Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

[Piggy]

Handwaving this away as "labels" is a serious philosophical error.

No, it's not.

Every field has its lingo. Lingo is quite useful in making communication efficient among colleagues.

But when discussing a field with others who come from other fields, the lingo becomes a stumbling block.

If you understand what you're talking about, you can have a conversation without the lingo.

And when talking with folks from other fields, it's best that you do.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

It may be completely wrong, but since it's not anything I've actually said, I'm not too concerned about it.

Okay. I have no idea what you are trying to communicate then.

I would be interested in hearing those reasons.

Especially since you just said you didn't disagree with this, but now you want to hear those reasons, and you seem to be unaware that we've been discussing exactly this point for some time.

But that is not something I've ever disagreed with. And I've said so explicitly.

ETA: If you're interested, my view is that morality is useless anyway, and no one really bases any actions on it at all, but I think that's a tangent.

By my reading so far you've affirmed that you are a utilitarian, denied that you are a utilitarian, and now you're affirming the (unfalsifiable) egoist position that nobody ever acts morally anyway. Is it any wonder I'm confused about what your position is supposed to be?

You don't appear to be actually reading what I'm writing.

That or what you are saying is self-contradictory or sufficiently unclear that reading it does not do one much good.

ETA:

No, it's not.

Every field has its lingo. Lingo is quite useful in making communication efficient among colleagues.

But when discussing a field with others who come from other fields, the lingo becomes a stumbling block.

If you understand what you're talking about, you can have a conversation without the lingo.

And when talking with folks from other fields, it's best that you do.

I defined the term when I used it. Do you want me to define it some more, or do you want to google it, or what?

 

[Piggy]

Kevin, let's back up here.

Besides the contention that Harris is addressing a straw man, where do you disagree with him?

I mean, if someone were to say, "Everyone who says the sky is polka-dotted is wrong -- it's blue," I would disagree with the straw man claim, but I would agree with his claim about the sky.

If someone were to say, "Everyone who says the sky is polka-dotted is wrong -- it's plaid," I would disagree with his claim about the sky.

So disregarding for the moment any of Harris's claims about whatever other folks might say about the relationship between science and morality, what is it in his speech, concerning his own ideas on the topic, that you disagree with?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

So disregarding for the moment any of Harris's claims about whatever other folks might say about the relationship between science and morality, what is it in his speech, concerning his own ideas on the topic, that you disagree with?

Harris does what you did earlier. He tries to smuggle utilitarianism (defined one more time for you, the moral theory that good actions are those which maximise desirable consequences for all involved) in as a fact, rather than a value judgment. He does this quite blatantly in the first two minutes of the video, claiming that value judgments are actually facts about the natural world.

Harris is simply flat-out wrong on this point. He's failed to grasp the fact/value distinction and if he gave this talk in a first year philosophy course he'd get metaphorically slapped over the head with a first year philosophy textbook.

As such, his talk is a mishmash of the trivially obvious and the completely wrong.

I am, of course, merely repeating myself because I have said exactly this already.

 

[Piggy]

Harris does what you did earlier. He tries to smuggle utilitarianism (defined one more time for you, the moral theory that good actions are those which maximise desirable consequences for all involved) in as a fact, rather than a value judgment. He does this quite blatantly in the first two minutes of the video, claiming that value judgments are actually facts about the natural world.

Harris is simply flat-out wrong on this point. He's failed to grasp the fact/value distinction and if he gave this talk in a first year philosophy course he'd get metaphorically slapped over the head with a first year philosophy textbook.

As such, his talk is a mishmash of the trivially obvious and the completely wrong.

I am, of course, merely repeating myself because I have said exactly this already.

Since I don't think that's an accurate assessment of his talk, I don't reckon we have anything to talk about, actually.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Since I don't think that's an accurate assessment of his talk, I don't reckon we have anything to talk about, actually.

If you had any way to back up your opinion with logic, we would have something to talk about.

 

[cienaños]

Since I don't think that's an accurate assessment of his talk, I don't reckon we have anything to talk about, actually.

Wow. Kevin Lowe is still holding it down here.

If I may?....

All one has to do (forgive me if you guys have gone over this already), is read and comprehend Harris' response to his TED criticisms. Kevin Lowe is correct. Harris is attempting a mishmash.

