“The Moral Instinct” by Steven Pinker Steven Pinker argues about the innate moral instincts we possess using his research on brain activity and evolutionary psychology. He believes that different cultures possess different moral mindsets based on variations of the five universal moral spheres- harm‚ fairness‚ community‚ authority and purity. Pinker defends statements that say we act based on our “different weightings of the spheres.” However‚ he points out that our moral sense is vulnerable
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concerning the significance between right and wrong or acceptable and despicable behavior. In the article "The Moral Instinct" written by psychologist Steven Pinker‚ the ideology of morality as a sixth sense is analyzed as it pertains to everyday life. Pinker describes how one has learned to accept the standards of morals subconsciously. Pinker makes a claim that we tend to make excuses as opposed to utilizing reason when settling on ethical judgements. He illustrates this with situations regarding
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Steven Pinker has a voice all his own- engaging and amiable‚ but also informative and scientific. His light style provides an interesting contradiction to the heaviness of the topic he presents to us. It’s a tough question: where does morality stem from? Is it genetic? Does it come from the structure of our brains? We don’t get an answer‚ per se‚ allowing us to come to our own conclusions and wrestle with the evidence for ourselves. However‚ as we the audience read the essay‚ it doesn’t take a particularly
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Nicholas Carr vs. Steven Pinker There is no doubt about it that in today’s generation the Internet is one of the best phenomenal creations invented. By simply having a computer‚ cell phone‚ tablet‚ ect‚ anyone and everyone can access the Internet. But can this powerful yet simple creation have a drastic effect on how the new generation operates today? The entire world is rapidly becoming obsessed; everywhere you look you’re bound to see something related to the Internet. Search engines‚ texting
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The article “Mass Over Mass Media” is written by Steven Pinker. Pinker is a professor at Harvard University who teaches in the Psychology department and focuses on visual cognition which is the information interpreted visually by the brain‚ and psychology in language. Visual Cognition is the study of the brain that explains the way the brain interprets and understands foreign language and objects in a visual way. When the brain obtains information visually‚ it processes this information by translating
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In “My Genome‚ My Self‚” Steven Pinker wrote about how he was getting his genome tested and where exactly personality traits came from. I thought that this essay was very interesting because it had a lot of information in it‚ with facts from all different sides of the spectrum. Pinker talked about the sciences of how geneticists proved that every trait a person can have can be linked to genes. He also talked about some part of personality traits are part environmental‚ yet not the majority. Last
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The article being referenced was written by Steven Pinker and is titled “In Defense of Dangerous Ideas” and was published on July 15‚ 2007 as a preface to his book “What is your Dangerous Idea?: Today’s Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable”. The article tells how in the past quarter century people have had new dangerous ideas that Pinker says our society is ill equipped to deal with. He also explains why these ideas are considered “dangerous”. He states that the acceptance of these ideas would come
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101 17 September 2010 Steven Pinker (pg.115 1-6) 1. Steven Pinker is giving the reader examples of hypocrisy and how Language can be used to transpire different meanings. 2. Several categories are provided in this essay. The reason was to demonstrate the different ways language can be used to communicate different meanings. For example‚ on numerous occasions I’ve been ask out for a drink when the real meaning was a date or even more in some situations. Mr. Pinker took the examples to extreme
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Daijie Qi Nov 16 1. Steven‚ P. (2010). Mind over mass media. (2nd ed.‚ pp. 199-200). New York: The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11Pinker.html The article “Mass over Mass Media”‚ written by Steven Pinker for the New York Times in 2010‚ shows that the new technology are “the only things that will keep us smart” instead of making us stupid (p 200). Even though many media critics argue that Power Point‚ Google‚ Twitter and other technologies are
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Steven Pinker writes about the criticisms that media has on our minds. He disagrees with the statements that say media take a toll on our knowledge and intelligence‚ but in fact states that they improve it. His article‚ “Mind over Mass Media” also states that we have control over our minds to not become distracted‚ hence the title of the article. Pinker persuades the readers by using his own experience as a professor of psychology‚ reputation and scientific evidence to support his argument. Pinker
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