Blog #3; Caitlin Barth

Although Descartes is a 17th-century philosopher, I think Steven Pinker would be quick analyze Descartes work worthy that of an armchair anthropologist. This would, of course, be a default characterization because of the time period and its lack of modern day scientific structure. Yet, Descartes inhabits Pinker’s theory of the “noble savage.” Pinker states, “Behavioral genetics has shown that among the heritable traits are having an antagonistic personality, a tendency toward violent crime, and a lack of conscience, or psychopathy” which articulates that we may all revert to our prehistoric savagery at one point or another. With that, Descartes would disagree that genetics isn’t the only lens to consider through analyzation of us moral beings. Instead, Descartes would say that without any outside influences we are rational beings capable of ‘universal reason’ or ‘common sense.’ Yes, one may choose to physically harm another, however, this isn’t innate, which is something both would agree on. Reference to innate behavior creates a concrete categorization for a person’s rationality, which isn’t the case, because of our complex minds that are malleable and can apply moral values to various situations.

Our minds are malleable and have learned lessons from history but how does history, still, repeat itself? Descartes may say that we are rational beings and we harbor a common sense, yet genocide has occurred multiple times. How can one rationalize this behavior? And how do we gauge rationality? Some might find rationality through religion or others might turn to intelligent manipulation. Either of which can be depict our good or evil.