Image: Illustration by A. Richard Allen
-
What a Plant Knows
How does a Venus flytrap know when to snap shut? Can it actually feel an insect’s tiny, spindly legs? And how do cherry blossoms know when to bloom? Can they...
Read More »
Ever since the rise of modern science, an almost impregnable wall separating it from religion, morality and human values has been raised to the heights. The “naturalistic fallacy,” sometimes rendered as the “is-ought problem”—the way something “is” does not mean that is the way it “ought” to be—has for centuries been piously parroted from its leading proponents, philosophers David Hume and G. E. Moore, as if pronouncing it closes the door to further scientific inquiry.
We should be skeptical of this divide. If morals and values should not be based on the way things are—reality—then on what should they be based? All moral values must ultimately be grounded in human nature, and in my book The Science of Good and Evil (Times Books, 2004), I build a scientific case for the evolutionary origins of the moral sentiments and for the ways in which science can inform moral decisions. As a species of social primates, we have evolved a deep sense of right and wrong to accentuate and reward reciprocity and cooperation and to attenuate and punish excessive selfishness and free riding. On the constitution of human nature are built the constitutions of human societies.
Grafted onto this evolutionary ethics is a new field called neuroethics, whose latest champion is the steely-eyed skeptic and cogent writer Sam Harris, a neuroscientist who in his book The Moral Landscape (Free Press, 2010) wields a sledgehammer to the is-ought wall. Harris’s is a first-principle argument, backed by copious empirical evidence woven through a tightly reasoned narrative. The first principle is the well-being of conscious creatures, from which we can build a science-based system of moral values by quantifying whether or not X increases or decreases well-being. For instance, Harris asks, Is it right or wrong to force women to dress in cloth bags and to douse their faces in acid for committing adultery? It doesn’t take rocket science—or religion, Harris astringently opines—to conclude that such “cultural values” decrease the well-being of the women so affected and thus are morally wrong.
These examples are the low-hanging fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, so it is easy for both science and religion to pluck the ripe ones and declare with confidence that such acts as, say, lying, adultery and stealing are wrong because they destroy trust in human relationships that depend on truth telling, fidelity and respect for property. It is when moral issues become weighted with political, economic and ideological baggage that the moral landscape begins to undulate.
Harris’s program of a science-based morality is a courageous one that I wholeheartedly endorse, but how do we resolve conflicts over such hotly contested issues as taxes? Harris’s moral landscape allows the possibility of many peaks and valleys—more than one right or wrong answer to moral dilemmas—so perhaps liberals, conservatives, libertarians, Tea partiers, Green partiers and others can coexist on different peaks. Live and let live I say, but what happens when the majority of residents on multiple moral peaks pass laws that force those in the minority on other peaks to help pay for their programs of social well-being for everyone? More scientific data are unlikely to eliminate the conflict.
I asked Harris about this potential problem. “‘Live and let live’ is often a wise strategy for minimizing human conflict,” he agreed. “But it only applies when the stakes are not very high or when the likely consequences of our behavior are unclear. To say that ‘more scientific data are unlikely to eliminate the conflict’ is simply to say that nothing will: because the only alternative is to argue without recourse to facts. I agree that we find ourselves in this situation from time to time, often on economic questions, but this says nothing about whether right answers to such questions exist.”
See what we're tweeting about
80 Comments
Add CommentIf it is possible to prove scientifically that some of us are morally better than others, how shold we respond to that. Did not some of us in the past prove that some of us scientifically better in some ways than others and have a better claim to decide who should reproduce ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave you heard of Eugenics? Did you really pose that question? Because if you did ask it, there is another time and place better suited to you. It's called Germany and its about 1939 on the calendar. I sincerely hope you ask out of naivete. It smacks of "final solution" and a synthetic moral imperative. Would you have wanted someone to decide your parents were "unworthy" then had them sterilized? Or, do you propose that you are suited for that decision. I can honestly answer that I am not suited. There are any number of historical personalities that I admire greatly, NONE of whom I would entrust that level of responsibility(or irresponsibility.) Those personalities would also bow out and rail against that mentality.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot trying to spike your ire. Keep in mind that any person claiming some "scientific" evidence supporting their claim is a product of a million years of NOT DECIDING WHO SHOULD REPRODUCE. If the managed reproduction theory were viable then random reproduction shouldn't have brought about their epiphany.
Read this: Brave New World by: Aldous Huxley.
I'm pretty sure he was referring to eugenics...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMoral sentiments are personal prejudices that vary with individuals and societies. Some argue that all societies share certain dictates -- e.g., all prohibit murder (= to kill someone illegally). But a closer look shows little similarity. Some primitive tribes prohibit only the killing of the chief. Others have various classes of people whom you must not kill. No society has or does prohibit all killing. Ask our troops in Afghanistan.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBecause these are human prejudices, most advocates of a moral dictum seek some authority higher than themselves to endorse it. They are merely the "messenger"; "God appeared and told me this, and said I was to spread the word." He avoids the perception of being merely an ordinary person telling other people how to live their lives.
Most moralities pretend to come from a "higher authority," such as the word of God in scripture -- which is so richly inconsistent anyone can find anything they wish there.
Science is merely another authority sometimes invoked to validate personal prejudice. At one time philosophers had hope that logic and reason might resolve moral issues; if two men differed, they would need merely sit down with chalk and slate and say, "Let us calculate."
Alas, those days are gone.
I am curious whether Harris' first principle -- the "well being of conscious creatures" -- applies to the Nazis. If so it was wicked of Eisenhower to invade Europe. Of course the Nazis had been doing the same to others, but two wrongs don't make a right. Or -- do they?
You won't find much moral consistency even in the U.S. these days. Anti-abortionists murder abortion doctors on moral grounds. Others debate whether WikiLeaks should be damned or praised.
Subscribers to Scientific American have seen in recent issues a full page ad on behalf of Richard W. Werthrill, who died in 1989. We are told, "Whoever or whatever is the creator revealed nature's law of right action to to the mind of Richard W. Werthrill in 1929. The law calls for people to be rational and honest not only regarding the laws of physics but also to be rational and honest in their thinking and behavior toward one another."
Sounds suspiciously like Harris to me.
I am skeptical of the skeptics on this one.
My working assumption, which I can´t prove but seems to me to be a good one, is that morality is an evolved tool to improve social harmony.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBeing evolved, it's not set in stone or derived from external entities. It changes to suit the march of civilization: slavery was once considered moral and right (and sadly, to some people it remains right).
To say that a subject, any subject, is beyond scientific enquiry is to undergo a self-administered lobotomy, at a time when we need our collective wits about us as never before.
Time to revisit "The Mismeasure of Man" (S.J. Gould)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemember centuries of verbiage such as being "catholic", having "christian" values, "modern" (meaning 'western')...etc.? All these (written in the lower case) evolved to have neutral, eclectic?, higher-moral-ground values. Meanwhile, along the same continuum, "guru", "pundit", "holy cow" developed negative connotations. Mind you, both these parallel streams rose here in the USA and are used more here, in the American diction more than anywhere else. Of course, we also have the largest number of moralists, largest number of scientists involved in researching and debating ethics, morality, good/evil ....(which is good, of course).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAh, good old pseudo science. Don't you just love it? Data? What data? You can't examine any aspect of morality as a universal human behaviour for the very simple reason that under most circumstances what people believe they will do invariably differs from what they actually do. And nothing should be more obvious than that making something 'illegal' (be it formally as in law or informally as 'disgrace') does absolutely nothing to stop it happening. Punishment, by definition, always comes after the act. There's nothing unique or helpful about a scientific appraisal of what's 'right'. Like law or philosophy it gives us nothing but a determination of what acts require punishment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf morality has such a huge evolutionary advantage then why has immorality not been bred out of us by now? The truth is that, quite the opposite, it's the 'bad boys' who have been responsible for the huge expansion of the human species across the globe as well as many ills. By definition, evolution is best served by those who break the moulds!
Harris's view is no more or less than some kind of homage to Utilitarianism and has precisely the same weakness - namely that nothing benefits universally. What's 'good' for one group is almost invariably 'bad' for another. Let's use the example of the assertion of female emancipation, unquestionably benefiting women in many ways but catastrophic in so many others, not least the economic reality that it is now near impossible for families to survive on a single income.