He takes ideas that, separately, are nice and shiny. Good ideas. Facts. But then he tries to jam these ideas together and they just do not fit.

This bears repeating, so I'll say it again. Scientific knowledge is but one tool that can be used to address the issue of alleviating human suffering. This question of well-being (and the perception of it) is so immeasurably vast and complex that we do it a disservice to believe it can be banged away at and fixed with one tool.

It's like giving a guy a measuring tape and asking him to build you a nuclear missile with that one tool.

Again, my apologies if this is a retread for you.

Peace

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

All one has to do (forgive me if you guys have gone over this already), is read and comprehend Harris' response to his TED criticisms. Kevin Lowe is correct. Harris is attempting a mishmash.

He takes ideas that, separately, are nice and shiny. Good ideas. Facts. But then he tries to jam these ideas together and they just do not fit.

I think some people like Piggy are getting exited because they like the idea of an objective, scientific morality that tells them exactly what they want to hear ("Taliban bad! Science good!"). Once you're pumped up on the heady idea of being objectively right about your moral judgments, it's hard to exercise critical thought.

Whether or not that sexy idea is actually rigorously logical, it's a hell of a lot more fun than the frustrating idea that you cannot condemn the Taliban without first making some kind of non-evidence-based value judgment.

Personally I'd be all for government policies based on a combination of scientific fact and a suitably modified version of utilitarianism, but I'd want it to be acknowledged as exactly that: the scientifically-aided pursuit of a non-evidence-based ideal.

 

[Piggy]

If you had any way to back up your opinion with logic, we would have something to talk about.

I may be misunderstanding you, but I think you're making an error in how you view moral decisions.

You seem to be saying that we begin with a philosophical premise, and one of those premises is that we do what feels right to us, but there are other premises we may adopt.

However, in my personal experience, and in the research I've read about the brain, and in my professional experience and reading of research on decision-making, I don't find that to be at all true.

Rather, what seems to be the case is that we always do what we feel like doing. We encounter dilemmas when we have equivocal feelings regarding our choices.

So if I live in a society which, for example, puts people to death for being homosexual, or for publicly disagreeing with the government, or for rejecting the state religion, then if I am emotionally ok with all of that, I have no moral dilemma. I'm a good citizen and I go on with my life.

However, if my genetics and development have given me a brain that's wired so that I'm emotionally distressed by all of that, then I have what you might call a moral choice to make.

Do I suck it up and toe the line, regardless of those negative emotions? Or do I try to change the status quo in order to move into a psychological space that I can more easily live with -- even if doing so puts me in physical danger?

You see, it's always about satisfying our emotions and figuring out what we have to do to get into an acceptable emotional state.

I think all Harris is saying is that you're going to have a different experience if you come from a religious perspective, or a selfish perspective, or a scientific perspective, or what have you.

So it follows that there must be a scientifically oriented, or scientifically informed, morality. Just as there is a religiously informed morality. Or a morality informed only by one's own immediate gratification (e.g. the sociopathic morality of Ted Bundy).

If you honestly believe that the Bible or the Quran is the Word of God, then that has a profound impact on your state of mind when deciding questions such as "Should women be subservient to men?"

Your community's interpretation of those texts will also have a lot to say in how you feel about that question.

But if you're coming from a scientific frame of mind, the interpretations of those texts by any community has no bearing. And that changes how you feel about those issues.

Yet in all cases, it comes down to how you feel about the alternatives, and what you can do that you think you can "live with".

Harris would say that a perspective based on science, rather than on interpretation of religious scripture, is superior because that point of view is more accurate when it comes to modeling reality. And I agree.

But you don't even have to agree with that point in order to accept Harris's central premise, which is that a science-based approach to moral questions is indeed possible.

You may well disagree with his conclusions about particular questions (as I do, as well) but I'm not seeing any evidence that he's wrong about the big picture.

 

[Piggy]

I think some people like Piggy are getting exited because they like the idea of an objective, scientific morality that tells them exactly what they want to hear ("Taliban bad! Science good!"). Once you're pumped up on the heady idea of being objectively right about your moral judgments, it's hard to exercise critical thought.

I wasn't aware that I was excited. The things you learn....

Anyway, I think you're mischaracterizing both what Harris is saying and what I'm saying.

Harris simply says that our "value" decisions are fundamentally informed about what we believe about the world we live in, and that science is our best way, so far, of making those beliefs conform as much as possible to what is real.

