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Debating Human Happiness

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from: Robert Wright
to: Steven Pinker and Martin Seligman

Human Nature and Happiness

Posted Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2002, at 2:06 PM ET

Who are these people?

First of all, thanks to both of you for gracing the pages of Slate. It's nice to be in the company of two of America's most eminent psychologists. And congratulations on your new books, and all the attention they're getting.

To judge by the press coverage, at least, one might guess that there's some intellectual tension between the two books. Marty, your book, Authentic Happiness, is being described as upbeat and hopeful. And certainly its subtitle—"Using the New Positive Psychology To Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment"—isn't loaded with negative vibes. Steve, your book, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, has been described as presenting a "tragic" view of human nature. And, though you'd probably call that an oversimplification, I think you'd agree that in some ways life would be easier if the view your book debunks—of an infinitely malleable human mind—were closer to the truth than it is.

So for starters, I'd like to ask you, Steve, whether your book, with its emphasis on the role of genes in shaping the mind, indeed paints such a grim picture. And, Marty, in reply I hope you'll tell us how your prescription for happiness reckons with the sometimes stubborn limits that genes place on our potential.

To get a little more specific: Steve, your book emphasizes the importance of genes in two senses, and I think Marty basically agrees with you in both cases. But each of these senses would seem to complicate the search for happiness.

First, Steve, you endorse evolutionary psychology, which holds that there is a fairly firm and universal human nature. People in America and Bhutan may in some ways behave quite differently, but if you peer beneath the cultural overlay, you find minds that are basically the same, featuring, for example, the same basic set of emotions, deployed in generally predictable fashion. And various features of human nature would seem to make "lasting fulfillment" elusive. To take a pretty fundamental example: Natural selection didn't "design" us to be lastingly fulfilled. An eternally happy animal would presumably sit around and bask in bliss, rather than do those useful things that anxiety and restlessness provoke us to do—find food and mates, cement alliances, stay vigilant against threats, etc. In other words, lasting contentment would seem to be a prescription for genetic oblivion, in which case genes highly conducive to it presumably wouldn't have survived natural selection; happiness, it seems, is "designed" to evaporate shortly after we attain it by reaching some goal. (Hence addictive behavior—the repeated pursuit of repeatedly vanishing gratification.) And various other features of human nature—rage, jealousy, etc.—would also seem to complicate the quest for bliss.

Second, Steve, you endorse something that is commonly confused with evolutionary psychology but is actually a separate field—behavioral genetics. This field, while not denying the universality of a basic human nature, nonetheless studies genetic differences among people. Yes, anxiety is a part of human nature, and it's elicited by the same basic things in all cultures; but I'm more anxious than my brother, and behavioral geneticists ask how much of such differences is due to genetic difference. And, with all the major personality traits—extroversion, conscientiousness, etc.—they conclude that genetic difference is of non-trivial importance. Of course, these estimates of a trait's "heritability" in a given population don't necessarily tell us anything about any given particular case, such as me and my brother (and for that matter "heritability" is a slippery concept in some other ways, too). Still, behavioral genetics raises the prospect that maybe from birth the chances were overwhelmingly high that I'd always be more anxious than my brother, and that Marty's book can't help me—bad news for me, bad news for Marty.

Broadly speaking, then, I'm asking both of you to tell us whether the role of genes in shaping our everyday experience is legitimately depressing news—and if not, why not? I hope this question helps get the dialogue going, after which you two can take it wherever you want.

dialogues
entries
123456789
from: Robert Wright
to: Steven Pinker and Martin Seligman

Human Nature and Happiness

Posted Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2002, at 2:06 PM ET
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Steven Pinker is Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard and author of The Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, and The Language Instinct. Martin Seligman is Fox Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, former president of the American Psychological Association, and the author of Authentic Happiness. Robert Wright, a visiting fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, runs the Web site meaningoflife.tv and is the author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.
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Remarks From The Fray, Day 1:

[The Dialogue] seems to be operating on two different levels already. Pinker is a scientist...he is interested in how things work (especially the brain) and does his best to make very few assumptions that are not backed up by empirical observation. To him, the unknown is close at hand...we don't even fully understand how a human brain recognizes its mother. For Seligman, however, it's no big deal to treat "The Pleasant Life" as an empirically validated REAL THING, and go on from there to discuss it …

Pinker's point is that "positive emotions" (I'm not sure what THAT means, either, since "positive" and "negative" don't usually mean "good" and "bad" in science) are as much adaptations as "negative" ones. They show themselves in specific situations. You can manipulate your environment to emulate those specific situations to a degree, given. However, the fact that Seligman still has clients in a "Sisyphean struggle" means that he has not come up with a reliable and communicable method for infinitely increasing happiness levels. I'm sure he would respond to such criticism by stating that a person's degree of happiness depends on how well they understand or agree with his point of view. Anyone who is still depressed "just doesn't get it". I hope everyone recognizes such arguments from discussions about ESP.

I'm sorry...I think I'm taking this from an unfairly scientific perspective. If Seligman's framework seems to be helpful for his clients, then it is as validated as it needs to be for its purpose. However, if we're going to allow for that kind of validation, then Pinker's more constrained discussion of human mental activity seems to be a poor fit for the discussion.

-- Mangar

(To reply, click here.)


I completely agree! What is he talking about? Even parts of his response that momentarily corresponded with external reality were soon obfuscated by a retreat to meaningless catch phrases. For instance he describes the meaningful life, wherein I might use my "signature skills" to accomplish something larger than myself. I agree, that sounds pretty meaningful. But then he goes on to say that he can`t see how "unfortunate and double-edged genes could compromise that?" Well, he might also give some evidence that he tried, or that at least has some idea what Pinker is talking about. First of all, Pinker isn`t saying that genes are double-edged, but that genetically programmed behaviors are. It`s not like genes are marching around the body saying "stop all of this meaningfulness, it`s just gone too far," although I wonder if Seligman might think so.

-- John

(To reply, click here.)


Seligman says something astonishing:

No one has yet discovered genetic constraints on the Good Life. Everyone has signature strengths and everyone is capable of recrafting their lives to use them more.

Surely this can't be true. No genetic constraints on one's willingness and ability to implement the program of change that you prescribe? Someone genetically cursed to live a life of major depression is as capable of implementing this program of change as someone who is genetically blessed with high levels of energy and competence? I may be missing something, but this seems implausible to me.

-- Engram

(To reply, click here.)

(10/16)

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