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HOWARD GARDNER
Psychologist, Harvard University; Author,
Changing Minds
Following Sisyphus, not Pandora
According to myth, Pandora unleashed all evils upon the world; only hope remained inside the box. Hopefor human survival and progress rests on two assumptions: (1) Human constructive tendencies cancounter human destructive tendencies, and (2) Human beings can act on the basis of long-termconsiderations, rather than merely short-term needs and desires. My personal optimism, and my yearsof research on "good work", could not be sustained without these assumptions.Yet I lay awake at night with the dangerous thought that pessimists may be right. For the first time inhistory — as far as we know! — we humans live in a world that we could completely destroy. The humandestructive tendencies described in the past by Thomas Hobbes and Sigmund Freud, the "realist" pictureof human beings embraced more recently by many sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists, and gametheorists might be correct; these tendencies could overwhelm any proclivities toward altruism,protection of the environment, control of weapons of destruction, progress in human relations, orseeking to become good ancestors. As one vivid data point: there are few signs that the unprecedentedpower possessed by the United States is being harnessed to positive ends.Strictly speaking, what will happen to the species or the planet is not a question for scientific study orprediction. It is a question of probabilities, based on historical and cultural considerations, as well as ourmost accurate description of human nature(s). Yet, science (as reflected, for example, in contributionsto Edge discussions) has recently invaded this territory with its assertions of a biologically-based humanmoral sense. Those who assert a human moral sense are wagering that, in the end, human beings willdo the right thing. Of course, human beings have the capacities to make moral judgments — that is amere truism. But my dangerous thought is that this moral sense is up for grabs — that it can bemobilized for destructive ends (one society's terrorist is another society's freedom fighter) oroverwhelmed by other senses and other motivations, such as the quest for power, instant gratification,or annihilation of one's enemies.I will continue to do what I can to encourage good work — in that sense, Pandoran hope remains. But Iwill not look upon science, technology, or religion to preserve life. Instead, I will follow Albert Camus'injunction, in his portrayal of another mythic figure endlessly attempting to push a rock up a hill: oneshould imagine Sisyphus happy.
 
 
MARTIN E.P. SELIGMAN 
Psychologist, University of Pennsylvania, Author,
Authentic Happiness
Relativism
 
In looking back over the scientific and artistic breakthroughs in the 20th century, there is a view that thegreat minds relativized the absolute. Did this go too far? Has relativism gotten to a point that it isdangerous to the scientific enterprise and to human well being?The most visible person to say this is none other than Pope Benedict XVI in his denunciations of the"dictatorship of the relative." But worries about relativism are not only a matter of dispute in theology;there are parallel dissenters from the relative in science, in philosophy, in ethics, in mathematics, inanthropology, in sociology, in the humanities, in childrearing, and in evolutionary biology.Here are some of the domains in which serious thinkers have worried about the overdoing of relativism:
 
• In philosophy of science, there is ongoing tension between the Kuhnians (science is about"paradigms," the fashions of the current discipline) and the realists (science is about finding the truth).• In epistemology there is the dispute between the Tarskian correspondence theorists ("p" is true if p)versus two relativistic camps, the coherence theorists ("p" is true to the extent it coheres with what youalready believe is true) and the pragmatic theory of truth ("p" is true if it gets you where you want togo).• At the ethics/science interface, there is the fact/value dispute: that science must and shouldincorporate the values of the culture in which it arises versus the contention that science is and shouldbe value free.• In mathematics, Gödel's incompleteness proof was widely interpreted as showing that mathematics isrelative; but Gödel, a Platonist, intended the proof to support the view that there are statements thatcould not be proved within the system that are true nevertheless. Einstein, similarly, believed that thetheory of relativity was misconstrued in just the same way by the "man is the measure of all things"relativists.• In the sociology of high accomplishment, Charles Murray (
Human Accomplishment
) documents thatthe highest accomplishments occur in cultures that believe in absolute truth, beauty, and goodness. Theaccomplishments, he contends, of cultures that do not believe in absolute beauty tend to be ugly, thatdo not belief in absolute goodness tend to be immoral, and that do not believe in absolute truth tend tobe false.• In anthropology, pre-Boasians believed that cultures were hierarchically ordered into savage,barbarian, and civilized, whereas much of modern anthropology holds that all social forms are equal.This is the intellectual basis of the sweeping cultural relativism that dominates the humanities inacademia.• In evolution, Robert Wright (like Aristotle) argues for a
scala naturae
, with the direction of evolutionfavoring complexity by its invisible hand; whereas Stephen Jay Gould argued that the fern is just ashighly evolved as Homo sapiens. Does evolution have an absolute direction and are humans furtheralong that trajectory than ferns?
 
• In child-rearing, much of twentieth century education was profoundly influenced by the"Summerhillians" who argued complete freedom produced the best children, whereas other schools of parenting, education, and therapy argue for disciplined, authoritative guidance.• Even in literature, arguments over what should go into the canon revolve around the absolute-relativecontroversy.• Ethical relativism and its opponents are all too obvious instances of this issue
 
I do not know if the dilemmas in these domains are only metaphorically parallel to one another. I do notknow if illumination in one domain will not illuminate the others. But it might and it is just possible thatthe great minds of the twenty-first century will absolutize the relative.
DAN SPERBER
Social and cognitive scientist, CNRS, Paris; author,
Explaining Culture
Culture is natural 
A number of us — biologists, cognitive scientists, anthropologists or philosophers — have been trying tolay down the foundations for a truly naturalistic approach to culture. Sociobiologists and culturalecologists have explored the idea that cultural behaviors are biological adaptations to be explained interms of natural selection. Memeticists inspired by Richard Dawkins argue that cultural evolution is anautonomous Darwinian selection process merely enabled but not governed by biological evolution.Evolutionary psychologists, Cavalli-Sforza, Feldman, Boyd and Richerson, and I are among those who, indifferent ways, argue for more complex interactions between biology and culture. These naturalisticapproaches have been received not just with intellectual objections, but also with moral and politicaloutrage: this is a dangerous idea, to be strenuously resisted, for it threatens humanistic values andsound social sciences.When I am called a "reductionist", I take it as a misplaced compliment: a genuine reduction is a greatscientific achievement, but, too bad, the naturalistic study of culture I advocate does not to reduce tothat of biology or of psychology. When I am called a "positivist" (an insult among postmodernists), Iacknowledge without any sense of guilt or inadequacy that indeed I don't believe that all facts aresocially constructed. On the whole, having one's ideas described as "dangerous" is flattering.Dangerous ideas are potentially important. Braving insults and misrepresentations in defending theseideas is noble. Many advocates of naturalistic approaches to culture see themselves as a group of free-thinking, deep-probing scholars besieged by bigots
.
But wait a minute! Naturalistic approaches can be dangerous: after all, they have been. The use of biological evidence and arguments purported to show that there are profound natural inequalities amonghuman "races", ethnic groups, or between women and men is only too well represented in the history of our disciplines. It is not good enough for us to point out (rightly) that 1) the science involved is badscience,2) even if some natural inequality were established, it would not come near justifying any inequality inrights, and 3) postmodernists criticizing naturalism on political grounds should begin by rejectingHeidegger and other reactionaries in their pantheon who also have been accomplices of policies of discrimination. This is not enough because the racist and sexist uses of naturalism are not exactly
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