Thanks. This is excellent and it will affect my reading (at least by getting my hands on the Buchanan and Powell book).
For some of the reviews (e.g. Moral Uncertainty, The Blank Slate) you note that you downgrade them for not closely addressing the âmoral progressâ topic. Would be good if you noted how you rate them for what they are trying to address.
Hi Scott, glad I could motivate you to get Buchanan and Powell. Itâs a great book! It might feel a bit long if youâre not a philosopher, but itâs definitely a standout solid reading with many insights on this topic.
On The Blank Slate and Moral Uncertainty, sure, let me add the following to my reviews in order to add to that:
Those two books I think are really good with regards to their subject matter. Theyâre both general overviews of their respective fields. Moral Uncertainty is much more technical, but basically the required reading if youâre getting into that topic for the first time. So itâs 5â5 stars if youâre interested in the topic, probably the best starting point.
The Blank Slate is more replaceable with any other introduction to cognitive science. It presents stuff like the view of the mind as a computer, with debates like the Language of Thought, connectionism, and human nature. Pinker is more accessible than âtextbooksâ like Tim Craneâs âThe Mechanical Mindâ, which are more rigorous but technical and harder to read.
Pinker also presents his opinionated side of things, siding with the evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides on analyzing humans as biological animals which inherit a lot of instincts. So he wants to argue that we are instinctually hard-wired towards certain behavior, which explains stuff like our capacity for language.
At some points he rambles against âleftistsâ in academia which want to deny instinctual human nature. He wants to detach ethics and human rights from any particular conception of human nature.
I take a bit of a middle position between Pinker and the âleftist that wants to deny human natureâ. I think the evolutionary psychology standpoint is definitely worth taking into consideration, but it might be more straightforward to apply with regards to stuff like language learning, which happens in an individual mind, than to politics and societies, which is less straightforward since there are new phenomena that happens when youâre dealing with interactions of large groups of people. (I think more recently Pinker would even agree with that, since in his later books like Better Angels and Enlightenment Now, Pinker is a defender of enlightenment values to overcome our âpre-wiredâ tribalism.) Iâd say itâs like a 4â5 stars reading.
Thanks. This is excellent and it will affect my reading (at least by getting my hands on the Buchanan and Powell book).
For some of the reviews (e.g. Moral Uncertainty, The Blank Slate) you note that you downgrade them for not closely addressing the âmoral progressâ topic. Would be good if you noted how you rate them for what they are trying to address.
Hi Scott, glad I could motivate you to get Buchanan and Powell. Itâs a great book! It might feel a bit long if youâre not a philosopher, but itâs definitely a standout solid reading with many insights on this topic.
On The Blank Slate and Moral Uncertainty, sure, let me add the following to my reviews in order to add to that:
Those two books I think are really good with regards to their subject matter. Theyâre both general overviews of their respective fields. Moral Uncertainty is much more technical, but basically the required reading if youâre getting into that topic for the first time. So itâs 5â5 stars if youâre interested in the topic, probably the best starting point.
The Blank Slate is more replaceable with any other introduction to cognitive science. It presents stuff like the view of the mind as a computer, with debates like the Language of Thought, connectionism, and human nature. Pinker is more accessible than âtextbooksâ like Tim Craneâs âThe Mechanical Mindâ, which are more rigorous but technical and harder to read.
Pinker also presents his opinionated side of things, siding with the evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides on analyzing humans as biological animals which inherit a lot of instincts. So he wants to argue that we are instinctually hard-wired towards certain behavior, which explains stuff like our capacity for language.
At some points he rambles against âleftistsâ in academia which want to deny instinctual human nature. He wants to detach ethics and human rights from any particular conception of human nature.
I take a bit of a middle position between Pinker and the âleftist that wants to deny human natureâ. I think the evolutionary psychology standpoint is definitely worth taking into consideration, but it might be more straightforward to apply with regards to stuff like language learning, which happens in an individual mind, than to politics and societies, which is less straightforward since there are new phenomena that happens when youâre dealing with interactions of large groups of people. (I think more recently Pinker would even agree with that, since in his later books like Better Angels and Enlightenment Now, Pinker is a defender of enlightenment values to overcome our âpre-wiredâ tribalism.) Iâd say itâs like a 4â5 stars reading.
Iâll also edit the post to reflect this.