In the UK, for another example, the National Health service was an undoubted success in improving the health of low-income groups but a disaster in convincing people that they are entitled to any treatment, no matter how costly, medically unnecessary, or ultimately futile it is (should the nation really pay a king's ransom to extend someone's life by a mere matter of weeks or months?)
The idea that there is some kind of objective, empirical decision to be made about the right thing to do is just arrant (and arrogant) nonsense. The fact that both religion and philosophy have recognised is that there are times when the right thing to do is exactly the wrong thing to do and the wrong thing to do may be precisely what is required given the time or circumstances.
Although Hitler's Germany did most to actually implement eugenics as a policy it's getting a little bit old to constantly suggest that it was Germany that sourced it. An almost inevitable consequence of the interpretation of Darwin's evolutionary theory as 'competition' and 'survival of the fittest' (sadly still maintained by Richard Dawkins which may help to explain his eugenically motivated campaign against religion) eugenics as a formal philosophical position had it's strongest adherents over a decade before Hitler came to power in the US and, to a lesser extent, the UK. And the entire Western world was to some extent in its thrall which explains why there was largely sympathetic reaction to many of Hitler's policies. It is very easy post-war to point the finger at Germany but the truth is that most Western countries were already involved in preventing certain groups from 'breeding' as is revealed in their treatment of the 'retarded', 'mad', 'sad' and (pertinently) the 'bad'. It's always worth remembering that for many of the years in which the Soviet Union, for example, was condemning dissidents to a life in mental asylums, exactly the same fate awaited some of the women who got pregnant 'out of wedlock' in Britain!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe oldvicv #5
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf morality is an evolved tool to improve to improve social harmony it must be judged a failure. It is invoked by terrorists as justification for global attacks on the innocent. Anti-abortionists use it to justifify murder of abortion doctors. Overall, I would say a healthy economy is far more effective than morality for improving social harmony.
The real problem with this proposal is that science and morality cannot even “see” each other, much less inform one another.
Science is based on empirical statements about the world which can be judged true or false. “The cat is on the rug” for example. Look at the rug, and you have your answer.
“Thou shalt not kill” is a command, not a factual statement. Since there is no rug to look at, to say it is true or false makes no sense. From a strictly empirical perspective it is meaningless, as is poetry and other non-empirical literature.
Mathematics and mathematical logic can tell us nothing about the world. But are important tools in our empirical exploration of it. For example to construct complex mathematical (i.e., non-contradictory) models of various empirical possibilities. But only empirical observation can reveal whether a model reflects the world in which we live. When it does, it “predicts” what we will find if we look in certain places. Einstein’s model of a relativistic universe predicted gravity bends light, which most physicists thought ludicrous.
Science can tell us how to get to the moon, but not whether we want to go there. A moralist can declare, “Thou shalt go to the moon!” but without a higher authority to back his command is merely voicing his personal prejudice.
Darwinism was indeed the inspiration for eugenics. It was also used to justify ruthless business practices and other unsavory acts. But like going to the moon, Darwin’s theory had no opinion on whether one “ought” to do such things. For that you need moralists -- and advocates of eugenics were indeed moralists. Hitler by his lights was also on a moral crusade. He once said, “I am the last hope and savior of western civilization.”
Neither logic nor mathematics has any interest in what we “ought” to do. To pretend so merely elevates them to the status of an authority like Scripture, which can be interpreted as we please.
Does this article have any purpose other than to announce 'author x of a book about science and morality approves of author y's book about science and morality'?--is it anything more than a book endorsement?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI really can't see in it any more intellectual content than in an article written by a bishop in favor of the Pope's latest book, unless we count the humanitarianism of the opening paragraphs (which is probably just an emotional holdover from Shermer's religious days)--i.e., Shermer's pessimistic veiled appeal to consequences: if we don't merge 'is and ought' then we secularists can't have morality. To that, I can only say what most of us are willing to say about heaven--if delusions and lies are the only way to have a life with the comfort of such hopes, then those hopes are not actually desirable. For me, disappointment and misfortune do not provide a sufficient argument against embracing the truth and, in accord with it, making of life what we can.
The “well-being” goal comes over pretty much the same as any common religious view - Simple assertion based on unfounded adherence to certain beliefs that support a larger symbolic system. Basically, Sam Harris’s idea comes down to the idea that “Science” knows what’s best for us. I seriously doubt it, but then there is no reason “Science” should not be on equal footing with any of the myriads of belief systems that human brains invent that purport to tell us how to distinguish right from wrong and what we ought to do about it. What every individual’s religious belief system (including Shermer’s and Harris’s) has in common with all the rest, is the firmly held notion that THEIRS is the correct one. It’s all in their minds. www.MindMadeReal.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMichael Shermer's question to Sam Harris makes at least two upsetting assumption: money=happiness and there is only so much happiness to go around. One important point of the moral landscape is to determine how much resources most humans need to facilitate happiness and whether is feasible to establish caps. Specially if hoarding of resources by a few results in suffering by others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor those invoking eugenics consider that eugenics was not about improving well-being for everyone but only one arbitrarily chosen group. A science of morality would surely conclude and include all genetic and cultural backgrounds.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYikes. I'm guessing that either Shermer or Harris, upon reading the majority of comments regarding the notion of moral landscapes, would be discouraged that so many Sciam readers missed their points by a mile. Psychologists have developed the idea that we all model the world in terms of schemas -- world views composed of smaller units of stored information. Most importantly, once formed, schemas are resistant to new information that contradicts any element of the structure. We all suffer from this resistance problem, but most of the letters here are about the best examples of willfully missing the point that I've seen in some time. Perhaps, their authors would consider simply reading The Moral Landscape with an open mind and a wary eye on their inflexible internal schemas which so clearly plague their comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlric, you say "...well-being for everyone"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswho is 'everyone'? The vegan includes fish and bees in their idea of "everyone's well-being", and they say they do this because science has proven they can feel pain, and they want to look out for everyone's well-being.
Are you (and maybe Shermer/Harris/J.S. Mill/etc.) talking about a different "everyone" to ethicists like Peter Singer?
selrachj, can you cite and elucidate the point that was missed?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdrawing links between morality and science is a dangerous game- lets keep them is separate drawers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHave heard of eugenics, and it was definitely not all bad. I have also read Brave New World and most who read it today are not concerned by ideas that caused massive debate when the book was written.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn an overpopulated world, where modern day morality does not allow the dying to die, from disease, starvation or plain old age, birth rates must be controlled.
Further grand ideas of groups based on colour, religion or any other trait to out-populate the rest of the world by out-breeding the rest, irrespective of the poverty and bio-degradation caused must be stopped.
Its all very fine for the controllers at the top to decide to vilify portions of their populations, with the full knowledge that western based societies will accept victims as refugees, and thus increase their numbers across the world, to what cause I don't know, since every large community eventually fractures.
Those least able to support and educate their offspring are the fastest breeders, this has been established by Malthus a long time ago.
I do not want to decide who shall reproduce, but I definitely want to restrict the number of times the person does reproduce.
Carlofab: You can be a skeptic about everything, but eventually you have to make a decision. Imagine if the rest of the world was like you?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Australia you would become the CEO of one of our banks.
Morality did evolve, but like the species it evolved differently in different communities. When species move, as man has moved species across the globe, competition increases and we get extinctions. Similarly we shall have extinctions in moral values over time and eventually our moral values will become very similar.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTime and population densities push moral values. The most religious nations have the most unhappy and violent societies.
What eugenics was in the past need not be what it is in the future. That's what science is about, accept an idea proved to work till a better one comes along. Religion on the other hand imposes ideas that it believes must exist for as long as humans do - granted that's not very long.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry for the confusion. I posed that question to show that the article could not prove what it claimed to prove, ie., you cannot derive the laws of morality from the laws of nature. Morality is about who you are, but not what you are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I am curious whether Harris' first principle -- the "well being of conscious creatures" -- applies to the Nazis"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- What about the well-being of the jews? What about the liberty of the rest of the world, or even just europeans?
"If so it was wicked of Eisenhower to invade Europe."
