Steven Pinker -- How the Mind Works - Hampshire High Italian ...

56 | HOW THE MIND WORKSNational Lampoon cover showing a puppy with a gun at its head and thecaption "Buy This Magazine or We'll Shoot the Dog."The knife that separates causal explanations of behavior from moralresponsibility for behavior cuts both ways. In the latest twis;t in thehuman-nature morality play, a chromosomal marker for homosexualityin some men, the so-called gay gene, was identified by the gpneticistDean Hamer. To the bemusement of Science for the People, this time itis the genetic explanation that is politically correct. Supposedly it refutesright-wingers like Dan Quayle, who had said that homosexuality "ismore of a choice than a biological situation. It is a wrong choice." Thegay gene has been used to argue that homosexuality is not a choice forwhich gay people can be held responsible but an involuntary orientationthey just can't help. But the reasoning is dangerous. The gay gene couldjust as easily be said to influence some people to choose homosexuality.And like all good science, Hamer's result might be falsified someday,and then where would we be? Conceding that bigotry against gay peopleis OK after all? The argument against persecuting gay people must bemade not in terms of the gay gene or the gay brain but in terms of people'sright to engage in private consensual acts without discrimination orharassment.The cloistering of scientific and moral reasoning in separate arenasalso lies behind my recurring metaphor of the mind as a machine, of peopleas robots. Does this not dehumanize and objectify people and lead usto treat them as inanimate objects? As one humanistic scholar lucidlyput it in an Internet posting, does it not render human experienceinvalid, reifying a model of relating based on an I-It relationship, anddelegitimating all other forms of discourse with fundamentally destructiveconsequences to society? Only if one is so literal-minded that onecannot shift among different stances in conceptualizing people for differentpurposes. A human being is simultaneously a machine and a -sentientfree agent, depending on the purpose of the discussion, just as he is alsoa taxpayer, an insurance salesman, a dental patient, and two hundredpounds of ballast on a commuter airplane, depending on the purpose ofthe discussion. The mechanistic stance allows us to understand whatmakes us tick and how we fit into the physical universe. When those discussionswind down for the day, we go back to talking about each otheras free and dignified human beings.