Each dogma carries a moral burden, so their defenders have engaged in desperate tactics to discredit the scientists who are now challenging them.

He shows how many intellectuals have denied the existence of human nature by embracing three linked dogmas: the Blank Slate (the mind has no innate traits), the Noble Savage (people are born good and corrupted by society), and the Ghost in the Machine (each of us has a soul that makes choices free from biology). Overall, Pinker’s work explores what it means to be human and how our self-conception has moral, political, and societal implications.In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. And he addresses the fact that parents have little direct effect on the outcome of their offspring-while simultaneously arguing that parents have a moral duty to rear and nurture their children. On the topic of gender, he declares that we can understand the differences between men and women as consistent with feminist thinking. He also explains that, while violence is a part of human design, so is the ability to address and prevent it. He highlights how outdated today’s political ideas (from both the right and left) are in light of emerging science. In the final section of the book, Pinker explores five hot-button issues-politics, violence, gender, children, and the arts-from the perspective of cognitive science. Pinker emphasizes that, by understanding our underlying nature, we can make conscious choices to avoid confusing gut reaction with careful decision-making. Yet it is possible to combat these hardwired traits. And our human nature inclines us toward shared conceptions of morality. We are also loaded with certain genetic predispositions that create favoritism for kin over non-kin. Pinker shows that we have innate intuitions and cognitive faculties. On the contrary, the science demonstrates that we are not all that different from one another and are united by certain universal qualities. This may be a worthy aim, but Pinker finds that cognitive science does not support the underlying premise.

Pinker writes that people across different academic disciplines have buttressed the idea of the Blank Slate to ensure that we free ourselves from long-standing prejudices and create a more egalitarian society.

Steven pinker's book the blank slate