- In what way? Halting injustice through force, not as an end, but as a means to an end? My history may be a bit hazy, but I don't recall Eisenhower's troops taking over the crematoria and continuing it's mad work on the germans...
"Harris's view is no more or less than some kind of homage to Utilitarianism and has precisely the same weakness - namely that nothing benefits universally."
- Examples can be used to make this argument ad nauseum, but the fact remains that some things really are good for everyone. Economic problems are economic problems, not moral ones. If female emancipation resulted in a moral emergency, this argument would bear out your thesis. It does not, on both counts.
"The idea that there is some kind of objective, empirical decision to be made about the right thing to do is just arrant (and arrogant) nonsense. The fact that both religion and philosophy have recognised is that there are times when the right thing to do is exactly the wrong thing to do and the wrong thing to do may be precisely what is required given the time or circumstances."
- The fact that rules may require exception does not deflate our attempts at rule making. Some rules admit of exception, this is true, but that does not mean that seeking optimal rules based on what we know about human psychology and our interactions with our environment is a doomed struggle that we should just flush down the toilet. Personally, I think you give both philosophy and religion far too much credit in recognizing the flaws of objective morality, and I don't see why science must remain out in the cold for this discussion.
"Neither logic nor mathematics has any interest in what we ought to do."
- Who says science is merely mathematics or logic? Can a science of psychology tell us that companionship is best suited for happiness? Can biology tell us that it has been thus for untold millennia? Could statistics show that the species who survive and thrive are the cooperative ones? Could we combine these insights into a science of morality that demonstrates increases in well-being, happiness, and ultimately survival by virtue of such cooperation and companionship? This is a testable, falsifiable hypothesis, grounded in science, and moral to the core.
I am quite interested in this topic, and eagerly await Harris' book. I'm curious to see how Harris deals with such issues as the bankruptcy of the positivistic view of science, as well as Heidegger's challenge from "Letter on Humanism":
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...the humanitas of homo humanus is determined with regard to an already established interpretation of nature, history, world, and the ground of the world, that is, of beings as a whole."
Scientific earthling #20
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot really…
I enjoy all sorts of things but attach no great cosmic importance to them. For me relationships with women are alone more than enough to make like worth living.
Probably the most dangerous human emotion is “feeling sure”. I’m thrown into a scare anytime somebody tells me, “Don’t worry about a thing.”
The proposals about morality here show a basic ignorance of logic, mathematics, and empirical science. The first two of these are extremely powerful but have severe limitations. If you don’t understand such limitations anything seems possible.
Shermer seems still stuck in Aristotelian logic, which is valid but trivial. It certainly can’t prove or discover anything new about the world, as was believed for two thousand years.
Sometimes I feel like a football fan trying to persuade some nut they’re not watching a baseball game. You may feel the football fan is being too critical, but I don’t think so at all.
24. Reerrpad
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour response shows exactly what is wrong with "the well being of conscious creatures" as a first principle. Which conscious creatures? The Nazis were certainly such. But you argue they had to be stopped for the sake of other conscious creatures. That dilemma makes the first principle more complicated than first appears.
And historians would take issue with you on the evolution of morality. Some argue that your language and morality were decided on a battlefield hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Might makes right. I suppose you could call that an evolution -- by survival of the fittest.
Just for the sake of an argument; say, Hitler won the war in Europe. Leaving Stalin in the East and the U. S. in the west.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWould the Nazi Party still be evil?
I'm not advocating, simply asking. If a stalemate in Europe happened in '44, would we have nuked Berlin in '46?
What say your morality then?
And your's is unrelated to the topic under discussion. Social darwinism is bad, thats not being championed here. Ancient literature trumpeting objective moral values is bad, and again, this is not being trumpeted here. This is not an argument to some vague authority, or a case of using unrelated facts of the world to guide morality. It is an examination of the relevant facts, about our minds and bodies, that determine the overall most positive values to hold in an effort to maximize the well-being of ALL conscious creatures (even the ones you don't particularly like).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Which conscious creatures?"
- All of them. Simple enough? Even the ones that are not self-aware.
"And historians would take issue with you on the evolution of morality."
- Evolution, biological or otherwise, is not necessarily moving in our best interests. We must take the reins and guide our moral development. That is the idea behind Sam Harris' book, and behind my comment.
"Might makes right. I suppose you could call that an evolution -- by survival of the fittest."
- Again, survival of the fittest encompasses a key idea: survival. I am not talking about survival, per se, but about an intelligent, fact-driven search for answers to moral question, vetted by the power of the scientific method. Ultimately, I think this will assist survival, but I'm in no way suggesting that evolution, or survival, is the main idea, or the method to be employed.
I'm always confused when I encounter this inevitable opposition to a science of morality. I can understand references to moral failings when science was misused, but it isn't as though religion or philosophy presents an untarnished record of moral wisdom. Is it fear that religion will lose another foothold? Is it fear that some answer will be found that runs counter to our conscience, and then somehow be foisted upon the world and enforced with iron-clad certainty? What possible method is more apt to admit uncertainty than one which is so sensitive to possible error that facts of the world are still named theories JUST IN CASE they're not correct?
"The proposals about morality here show a basic ignorance of logic, mathematics, and empirical science. The first two of these are extremely powerful but have severe limitations. If you dont understand such limitations anything seems possible."
- And the third?
"Would the Nazi Party still be evil?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- Of course. Where in this article do you find anyone advocating moral relativism?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEmpiricism is much weaker. Logic and mathematics give us certainty about its theorems – but tell us nothing about the world.
Empiricism is nothing more than looking at the world and trying to make sense of the “data” we find. No empirical statement is ever certain. Take, “the cat is on the rug.” It appears to be there. But suppose it’s not the same cat? Or you are hallucinating? Or merely dreaming that you see the cat.
Einstein’s relativity and Darwinian evolution have so many implications and predictions that have been verified that we would be pressed to get along without either. Evolution is essential to medical science and relativity to modern physics. This could all be coincidence. But so long as the theories produce results -- phones work and cars run -- we continue to use the theory.
Logic can give us the certainty of the tautology:
All black crows are black.
The above must be true and is always true. But tells us nothing about the world. Does not tell us what color crows are, nor what they are, nor if they even exist.
Trying to deduce morality from empirical data runs afoul of the problem that empirical data is what it is. Moral statements are subjective.
But suppose there is something to this nonsense and you do find such relevant facts.
You still have the same problem as going to the moon. Science can tell you HOW, but not if you WANT to go to the moon.
Similarly even if you find the most positive values, it remains to be seen if anyone will be interested in holding them. Everybody in the world won’t. They don’t -- ever. There are many religions in the world; some will surely find your prescription abhorrent and blasphemous.
The more serious problem is that biological “facts” have no moral implications. The researcher would have to put his own subjective spin on the data. The current (January 2011) issue of SA has on page 85 yet another ad touting the scientific morality of Richard W. Wetherill. Take a look. It’s the same gag.
"No empirical statement is ever certain."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- Sounds like "no moral statement is ever certain". Breath of fresh air, in my opinion.
"Trying to deduce morality from empirical data runs afoul of the problem that empirical data is what it is. Moral statements are subjective."
- Is there an argument in this that I'm unaware of? A rewording of Hume, perhaps?
"You still have the same problem as going to the moon. Science can tell you HOW, but not if you WANT to go to the moon."
- This is the Hume rewording, so what is that other sentence? This part of the process, the 'choice' between going and not going, is irrelevant to the point of the article, and the topic. Science may be able to tell you what would be achieved by going to the moon, but not why you would make that choice. That distinction remains with the individual, just as choosing between "good" and "evil" is the choice of the individual, even though being "good" gets you the best condo in heaven (supposedly).
"Similarly even if you find the most positive values, it remains to be seen if anyone will be interested in holding them."
- You can lead a horse to water... Of course, but thats irrelevant to the topic.
"The more serious problem is that biological facts have no moral implications. The researcher would have to put his own subjective spin on the data."
- You're getting 'fact' and 'choice' mixed here. If it is a 'fact' that such-and-such is a moral choice, and for the sake of argument we posit science as the source of such a fact, the CHOICE remains with the individual. The existence of a choice between moral and immoral is universal, regardless of the source of our knowledge of which is which. Science being the source does not change the fact that some won't adhere.
