Pinker, Locke and Politics

Steven Pinker argues that Locke’s “blank slate” concept—the idea that the human mind can be interpreted as, “…white paper void of all characters, without any ideas” (Pinker, 2)—is false. Locke’s theory implies that human beings at birth are equal, and that the only way to furnish the human mind is through experience. Using evidence gathered from the fields of neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and genetics, Pinker claims that human beings are in fact not born with “blank slates” and that we are not all the same. Pinker’s philosophy implies that there are human beings that are predisposed to excel in certain areas, and that there are other human beings that are predisposed to a futile existence. However, Pinker goes on to assure us that we have no reason to fear inequality, for as long we have laws, policies, and institutions that defend against discrimination and promote fairness, we will avoid a society that exploits the weak and favors the strong. If the world were to fully concede that Pinker is in fact correct, then to what extent would those very laws, policies, and institutions need to be adjusted to stand in line with Pinker’s ideals? Focusing primarily on western conceptions of human nature and human rights, it seems that a substantial adjustment is necessary, as our idea of what it means to be human is deeply grounded in Locke’s writings. The question is then, would the world be a better place if we were to accept that all men and women are not created equal? I’m not so sure this is the time to address such an open question, let us treat it as a form a rhetoric, a rhetoric that speaks to the trouble with Pinker’s argument: that is, if we are to change our conceptions of the human mind and human nature, how can our institutions and social practices remain the same? Short answer—they cannot. In an attempt to settle the dispute between Locke and Pinker, we must learn to re-read Locke’s message not as scientific “fact”, but as a mechanism employed to promote and secure fairness and equal opportunity within a political body. While Pinker’s science may provide us with biological “fact”, it does not necessarily provide us the ideological framework necessary for the implementation and cultivation of a fair political system.

I understand the complexity of these issues, the thinking here is abstract and far-reaching. Therefore, to make more clear the arguments set forth, I turn to an article by Jack Donnelly, a professor of the theory and practice of human rights at the University of Denver. In his article, “The Relative Universality of Human Rights”, Donnelly posits that the very idea of human rights is a social construction. He refutes the idea that most societies and cultures have practiced human rights throughout most of their history, and that those who do believe societies have practiced human rights for most of their history, “…confuse values such as justice, fairness and humanity need with practices that aim to realize those values” (Donnelly, 284). Donnelly goes on to state that, “[t]here may be considerable historical/anthropological universality of values across time and culture. No society, civilization, or culture prior to the seventeenth century however, had widely endorsed practice, or even vision, of equal and inalienable individual human rights” (285). Donnelly is speaking to the fact that the very idea of human rights did not exist until the modern west wrote them down, and claimed them to be inalienable. Prior their creation, human rights were simply impossible to conceptualize. However, human rights for Donnelly, “[provide] attractive remedies to some of the most pressing systematic threats to human dignity” (288). In this light, we can begin to see how the construction of human rights, a construction not set in scientific “fact”, has provided us with a tool to help guide humanity in a direction of justice and fairness—even if those values themselves are social constructions.

We must learn to read Locke in the same way. Locke may not have the scientific evidence to back up his claim, but his conception of human nature and of the human mind, have provided us with framework for understanding how to live amongst other human beings in such a way as to not let the strong dominate the weak. Just because Pinker deemed Locke’s claim scientifically inaccurate, does not mean that it is not useful, or that it does not have it place in politics.

When we look to Pinker, it is hard to imagine a world that accepts all people as not created equal, while promoting fairness through government policies and institutions. It would seem that welfare programs would shut down, and equal opportunity government programs such as No Child Left Behind would be a thing of the past. If my argument is anything close to correct, it is here that we being to see how scientific truth does not necessarily coincide with fairness and justice; moreover, social constructions, albeit not set in scientific fact, do provide us with a means for creating and maintaining a life worth living.