The Blank State: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

by Steven Pinker

509 pages Hardcover

Steven Pinker explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings.  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).