Lets say a science of morality is able to break free of your iron-clad objections and delve into the murky waters or moral thought. With a sudden splash, the neuroscientists and biologists emerge with a nugget of truth from which we can choose between an action likely to bring happiness, and one likely to bring harm upon another's happiness. This gets folded into a working theory of morality; data from field tests seem to indicate that when people choose the first action, they and their neighbors are happier:
"This could all be coincidence. But so long as the theories produce results -- phones work and cars run -- we continue to use the theory."
- Yes, it's that simple. If it doesn't work, it goes away (wish religion would be that accommodating). Why are you fighting this?
I am in total agreement that "All moral values must ultimately be grounded in human nature" and have been so convinced for over 4 decades. 10 years ago I took the time out to logically found and develop that conviction based on my unique reading of the true nature of human reality. The result of my work is embodied in my treatise "Social Meta-Needs:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA New Basis for Optimal Interaction" at: http://selfsip.org/fundamentals/socialmetaneeds.html (note that "Social Meta-Needs bears no relationship to the ideas of Maslow.) The theory also addresses and solves the "is-ought" conundrum, but it additionally provides a full solution to such conflict questions raised by Shermer and not adequately answered by Harris.
The first 3 sentences of the abstract read:
"Evidence from a variety of science and social disciplines is integrated to create a new approach to the basis and determination of the optimal methods of Social InterActions within Society. A new concept is defined and developed: Social Meta-Needs - those properties of the Environment of InterActions within Society common to all Members, which facilitate the highest possible attainment of Lifetime Happiness by each. Ethical egoism is redefined as a hypothetical imperative that is shown to be fully compossible and to form a logical and consistent basis for human Actions that will achieve the Social Meta-Needs."
I would be pleased to have Messrs Shermer and Harris (and any other readers) critically examine my solution and comment upon it at some public venue where I could respond.
--Paul Wakfer
MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
The Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness,
individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting
Reerrpad:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI’m not arguing, just educating you on basic fundamentals, and it’s getting tiresome.
Empirical statements are true or false. Moral statements are not. Empirical is “The cat is on the rug.” True if the cat is there, false if it is not. Sometimes we can’t be sure, but it’s still empirical. Astronomers in the 1930’s wondered if there were mountains on the far side of the moon. An empirical question because it could be answered by looking, even though we had no way to do so then.
Moral statements are NOT empirical because you cannot even IMAGINE some observation to confirm them. They say nothing about the world. They are commands or prohibitions like “Thou shalt not kill”.
Empirical -- Boss calls you to his office. Says to buy a painting for his wall. Doesn’t care what, but must be 4’ by 5’ in size. You do this. He looks at painting and says it’s too small (or large). You measure with your ruler and it’s 4 by 5. He’s not satisfied and calls in other employees. Each measures with his own ruler and all confirm it is 4 x 5. Boss finally measures with his own and grudging concedes you’re right. Whether painting was 4 x 5 was an empirical question, and shown to be true.
Moral or aesthetic -- Boss calls you to office. This time doesn’t care what size but buy a nice painting. You bring one that you like. He goes into a fit at such hideous trash. Again he calls other employees. This time they fall into heated scrap over whether it’s nice or not. Some think so, some say mediocre, some hideous, etc.
Whether the painting is nice is not empirical. The painting is a Rorschach test reflecting personal subjective reactions. Whether painting is 4 by 5 is information for a physicist. Whether it is nice is information for your psychiatrist.
Moral CHOICES are subjective -- they are choices to either obey or break a prohibition. For some Jews whether to eat pork is a moral choice. For me it’s not because I’m not Jewish. Prohibitions and commands are issued by an authority. And disobedience is often punished by an authority. It has nothing to do with whether the world is round.
What am I fighting? You have the profound advantage of ignorance which allows you to say what you wish. I am handicapped by an understanding of empirical science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"No empirical statement is ever certain."
- I'm with you here, given that empiricism encompasses observations, experience, and data.
"Empirical statements are true or false."
- Here you lost me.
"You have the profound advantage of ignorance which allows you to say what you wish. I am handicapped by an understanding of empirical science."
- If this is simply going to degenerate into personal insults, this will be my last post.
"Moral CHOICES are subjective -- they are choices to either obey or break a prohibition"
- Correct. I never disputed this. We're not talking about choices, we're talking about moral facts (i.e. the prohibitions).
"For some Jews whether to eat pork is a moral choice. For me its not because Im not Jewish."
- You do not accept the metric the jews use for measuring morality. That has no impact on whether the consumption or abstinence of pork products is a moral choice. It could be, and you are merely choosing the immoral option. Ask yourself, why do you NOT think morality has anything to do with pork?
"Moral or aesthetic"
- Must be aesthetic by process of elimination. Believing a painting to be nice or not has nothing to do with morality.
"Moral statements are NOT empirical because you cannot even IMAGINE some observation to confirm them. They say nothing about the world"
- Killing people has been shown to lead to lowered happiness in both the provocateur (assuming he/she is capable of empathy), and those with a relationship with the victim (not to mention the victim). How is this observation NOT empirical?
Truth be told, morality already is empirical; we already approach moral questions with something akin to the scientific method. If a specific "moral" precept is observed to cause more harm than good, you immediately call it's wisdom into question (if it somehow got past your reasoning faculties to begin with). However, this internal process encounters all the problems inherent in failures of cognition, which is all the more reason to address it as objectively as possible, taking all sides into consideration, and applying the most able minds available.
The only reason to hold on to a moral precept, or prohibition, beyond the point at which it is shown to be unhelpful by any measure of empiricism, is that one believes the source to be beyond/above reason. If asked why, the answer can not be "because my invisible friend said so". You demand reasons, and you should.
Why is this such a taboo? Why can't science venture into this territory as it has into every other?
Science has a worldview. This worldview does affect the outcome if only to help craft the hypothesis. If science were to have a theological worldview it might change some of the science and maybe even the outcomes. To say that there is no presuppositions in the outcomes of scientific research is to believe that one can truly objective in any research. The bias is okay as long as it is publishes and not hidden. The problem occurs when science and scientists insist they have no bias or subjective reasoning. Even the choices they make for where they spend their time is subjective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience has a worldview. This worldview does affect the outcome if only to help craft the hypothesis. If science were to have a theological worldview it might change some of the science and maybe even the outcomes. To say that there is no presuppositions in the outcomes of scientific research is to believe that one can be truly objective in any research. The bias is okay as long as it is published and not hidden. The problem occurs when science and scientists insist they have no bias or subjective reasoning. Even the choices they make for where they spend their time is based subjective thinking
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo insult intended. I did not say you are ignorant or stupid, only ignorant of empirical science. I would be too if I had not studied it in college. Stupid is an inability to learn. Ignorance is a lack of learning that can be corrected by study.
All empirical statements are true or false, but we may not know which, or be certain of which.
Moral and aesthetic are not empirical, but are of the same TYPE. They are personal expressions of emotion, though often disguised as statements about the world -- such as "that painting is nice" or "God is great." These describe not the world, but our personal feelings.
God in the Old Testament commands a great deal of killing, even the slaughter of whole tribes -- every man, woman, and child, along with their dogs and cattle. Of course, this is killing, not murder. Murder is to kill without God's permission, as Cain did Able.
Logician Willard Quine adds, "Another familiar argument from self-interest is that we are all better off if we respect one another's interests. The fallacy if familiar too: any one of us may be even better off by infringing on another's interest, if the rest of society behaves properly. (Quiddities, 1987; see Altruism)
I agree absolutely about the bias in scientists as human beings. This is why papers are published and evaluated by their peers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy biology professor in college wrote daily data from experiments in a code. This made it harder to look back ,and prematurely read the past record into future data, creating an imaginary pattern where none exists.
"They are personal expressions of emotion, though often disguised as statements about the world -- such as "that painting is nice" or "God is great." These describe not the world, but our personal feelings."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this- I agree on aesthetics, but which of those statements is moral?
" Of course, this is killing, not murder."
- It is still murder, even if you hear voices in your head that tell you to do it. This is precisely why morality MUST be grounded in reality, in the world. If one person is justified in doing atrocious evil because god supposedly told them to, then everyone is. I think we can both agree that would strike a horrible blow to our justice system, and society in general.
