Steven Pinker Quotes

Free Will Is An Idealization Of Human Beings That Makes The Ethics Game Playable. Euclidean Geometry Requires Idealizations Like Infinite Straight Lines And Perfect Circles, And Its Deductions Are Sound And Useful Even Though The World Does Not Really Have Infinite Straight Lines Or Perfect Circles. The World Is Close Enough To The Idealization That The Theorems Can Usefully Be Applied. Similarly, Ethical Theory Requires Idealizations Like Free, Sentient, Rational, Equivalent Agents Whose Behavior Is Uncaused, And Its Conclusions Can Be Sound And Useful Even Though The World, As Seen By Science, Does Not Really Have Uncaused Events. As Long As There Is No Outright Coercion Or Gross Malfunction Of Reasoning, The World Is Close Enough To The Idealization Of Free Will That Moral Theory Can Meaningfully Be Applied To It.

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