Steven Pinker replies to our article on progress and meaning

Pinker's reply, followed by our comments.

Written by Steven Pinker.

Noah Carl and Bo Winegard have written more than 4,400 words in reply to 123 I recently uttered in a podcast chat. Though I appreciate the attention, some of that effort would have been better spent cracking open the two books I wrote articulating my views on progress, rather than extrapolating—and frankly, hallucinating—nonsensical views from this snippet.

Carl and Winegard argue that we are not on “some teleological path to inexorably greater fulfillment.” To say this is a straw man would be to do a disservice to straw. It’s a notion I repeatedly and vehemently reject, starting with my title Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. The book argued that humans have clawed increments of progress out of an indifferent universe only through the development of refined tools of reason, of institutions like science that incentivize the struggle towards truth, and of a moral commitment to enhancing human flourishing as the ultimate good (rather than religious dogma, national glory, and other distractions). The “Now” in the title emphasized that progress can continue only if we redouble our commitment to these fragile ideals against the constant drag of authoritarianism, tribalism, superstition, and zero-sum thinking that are legacies of human nature. Speaking of which, Carl and Winegard should have taken their puzzlement that the author of The Blank Slate lacked a realistic view of human nature as a prompt to think twice about their own understanding. A peek into Enlightenment Now or The Better Angels of Our Nature (with its extensive history of human atrocity and its ninety pages examining our “inner demons”) would have disabused them.

Just as fantastical is the suggestion that the encouragement of progress aims at a world with “no danger, conflict or hardship – when all our material needs are met and every intellectual problem is solved.” Carl and Winegard’s fretting about what we’d do if we reached that state is like worrying about what harp music to bring to heaven. My books explain why any such Utopia is impossible (indeed, dangerous to pursue). Perfection is precluded, among other reasons, by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the competitive nature of natural selection (with the constant menace of pathogens, as we’ve recently been reminded), the demons of human nature, the arduous and fallible workings of science at its best, the diversity of human individuals and cultures, and the many tradeoffs inherent to policy such as between opportunity and equality, freedom and public health, and security and individual rights.

Nor is a world where “every intellectual problem is solved” foreseeable or even coherent. Our ignorance in cosmology, genetics, microbiology, neuroscience, and other fields, is staggering (including our ignorance of what we are ignorant of). Even relatively straightforward problems in science (like the development of the brain) and technology (like prevention of harmful climate change) will not be “solved” any time soon. Most important, any theory, no matter how successful, raises the deeper question of why the world is the way the theory says it is, as opposed to some imaginable alternative. The answer to that question raises the still deeper question of why that explanation should be true, and so on. As David Deutsch puts it, we are always at “the beginning of infinity.”

Carl and Winegard devote much space to the negative side effects of technologies, emphasizing the commonplace that all technologies have such effects (you can’t do just one thing). But their conclusion that “there is no law of nature that says new technologies necessarily raise human well-being” is a non sequitur (even putting aside the straw men “law of nature” and “necessarily”). Whether a new technology enhances well-being depends not on whether it has costs (everything has costs) but whether its benefits outweigh the costs. Their own example of obesity couldn’t make this clearer. The world used to have widespread famines, stunting, undernourishment, and agonizing hunger; now, many people are fat. Therefore, they suggest, there has been no progress. Are they serious?

To reiterate the obvious: progress is not perfection. Problems are inevitable, and solutions create new problems that must be solved in their turn. This does not mean that progress is not genuine, nor a worthy aspiration to extend to those left behind. When all eight billion people on earth enjoy the longevity, safety, and affluence of Denmark, we can turn to the problem of how TikTok affects their teenagers’ mental health.

The authors review some interesting findings on the elusive nature of happiness (apparently unaware that most were discussed in the “Happiness” and “Quality of Life” chapters of Enlightenment Now). As they note (and contrary to the thrust of their article) progress in the form of increasing life, health, prosperity, freedom, and safety really does make people happier (though with unsurprising diminishing returns, and some peculiarities of the United States).

As for the worry that an end to all problems will leave people in a state of ennui, I say: Relax. Trouble will find us. There will always be conflict, illness, tragedy, and unpleasant surprises, and meaning to be found in minimizing their toll in human suffering.

Steven Pinker is a cognitive scientist at Harvard. His latest book is Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters.

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Our comments

Written by Noah Carl and Bo Winegard.

As big fans of Steven Pinker’s work, we are flattered that he deemed our article worthy of a reply. Unfortunately, we seem to be talking past each other. He believes that we mischaracterized his views. And we feel that his reply doesn’t really address our main argument – which goes as follows.

Humans evolved to find meaning in the value we provide to our fellow group members. We need to feel useful. Meeting challenges, overcoming obstacles and figuring out answers to problems makes us feel useful. Having access to ample goods and services is not enough. Technologies could arise in the not-so-distant future that supersede humans in various domains, thereby depriving many people of challenges to meet, obstacles to overcome and problems to figure out. If such technologies do arise, we could face a profound crisis of meaning.

Pinker argues we committed the straw-man fallacy by attributing to him the belief that “we are on some teleological path to inexorably greater fulfillment”. He considers this a straw-man because he interprets the quoted text to mean “material progress is inevitable,” a position he has strongly opposed. However, this is not what we meant. Rather, we meant “greater fulfilment is an inevitable consequence of societal development”. What’s more, we were not responding directly to him in that section. We wrote, “It’s often taken for granted” (rather than “Pinker takes for granted”).

In our article, we were questioning Pinker’s dismissal of the notion that humans need some kind of struggle to give our lives meaning, while arguing that a crisis of meaning could be just around the corner. We were not questioning anything he has said about the causes of material progress or the inner demons of human nature.

Pinker criticises our invoking of a world with “no danger, conflict or hardship – when all our material needs are met and every intellectual problem is solved” on the grounds that “such a Utopia is impossible”. Even if it is strictly speaking impossible, we do not believe this undermines the thought experiment. Whether human fulfilment rises monotonically as we face less danger, conflict and hardship is an interesting and important question. We are not convinced that it does.

Pinker suggests we neglected to consider the benefits of advances in food production when we discussed obesity, noting that “the world used to have widespread famines, stunting, undernourishment, and agonizing hunger”. Our point was not that “there has been no progress”. It was that advances have continued to the point where the costs may outweigh the benefits. The more general point – that the development of dangerous, addictive substances can make us worse off – seems undeniable.

Pinker suggests we were unaware that he had discussed happiness research in his book Enlightenment Now. We were in fact aware and did not mean to imply he hadn’t grappled with the research himself.

We appreciate Pinker taking the time to respond to our article. However, he has not assuaged our concerns about threats to meaning and purpose posed by current technological trends.

Noah Carl and Bo Winegard are the Editors of Aporia.

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