"Logician Willard Quine adds..."
I agree that self-interest is a bad metric for morality. Show me where I, or the article, indicates that self-interest should be the only driving force. Reliance on self-interest is, in my opinion, the problem with a religious basis for morality. The entire machinery is geared towards obtaining a place in heaven for yourself; any good you do along the way is merely a bonus, not really the result of your action but of the creator's plan. Of course, any evil done can be wrapped in this metaphysical bow as well.
"All empirical statements are true or false, but we may not know which, or be certain of which."
- Thank you for clarifying. I will say again, why is this not a positive attribute for a basis upon which to build morality? Y
I haven't read the other comments, only the article. Absolutely clean and true analysis! I read with trepidation, hoping no elements of sky-god would inveigle their way into the argument, but you pulled it off. I'm a big Sam Harris fan, have all his books but Moral Landscape.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKeep up the good work. We may have a true secular society, and maybe even world someday. The real battle is against theocracy, the constant desire to shed the burden of natural law, and collapse into submission to previous priests.
On reading the replies, I'd suggest a little bit of research for the "is ain't ought" types to undertake: ask people on the street and otherwise whether they think the human species should survive.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a basic premise you need to sort out.
Then ask if they think we can move our excess (as in hindering survival) population somewhere besides Earth.
No? Then we must control population. You can't really avoid population control if you have the axioms that there is a minimum quality of life for those we allow to be born.
The alternative is killing the excess, through commission or omission. I don't think that's hard to prove morally wrong, given the previous axioms.
And so we plod on, resolving the paradoxes, using reason and evidence, not sky-god rules. We might end up with the SAME RULES, but without priests to corrupt the rules.
Come to think of it, we could do the same with world politics. No ummas, Holy Lands, father- and motherlands.
Just happy human lands. It's a concept worth exploring. Start with the UN Declaration of Human Rights...
Everything in life, as life itself, is temporary, your current pleasure in female company is a result of testosterone, as you age this will reduce and this pleasure is reduced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing about our lives or anything we do or don't, is of any importance. We live on a tiny planet orbiting an insignificant star, the best our planet can achieve is seed the galactic environment, to what purpose, cant answer that.
All our beliefs are a result of thinking and our ability to remember, take that away and nothing is good or bad or right or wrong.
-- 43. Reerrpadin
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKilling and murder differ by definition and are not subject to speculation. All murder is killing but not all killing is murder. Murder is to kill illegally and is prohibited in all societies. No society prohibits all killing, but what is forbidden differs from one to another. Today if you kill due to careless driving likely you will be charged with manslaughter. You can also kill in self-defense. If sent to war as a soldier you can kill the enemy. When God orders killings it is never murder.
Re – “is vs ought” problem -- this does not go away easily. To discover what “is” is the objective of science. It is impersonal; a discovery by experiment must be repeatable by other scientists. It is not a "wish" about the world. “Ought“ is an outright wish about how things should be, usually by the disgruntled. It can also be a code of behavior from some authority.
Shermer bases his morality on totally arbitrary statements. [“All moral values must ultimately be grounded in human nature.]” What does this even mean? [“As a species of social primates, we have evolved a deep sense of right and wrong to accentuate and reward reciprocity and cooperation and to attenuate and punish excessive selfishness and free riding. On the constitution of human nature are built the constitutions of human societies.”]
Logician W.V. Quine notices the problem that, “Any one of us may be even better off by infringing on another’s interests, if the rest of society behaves properly.”
And continues, “Evolutionary theory accounts for innate altruism only toward kin. There is no mistaking the grading off of altruistic impulse as we move outward from kin; we are less protective of the community than of family and still less of nation or race.”
That is the problem in Afghanistan which has never been a state. When someone receives a government appointment, he is expected by family and village to “take care of them” via corruption.
There is nothing new or original about Shermer's theory, and it is also quite common. See p. 85 of current SA on Richard W. Wethrell's scientific morality.
We now have empirical evidence that religious Americans also enjoy greater wellbeing. A recent Gallup poll found Wellbeing Higher for Religious Americans Across All Six Well-Being Sub-Indexes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis presents an ethical dilemma particularly for Harris. Continuing to promote atheism falls squarely under what he has defined to be immoral behavior.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/144080/religious-americans-enjoy-higher-wellbeing.aspx
In the comments there are many good reasons for rejecting the idea that science can be used to determine morality. But the basic problem is that we are not all the same! Moralists do not understand the scientific truth of relativity. There is never one right answer applicable for everyone in every situation at all times. Worse yet, what is good for some individual or group is always and inevitably bad for some other individual or group.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn this sense, morality only makes sense at all in a context. What is good for me? (In the most selfish sense). What is good for my group or community? Or what is good for my society? Or maybe, what is good for humanity as a whole? Or for all living beings on earth as a whole? And the answer will be quite different depending on one's choice of perspective. For example, it could be argued, with a lot of scientific evidence, that the moral choice for the earth as a whole would be to get rid of human beings! This moral choice might represent the greatest good for the greatest number! All beings considered equally, and as equal in value. I doubt if many human beings would accept this morality, or take this perspective. That does not make it invalid!
More commonly, moral arguments would be about what is good for the group, the community, or one's society. Who gets to choose? There is no rational or scientific way to decide this. (In reality, it is decided by politics, power, dealing, or force). But this is not a moral solution, merely a practical one.
Is killing bad? Bad for whom? For the victim? Usually -- though not always (assisted suicide can be a blessing). For the killer? It might be good, but it might also be bad. For others in the group? It depends on who they are. There is simply no scientific way to decide whether killing (or any other act) is moral, except in a relative sense, from a given perspective or viewpoint.
If we come to understand this, really understand this, we may waste less time arguing about what is good and bad, or moral and immoral, and think instead in terms of structures and policies we can use in our society to let us all live together and prosper, as much as possible. That is, we need to deal with each other. We need to respect the other person or group, and see that their perspective is just as valid (for them) as our perspective is for us. How can we co-exist practically, safely, and with mutual benefit?
I would say that harmony is about as close to morality as we can get.
49. llmystic,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat post!
Thanks for that.
If you want you can see the work: http://filosofiact.com.ar/05Etica.doc
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUsing neurology to prove right and wrong is ludicrous. the very first example of the list of things wrong: lying, stealing and adultery, has too much ambiguity! The list does not define what each act really entails. However from a religious or cultural perspective those acts are supposedly common sense issues that need not be defined. But let's take a simple example:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI walk into a restaurant and order a meal. The meal is given to me and I consume it, however when the waiter gives me the check I refuse to pay and walk out the door!
Most would assume that the meal was stolen since I never paid for it. But in fact the meal was given to me by the patron to consume. There was an implied contract for me to pay for the meal after eating it. So under most state laws in the U.S. this is a civil issue not a criminal one since the food was given with the permission of the patron. Stealing in the U.S. means someone taking property without the permission of the owner.
The entire list described has too many loop holes and exceptions to be defined under some kind of scientific scrutiny, and each act is subject to cultural belief system. The most we can evaluate at a sociological level that incorporates individual acts, and would therefore be neurological processes is the generalization of cooperative behavior. Such behavior however will defy what each society considers morally right or wrong...
Replace patron with owner, sorry for the error.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this48. laursaurus --
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuine also addresses the problem of becoming religious in order to do better:
[To believe is to think, in one very limited sense of the latter verb. To believe that beauty is truth is to think so. But the two verbs diverge elsewhere... We can think hard, but we cannot believe hard. We can believe something but we cannot think something. Grammar forbids.
Believing is a disposition (prevailing tendency of one's spirits, mental outlook, or mood). Thinking is an activity...however sedentary. We sit and think, but do we sit and believe? Belief... is not that kind of disposition. To speak of simply deciding to believe something, independently of any evidence real or imagined, is to stretch the term belief beyond belief.
An enamored young man has his reasons for subscribing to the tenants of his fiancee's church, and a heretic threatened by the Inquistion had his reasons for a similar move; but these are examples of feigned belief.
But if real belif is a dispostion ... what is it that the believer is disposed to do. One who believes that beauty is truth, or that his Redeemer liveth, is disposed to respond in the affirmative. But lip service, again, is subject to discount. Actions, behaviorism teaches, speaks louder than words.]
