Point of View

Ten years ago, evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker offered a Darwinian explanation for infanticide. Pinker wrote, "A new mother will first coolly assess the infant and her situation and only in the next few days begin to see it as a unique and wonderful individual."

This nonsense prompted the late journalist Michael Kelly to reply, "Yes, that was my wife all over: cool as a cucumber as she assessed whether to keep her first-born child or toss him out the window."

Pinker, the celebrated Harvard professor and science popularizer, is still at it, and the results are no less nonsensical.

In a recent New York Times Magazine article titled, "The Moral Instinct," he gave a Darwinian account for what Nietzsche called the "genealogy of morals."

Pinker characterized both the "content" of our "moral judgments" and the "way we arrive at them" as "often questionable." Far from being the product of reason, much less divine revelation, morality is an "an abstract spec sheet" that has been hardwired into our brains by evolution, as if senses could be hardwired by a random process.

But according to Pinker, this "spec sheet" is the source of such universal human moral concerns as not doing harm, being fair, and altruism. Somewhere in what is called the "environment of original adaptation," these behaviors gave our ancestors an advantage in the struggle for survival.

This leads Pinker, like other Darwinians, to redefine altruism and fairness as little more than enlightened "self-interest." We are generous toward others because evolution has "taught" us that this is the best way to ensure their generosity toward us. What we call "fairness" is really an unwritten pact not to cheat each other and, thus, promote social harmony and community.

The problem with these superficially plausible explanations is that real human beings, as opposed to theoretical ones, do not live this way. If altruism is "hardwired," many people are poorly wired, indeed: They are stingy and cheat their neighbors with regularity.

Other people are profoundly generous, not only to their friends and family, but also to complete strangers. They are willing to make do with less and even go without, to help others in need. And they would much rather suffer an injustice than commit one.

It is not that these people are unaware of the advantages to be gained from being selfish and unfair-it is that their morality is rooted in something that enables them to be good, even when being good comes at a cost.

Because Pinker fails to describe people as they really are, he does not answer the question, "Why be good?" Why be generous or honest when all the incentives point the other way? Why give your life for someone else? His utilitarianism can neither compel nor inspire people to go beyond self-interest.

To do that, you need the Christian account. What Pinker calls "hardwiring" is what we call being created in the image of God. Since we know that this life is not all there is, we can transcend self-interest.

Without these, we have only morality as a "spec sheet" and humans as moral calculators. As Kelly put it, quoting Orwell, "You have to be an intellectual to believe such nonsense. No ordinary man could be such a fool.