As I read through Descartes, and try to make sense of it, universal
reason is the most interesting aspect. This "common sense" is something that I would be interested in seeing Pinker and Descartes debate about. It is a common understanding of what is right and wrong that is supposedly universal. So, is common sense in our genes, or is it taught to us? Would Pinker and Descartes agree that it is something we are born with? If it is a universal reason, as Descartes describes it, then would it not be something all people have at birth?
If that is true, then what really is universal reason. As a child, nothing is common sense. It is only after someone tells you not to do something that it is known if something is right or wrong. It is not common sense at first that a red hot stove is hot and painful until your hand strikes it for the first time. Because of this, universal reason is not in our genes but it is socially constructed. So, Descartes goes against Pinker in this regard.
That said, I am still confused as Descartes seems to believe in this universal reason, but he also seems to believe there is no real reason for being here. He seems to say that nothing is really real. If nothing is real, then there is no universal reason to anything, right? Then what steers us to right or wrong? I think the individual does. We are all alone to believe what we want, even when it comes to right or wrong. The social construct of laws are the only real thing that decides what is right or wrong. Common sense is really rooted in what is best for the individual. We don't want to break the laws and we don't want to get injured. This is the true universal reason.
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I too struggled with Descartes' concept of universal reason. He contradicts himself throughout the Meditations, just as you pointed out. It's extremely frustrating to try and understand what he is arguing when he constantly changes his argument. While I would like to think the individual decides on what is right or wrong, I think a lot of morality is rooted in herd thinking. We don't act a certain way because of fear of laws or injury, but of fear of social stigmatization. I only say that because for most of history, we didn't have formal laws or governments. But we needed to live in a community to survive and people who acted outside of the norm where removed from that set up. I think your argument makes more sense it terms of today's modern governance system, but that is a relatively new human invention.
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