The point of the above is that it is futile to offer wealth or a better life style as an incentive to become a believer. Belief, being a disposition, is not voluntary. Lip service to attain wealth is not believing, and presumably will not work.
The above comment is worth making because when seeking to convert someone, often there is a promise of worldly rewards for becoming a believer.
Presumably a secular ethic need not be believed, merely adhered to. But Quine warns there will always be those who exploit the observance of others for personal gain.
All current social mores aside, in conditions of bare sustenance compassion, cooperation and interdependence are behaviors that generally support the preservation and prosperity of the species.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn conditions of global overpopulation, these same personal and social behavioral standards begin to threaten the continued survival of the species through the depletion of necessary resources.
It can be argued that nearly all of the conditions that currently threaten our continued existence and prosperity are the product of our overpopulation. In these conditions, we may have to adapt our social mores to better fit the economic realities of our existence.
Just as a suffering individual naturally desires the relief from suffering that death provides, we may very soon have to decide how much suffering each of must endure before we must develop some acceptable way to reduce and manage our population. Hopefully it's not too late already...
I'd say that you argument is equivalent to the Spartan's intolerance for infants that were accessed not to be acceptable individuals for society. In other words the weak are a burden. However such behavior that stems from a very simplistic view of evolution which is the survival of the fittest, is actually a counter productive trait. In fact society is better off taking care of the weak. If a society chooses to destroy the weak in-order to remove a burden it fails to solve very important problems. In fact without the trait of caring for the weak medical science would be a useless endeavor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes we need to manage over population but turning away from standards of cooperation, compassion and interdependence means humanity doesn't even attempt to solve those problems so as to meet the standards we expect.
Alternatively, failure to manage the population within the available resources will most likely produce the demise of cooperative societies with no effort whatsoever. It's very difficult for starving people to cooperate after the little food they had has been taken from them by those not yet starving.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: carlofab #10
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is morality except rules for communal living (a hermit on a desert island can do nothing that is right or wrong). Morality is a social construct that lives and dies as most else in this temporal world, subject to the laws of evolution. Evolutionary pressures do not always guarantee improvement but those that don't don't last too long (Jones Town as an example).
I contend that the scientific approach (it is a given that propositions that cannot be proven false have no validity) is the only method by which some of the rules can be evaluated outside of evolutionary pressure. The appeal to a higher authority (religion) to encourage conformance to the rules is slowly losing its grip as the populace becomes better educated (not because the economy or lifestyle have improved).
As usual, the ones with the least to say tend to blather on the longest. Voxu10, Carlofab & Curmudgeon, your posts serve only to illustrate your lack of familiarity with the material being discussed. How about picking a discrete point made within the article (or in Sam's book) and countering with a cogent, articulate counter-argument, instead of parroting stale, discredited canards (eugenics? really? could your understanding of natural selection be any more naive?), pseudo-logic ("if morality has such a huge evolutionary advantage then why has immorality not been bred out of us by now" is as nonsensical as "if humans evolved from apes, how come we still got apes?") and just plain stupid assertions (Mathematics and mathematical logic can tell us nothing about the world)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is fitting that the moral question be scientifically considered. Being a naturally impatient species, we seem to have an innate need to "fill in the blanks" immediately when a particularly vexing question makes its appearance in our collective consciousness and religion has traditionally stepped up to that function until science has had a chance to resolve it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have often imagined a group of our forebears tens of thousands of years ago sitting around a campfire after a successful hunt with bellies full and time to discuss the vexing question relating to the limitless number of lights in the night sky. Of particular interest would no doubt have been the question of whether those lights were hostile or friendly in nature. As the various theories current among the group were discussed I imagine that the shaman among them would suggest that there is no need to fear those lights as they are the campfires of our ancestors who watch over us and guide our hunts.
So for thousands of years the "campfires of our ancestors model" of the night sky filled in the blanks sufficiently to allow attention, a scarce resource, to be devoted to other questions that had more direct connection with survival such as where to hunt.
So in this way religion serves as a method of maintaining the general order of the society in regard to questions not yet satisfactorily addressed by science. Until science can produce an objective model of morality, religion will continue to fill in the blanks and from a view of contributing to the general welfare, that is probably not such a bad thing for even those of us who practice the scientific method.
A courageous and interesting article about the conundrum of morality and human values.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with your analysis of our current predicament. Overpopulation is the prime destroyer of our civilisation, values and threatens our very existence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hope you are right about not being too late. The sixth extinction is accelerating from its early beginnings when humans began agriculture. We later started moving species around forcing species to compete for survival causing extinctions. We also destroyed the isolated environments that caused species to evolve. The current threat is eradicating a vitally necessary species for the survival of the multicellular life forms, especially the giant ones. There are no garbage tips on our planet and as long as we believe there are, we shall continue on the path of self destruction.
In a society where technology, hygiene and medical intervention increases our life-spans and ensure survival of almost every child born, artificial means of controlling reproduction are a must.
Those who advocate religion as a moral compass, in-spite of being convinced that no creator exists need to explain why violence, lack of equality, social upheaval and all the ills we find in society are mainly found in the religious states.
Your argument that taking care of the weak is a counter-productive trait is simply wrong. We have evidence of severe genetic ailments where people did not survive past childhood, now we have these people reproducing and creating more children with the same genetic problems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRecently in Australia we had a TV program, trying to say how wonderful and caring we can be, a young couple severely deformed with a skin condition, where rapid skin growth causes massive problems have had children, all the children have the same problem - nice! Why on earth would I have children when I know that they will suffer the same problems I have? Totally irrational behaviour - needs to be stopped.
If I never was born I would not have any knowledge of good, bad, pain, pleasure or anything, as will also be the case after I die. Better never to have existed than to live a life filled with pain. Had I been thrown off the cliffs of Sparta, because I have a small Willie or something like that, I never would have known, my brain had not yet developed.
59. Ben323
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: "How about picking a discrete point made within the article (or in Sam's book) and countering with a cogent, articulate counter-argument"
There is no need, nor would I have any idea how to do that.
What I am saying is the whole concept is based on not distinguishing emotive statements from empirical statements about the world.
They look similar but are not:
"That painting is 4' by 3'" purports to states a fact about the world.
"That painting is evil and ought to be burned" tells us nothing about the world -- not the painting's size, color, subject matter. It is purely a subjective emotive outburst.
Because the authors fail to make such distinctions from the outset, their arguments are a jumbled mix of fact and prejudice. End of story.
To attack a particular issue, I would have to make the same above assumption -- which is nonsense.
How is any of this original? The evolutionary basis for ethics goes back to Darwin?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry, accidentally put a "?" after that last sentence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this65. Wittgenstein
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would take issue with your using "ethics" to describe what is basically acceptable local behavior that differs from one tribe to another. "Ethics" implies a behavior that is universal.
Quine describes this behavior as loyalty or altruism, which is too limited or local to be called an ethic:
Quine: Evolutionary theory accounts for innate altrusim only toward kin. There is no mistaking the grading off of altruistic impulse as we move outward from kin; we are less protective of community than family and still less of nation or race.
Obviously evolution did not select for the ability to play chess. It selected for the ability to think and from that came chess. Similarly, evolution did not select for national patriotism. However, it did select for altruism and that trait gave rise to patriotism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this68. Wittgenstein
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPatriotism is ethical?
Tell that to Hitler's victims.
Patriotism, like altruism, is local tribalism and varies in practice from one place to another.
