take the form of detested rye bread or precious Gummy Bears." (p. 37.)
This sounds like socialism. ("Hansel and Gretl.")
All of this research leads to the bafflement of leading scientist "Allison Gopnick" of Berkeley University. Again, I doubt that such a person exists at the Berkeley campus of the University of California:
"There isn't a moral module that is there [where?] innately. But the elements that underpin morality -- altruism, sympathy for others, the understanding of other people's goals -- are in place much earlier than we thought and clearly in place before children turn 2." (p. 38.)
A full human language is not "in" the brain, but the unique capacity to absorb a language is an innate, a priori human faculty. Similarly, a full set of ethical principles and rules for ethical life are not "in" the brain at birth, but a capacity for reasoning about right and wrong, together with empathetic identification leading to attraction to goodness and revulsion at evil (or hatred of wickedness) may well be present at birth in healthy persons. ("Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")
Healthy individuals may develop in an ethical direction provided that a number of other factors are also available: culture, environment, nutrition, and many other external factors not controlled by infants, like equal access to education and safety from violence.
Culture Vultures.
Here is where the selection issue concerning methodology arises: Babies raised by nice parents who are loving and protective tend to be nice babies. There needs no ghost come from "Berkeley University" to tell us this. ("Richard A. Posner on Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility.")
Where innate capacities for learning and developing moral dispositions are encouraged as well as naturally evolve, anti-social behavior is minimized. This capacity for moral behavior or "disposition toward the good" (Aristotle) -- not mere behavior -- is part of what we mean by consciousness or human nature. ("Immanuel Kant and the Narrative of Freedom.")
This leads to the great difficulties with efforts to create artificial intelligence in computers ("A.I.") in order to achieve machine consciousness. Human intelligence is never entirely amoral or non-valuing. Consciousness is always consciousness "of" something. ("Mind and Machine" then "Consciousness and Computers" and "The Entanglements Are Primary.")
Ethical capacity or quasi-linguistic features of human minds may be the very "moral modules" that allow us to become persons in the fullness of time, if we are lucky. ("Ape and Essence" and "Primates and Personhood.")
A few persons -- possibly for pathological reasons -- will be unable to develop normally whatever circumstances they are in. Fortunately, such persons are a tiny minority of any human society.
An article in the "Science Times" section of the New York Times, develops insights from Spinoza and Kant, neither of whom may be well-known to the author, concerning innate mathematical intuitions and realism or the metaphysical reality of numbers examined by Godel, Penrose, Putnam and Salmon.
Not surprisingly, Immanuel Kant suggested an analogy between mathematical intuition of pattern and form and the rational groundwork of ethical-social life. I will conclude with Times reporter Margaret Westheim's words echoing Noam Chomsky:
"Human beings are born with an innate capacity to learn languages. Yet while mathematics is the language of pattern and form, many people struggle to acquire even its basic grammar."
Ethics and love are the languages of personhood. Notice the insight from aesthetics and hermeneutics analogizing mathematical talent developed by doing math to love by loving, goodness by being good, justice by being just:
"But what if we could experience language by speaking it."