Shermer, the Sophist, strikes again. For shame! Trying to convince us that science and morality have something to do with each other. Science is a method of observation and measurement of the real world, and the formulation of conclusions from these, by logic. Morality is a system of behavior based on assumptions, to which logic is only sometimes applied. Many systems of morality exist based on different assumptions and formulated by different authors, often conflicting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShermer, confirms this definition by inserting six assumptions in the first column of his article. 1. He assumes “…morals …should be based on …reality…”, 2. “…we have evolved a deep sense of right and wrong…”, 3. “On the constitution of human nature are built the constitutions of human societies.” 4. “The first principle is the well being of conscious creatures,…” 5,6. “…lying, adultery and stealing are wrong because they destroy trust…”
Number one (1.): that sounds good but where is the evidence? It may be true, but that is arguable. What is the definition of reality? Are we talking about physical reality or emotional reality? Number two: some people have a sense of right and wrong but some people don’t, and it is probably cultural rather than “evolved.” In either case this is an assumption until irrefutable evidence is presented. Number three is an obviously false assumption. There is only one biological human nature and there are many diverse human societies. Number four: who says so? I don’t agree. And the statement is self-contradictory. Cattle are conscious creatures just like you and me. I think a steak dinner increases our well-being, but obviously not their’s. Number five: all the “wrongs” mentioned here are sometimes the right thing to do. Is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed a starving child? Didn’t Shermer read Les Miserables in high school? Number six: is it wrong to destroy trust in human relationships? I don’t think so. The current epidemic of identity theft and the investment fraud that destroyed our economy should tell us that. As adults we should trust only when absolutely necessary, as when we need a surgeon to remove our appendix or a bank to guard our money. Then we should be very careful whom we trust. The main benefit of trust is for the comfort of children, who are all too often traumatized when it is betrayed. Here, Shermer is setting us up to become victims.
The larger cosmic process seems nothing less than the indefinite evolution of system complexity. Physical processes organize to give rise to chemical processes which give rise to biological processes which give rise to individual and social systems as integral agents of the larger cosmic processes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThus, we and our social organization are the most evolved agency of that process on the planet, but far from perfect. Right choice is that which sustains constructive individual and social creativity. Wrong choice defeats it.
As integral agents, we expect to find direction for constructive choice in natural order, realizing that our more evolved neural faculties of subjective conscious mind including analytic and synthetic processes underlying our sciences -- our objective means -- are naturally selected to be aware of and constructively responsive to that order. No less evolved is our deep aesthetic sense and related emotional response giving direction and value to our more constructive choices; our subjective ends.
The relevance of the aesthetic in natural order is identified by the reduction path back from biology to chemistry to physics. The materialist insists that the path ends with physics. It does not. There is no finite definition for natural order, any more than there is a TOE. Before any physical expression, or big bang, there is the constraint of symmetry upon every expression of each emergent force of nature, otherwise known as conservation law (Noether’s theorem). Our naturally selected neural faculties tell us that the essential symmetry of conservation law is a particular expression of the still-deeper, more general and inclusive subjective quality of aesthetics.
It should hardly be surprising that the earliest insight into the essentials of sustainable social organization brought forward with the emergence of modern subjective conscious mind was the Golden Rule, a symmetry of sorts, as described by Julian Jaynes in “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.”
Natural order, i.e. reality, is fundamentally subjective. The cosmic process appears to be flight of the eternal Subject from eternal sameness into eternal novelty, where novelty is not possible without the perceptions of the subject agent being constrained by the imposed limits of time and space in the contrived theater of the physical.
To "think of how science might resolve this or that moral conflict" is not the issue. The issue here is the SOURCE of values. Can science be a source of moral values? The answer seems to be: No. As Cicero said "We have a natural propensity to love our fellow men, and that, after all, is the foundation of all law". This is as true of morality as it is of law. Peter Medawar was right when he said;"I do not believe - indeed I deem it a comic blunder to believe - that the exercise of reason is sufficient to explain our condition and where necessary to remedy it, but I do believe that the exercise of reason is at all times unconditionally necessary and that we disregard it at our peril." Lord Hailsham says "...science can say much about means, but what can it say about ends? In its nature physical science owes its triumphs to the study of what can be seen, calculated, observed and verified by experiment. If ultimate values exist, they exist, and must be discussed without recourse to that salutary discipline."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGot to wonder about this column. To suggest that David Hume ignored reality in his moral philosophy is just plain wrong. Hume worries deeply about the effect of our morality on justice, well-being, enjoyment, etc. His philosophical quest was to discover the basis of our moral decision in spite of the unbreachable is/ought divide. Hume famously demonstrates the difficulty of the problem of constructing a moral theory in the face of the divide by claiming that there is no logical basis to prefer the destruction of the universe to the scratching of his finger. "Steeley-eyed" Harris and Shermer haven't advanced the solution to the problem, at least in this column: they just ignore it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn fact, Harris' moral theory that apparently is founded on the principle that our actions must increase (maximize) the well being of sentient creatures was first proposed by Bentham's utilitarianism which was refined by Mill in the mid-19th century. We have been talking about the problems inherent in this theory for the past century or so, and the conversation continues.
To suggest that Hume missed the fact that moral theories must be grounded in human nature is also incorrect. In Hume's Enquiry on morals, Hume attempts to find the basis of human morality using the scientific method propounded by Newton. He explicitly parallels his efforts to Newton's several times in his essay.
Modern meta-ethical theorists debate whether ethics should be based upon outcomes, rights or character. Harris' theory bases ethics on outcomes. To suggest that this ends ethical debate or that it is a novel insight is simply misleading,
Most all human beings, except those with genetic defects, are born with morality; a sense of right and wrong, a conscience. It is our nature (genetic). It remains for science to illuminate and specify including what part nuture might modify, enhance or supress our nature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMichael Shermer; long time fan for many years. Looking forward to your next book, "the believing brain". Been down that long path of "understanding the human belief syndrome" so have many developed notions. Hope you hit the nail on the head.
Science is NOT "the art of the soluble." It is the "observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of natural phenomena". No wonder he cites suttee, an example for anthropologists orcultural/social/religious historians whose methodology is not that of the scientist we call physicists or chemists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSchermer wants data (information) not facts. That's not a very rational proposal from one who proposes to be taken seriously. He's substituting the moral relativism of scientism/social Darwinism in the place of the scientific method. He's also failed to identify himself as a social Darwinist and Sam Harris as an atheist.
Who called scientism/social Darwinism ignorancism? It's quite accurate since Schwermer seems to be forgetful, at best, or ignorant, of the suffering endured by Hitler and Stalin's victims. Both men admired Darwin, by the way!
Another fact, as opposed to aa datum, Darwin's THEORY of evolution is almost 152 years old. It's still not a scientifically verifiable fact - just a bit of datum.Prove or disprove it. Solve it or abandon it as an article of faith in the pseudo-science/mythology that calls itself rationalism but is anything but.
In the meantime, those of us who truly love science (and are grateful our physicians aren't practising medicine the way they did in Darwin's time!)will remember Galileo's words: "The Laws of Nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics." In other words, science is only possible in an ordered universe.
"But thou has arranged all things by measure and number and weight." Wisdom 11:20 Maybe that's why so many scientists were men of faith (Copernicus, Newton, Pasteur, Mendel, etc.) and why the atheistic French Revolutionaries declared that the country had no need of chemists and executed de Lavoisier. They also placed a prostitute on the altar of Notre Dame, rechristened for the occasion the "Temple of Reason."
J. Johnson #71
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere seems to be an inclination in this thread to assume morality is somehow universal. That illusion comes from the fact that you use the same vocabulary although it means it means different things in different places.
You commonly hear that all societies prohibit murder. That appears so, but no society prohibits all killing. Murder is to kill someone illegally. The class of people whom you "must not kill" varies widely. In some primitive tribes only the chief must not be killed; for others it is allowed as a method of settling disputes. So long as you do not kill the chief, you are not a murderer.
Now take Johnson's quite:
"Right choice is that which sustains constructive individual and social creativity. Wrong choice defeats it."
The Bolshevik revolution in Russia was one of the most brutal and violent in history. Yet Lenin and his followers intensely believed it was a revolution to create a workers paradise. They were quite sincere and considered theirs a moral crusade. Hitler likewise said, "I am the last hope and savior of Western Civilization."
Most posters above mean their personal morality when speaking of its universality.
I'll close with Willard Quine's observation (Quiddities, 1987):
"Evolutionary theory accounts for innate altruism only toward kin. There is no mistaking the grading off of altruistic impulse as we move outward from kin; we are less protective of community than of family and still less of nation or race."
Have just started listening to 'The Moral Landscape' on Audio, and coincidentally read Mr. Shermer's article today.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI can't help but notice that:
(1) Mr. Harris' view is off base from the get-go because Morality is not about the 'good of cognitive beings', but rather about Right versus Wrong without regard to the beings in question. The 'good of cognitive beings' is really only a matter of Pragmatism, not particularly of Morality.
(2) even granting 'the good of cognitive beings' as a basis for Morality, Science is not in a position to decide Moral choices in MOST situations, because most Morality claims that we are presented with are about the Rights of Jill versus Jane, or Joe versus J Corp. If 'the good of cognitive beings' is the basis of decisions, then events like the Bohpal disaster might be viewed as Morally acceptable -dispassionately speaking, isn't making cheap & effective pesticides to protect the food of millions, a 'greater good' than a few thousand villager's lives? Wasn't the comfort offered to millions of people via Thalidomide worth the risks to pregnant women and their offspring?
(3) the science of Neurobiology, Mr. Harris's field, is what he claims would be a major source of knowledge for the basis of moral decisions - yet we are continually confronted with the realization that our evolutionary past cannot keep up with our real present: the Australopithecine Survival Morality built into our Neurobiology can hardly be relevant to coping with leaps and bounds in technology - Nuclear and Bio-weapons, Computing and Communication on vast scales - which have no chance of having been incorporated into our visceral Moral Complex.
(4)The promotion of Science as the source of Moral decision-making is limited in its applicability at best, because Morality is temporally and culturally determined over time. Morality is itself an evolving concept and tool of society, not always driven by Religious fervor: The Roman Arena was once a supreme & unquestioned form of entertainment, Witch Trials were once endorsed by Temporal powers as much as by the Catholic Church. And in any case the Church's motivations for these events were not really as 'religious' as is commonly thought - it was much more about power and control, and, incidentally, was believed to be for 'the good of cognitive beings'.
At most Science can inform the Moral Decision process. But it can provide answers only to issues that are basic and obvious, in any case. It cannot deal with preference, or cultural precedent or disagreement among multiple valid points.
Having gotten significantly further in the book, I find myself wondering at the plethora of examples of evil drawn from Taliban culture and African civil wars, while huge moral questions of American Culture are not significantly put forth: Gun ownership & violence, Exploitation of immigrants, the continuing Inequality and Discrimination against Blacks and Women, Politicians in the pocket of big money. All are ignored or dealt with extremely lightly, while the fish-in-the-barrel Taliban and its ills - especially the Burqa - are belabored considerably.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving been a veteran of numerous online discussions with Rabid Right Wingers, I find myself drifting back to those discussions while listening to Mr. Harris's audiobook: the vehemence and racism and laser-like focus on "America's Enemies" -usually espoused by the pinhead/hillbilly - is covered over with Science-Speak, but I seem to sniff a hint of it.
Why not talk about the immoral activities of the Bush Administration? The NRA? The CIA?
More to the point of Harris's actual thesis: Science, and Neuroscience particularly, "are (will be) able to provide guidance to answer moral questions" in a Universal cross-cultural sense, with complete objectivity.
So, because of Science we will know that behavior X is right, and behavior Y is detrimental. We will be able to say, with perfect clarity, that the hundreds of thousands of people under Taliban leadership are less happy than they would be under different leadership. We will KNOW that Women who do NOT undergo genital mutilation will be happier, and their society will be better for eliminating this barbaric practice. We will finally understand that Catholic Priests abusing children is wrong, and detrimental to the well-being of society (and the children).
Perhaps what I'm missing is the subtle example, that is not screamingly obvious from 100,000 yards. Perhaps an example closer to home, of some subtle issue that is confusing to people: How would Science demonstrate that Gay Marriage is (or is not) a positive (or neutral) for Society? How would Science demonstrate that assisted suicide is (or is not) a positive (or neutral) for Society?
Without showing how this would work for challenging and subtle issues, the book is coming across as a bunch of opinionated and mouthy Moralizing, promoting our Cultural Values & Mores being 'better' than 'theirs', wrapped in an Atheist-Science agenda.
But my belief in Mr. Harris's idea is low, mainly because 'Science' can't even agree on a guide like 'The Food-pyramid'. Morals? Doubtful.
I am always surprised in moral questions that the homo sapien issue of language is shunted aside. There can be no morality without language. Simian morality is dubious; though there may be some "reaction" to events, a discussion of their right or wrongness is out of the question. Right or wrong are shackled to the human language system. Words are cultural to a large extent and so, it follows, is morality. The problem becomes: how to justify any morality in any culture. I think it can be done, but it requires heavier thinking than in the Skeptic's article, or with his reference.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSkeptic-Michael Shermer January,2011 issue
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour reference to a comment by Sam Harris of throwing acid in a womans face juxtaposed with forcing women to wear 'cloth bags' was completely inappropriate. His 'argument' fell into a personal bias from some 'vaulted' position and slipped into the generality that all women who wear traditional garb are forced to and fundamental Islam is ALL 'wrong'.
I wish people could just drop this notion that their own morality, is 'right' and just accept that it is their personal way of living their life.
The 'live and let live' model needs an underlying principle that crosses all boundaries of 'morality'. What I came up with as a child was this. Any action that limits another's ability to be, as they choose to be, is sick. The degree that you, against their will, restrict, divert and irevokably alter the life chosen by a person is the degree of help that you need. A society that doesn't do all it can to help such sick people is, to that degree, inherently sick itself.
There is one caveat. The younger a child is,the less they can be said to be giving informed consent to any experience.
To say that science can solve every problem given enough progress means that once this progress has been made, decisions will have to be handed over to scientists, or to a computer, instead of remain with "We the people". Even is every problem is eventually solvable by science, the decisions must remain with the public.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think Harris is on the right track. Morality is something that is taught to us. Science is a system of investigation that has the ability to adapt, change and it evolves as the evidence presents itself. Melding ethical behavior into a science based structure would be beneficial to humanity. I would rather adopt a system that does not claim to be perfect, that has the capacity to change than submitting my moral compass to rigid immovable systems such as religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is a map of ideas that we try to quantify by empirical evidence. The science of mind and behavior, how we imprint and teach our children. There are value systems that can be examined by using scientific methods and when we don’t know the answer, we say we don’t know. This is much more meaningful than making up arbitrary systems of thought that are supernatural based illusions.
A science based morality would always need to have at its core a sense of doubt, there are time-lines of thought that we can experiment with to achieve meaningful outcomes. To adopt a systematic approach to morality would open the door for us to evolve in beneficial ways.
To teach people how to use reason, critical thinking and common sense based on long term observations on how humans behave, having a hypothesis, building theories that work based on examination and evidence can only be a ‘good’ thing. One concept that is clear to me is that any sustainable civilization would need to be a peaceful one. It needs to work out the details and this is what science excels at.
Imagine this innovation a system of thought and morality that is based on trial and error that is rigorous. That can be challenged and scrutinized where no one is indoctrinated or coerced into believing, but simply presents the evidence and allows you to decide, one that attempts to maximize your full potential. Now that is a society that I would prefer to live in. Science by itself is flawed without morality just as morality is flawed without science. Using both as a foundation to our behavior would be an impressive advance for humanity.
These comments are painful. How hard is it to understand that health and pain of sentience can be measured, and that unnecessary prolonged pain of a feeling sentient creature, or the deterioration of health. There are many questions to answer when establishing these baselines, but the premises are solid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's as if a lot of you read the word "moral" and your neurology starts misfiring and you start babbling uncontrollably a bunch of easily debunkable incoherent nonsense about your personal myopic knee jerk willfully obtuse reaction to the concept of morality.
The suffering of sentient life is bad, it starts there. All questions should surround and build on this premise, and stop acting like your question is an answer that invalidates the premise.
One comment brought up the Vegan concern with suffering and noted that bees are included in their worldview. I do not agree with them on bees, but take to every other concept (If I'm not mistaken)they put forth, I would like more studies on fish, but once one learns what a fish might feel, there is the very real matter of how they are treated in the industry. Personal fishing is the best bet, but the Vegan asks, should we feast on living creatures at all? So while I take the Vegan position very seriously, the matter of fish being unclear does not dismiss the premise altogether as some like to believe. That's an intellectually lazy and emotionally motivated cop out.
But seriously, would it kill people to read the actual words of this article and digest them and not tangent all over the place while completely ignoring the premise of the suffering of sentient life?