Religious fundamentalism, on the other hand, based on adherence to ancient scripture, is more likely to warp our view of reality so that it is less accurate. And when we have a less accurate view of reality, we're less likely to make correct decisions.

So "moral" decisions coming from a fundamentalist perspective (or from Ted Bundy's perspective, for other reasons) are less likely to be correct or beneficial than are decisions coming from a scientifically-informed perspective.

He acknowledges from the outset that we make "moral" decisions because we're wired to. That's just our biology. That's the starting point.

The question is, as he puts it, whether or not we can look to science to help us answer questions such as what is good, what is the nature of life, what's worth living and dying for?

The answer is clearly yes.

But here's what he's explicitly NOT claiming:

Let me be clear about what I'm not saying. I am not saying that science is guaranteed to map this space. Or that we will have scientific answers to every conceivable moral question. I don't think, for instance, that you will one day consult a supercomputer to learn whether you should have a second child, or whether we should bomb Iran's nuclear facilities....

If we're going to discuss Harris's talk, then please, let's discuss what he's actually saying here.

 

[Democracy Simulator]

I wasn't aware that I was excited. The things you learn....

Anyway, I think you're mischaracterizing both what Harris is saying and what I'm saying.

Harris simply says that our "value" decisions are fundamentally informed about what we believe about the world we live in, and that science is our best way, so far, of making those beliefs conform as much as possible to what is real.

If we're going to discuss Harris's talk, then please, let's discuss what he's actually saying here.

Well Sam Harris doesn't 'simply' say that. He clearly sets out a fallacious argument at the beginning:

Harris says:

'It's generally understood that questions of morality, questions of good and evil, of right and wrong, are questions about which science officially has no opinion... it is thought that science can help us get what we value, but it can never tell us what we ought to value... most people here think that science will never answer the most important questions of human life, questions like what is worth living for, what is worth dying for, what constitutes a good life.
I'm going to argue that this is an illusion, the seperation between science and human values is an illusion...'
My bold.

So from this opening statement, I think it is extremely useful to list the things he is arguing for, just so we are clear about them:

1. Science should/can have an opinion about good and evil and right and wrong.

Answer: No, it neither should, nor in fact can have an opinion on these matters. Science is an epsitemological tool.

2. Science can tell us what we ought to value.

Answer: No it cannot tell us what we ought to value. It can tell us how our actions might affect the world, but it cannot tell us what values we should have.

3. Science will answer the most important questions of life, what it is worth living and dying for and what constitutes a good life.

Answer: No it will not answer those questions. There is no scientific answer to these questions. It depends on what you value as good and worthy

Once we decide what we value, science might tell us how to get the best result. This is essentially the only substantial point that Harris makes that I agree with him on. As Kevin Lowe has pointed out, it is certainly not an earthshaking development in moral philosophy.

Harris problem is that he initially sets up argument A:

Science can tell us what we ought to value.

And then makes argument B:

Science can tell us what the best action is, given our values.

The shift comes via his dodgy Values/Facts statement which has been pulled apart earlier. This is why I said his argument failed because of the fallacy of equivocation.

 

[Piggy]

Well Sam Harris doesn't 'simply' say that. He clearly sets out a fallacious argument at the beginning:

Harris says:

'It's generally understood that questions of morality, questions of good and evil, of right and wrong, are questions about which science officially has no opinion... it is thought that science can help us get what we value, but it can never tell us what we ought to value... most people here think that science will never answer the most important questions of human life, questions like what is worth living for, what is worth dying for, what constitutes a good life.
I'm going to argue that this is an illusion, the seperation between science and human values is an illusion...'
My bold.

So from this opening statement, I think it is extremely useful to list the things he is arguing for, just so we are clear about them:

1. Science should/can have an opinion about good and evil and right and wrong.

Answer: No, it neither should, nor in fact can have an opinion on these matters. Science is an epsitemological tool.

2. Science can tell us what we ought to value.

Answer: No it cannot tell us what we ought to value. It can tell us how our actions might affect the world, but it cannot tell us what values we should have.

3. Science will answer the most important questions of life, what it is worth living and dying for and what constitutes a good life.

Answer: No it will not answer those questions. There is no scientific answer to these questions. It depends on what you value as good and worthy

Once we decide what we value, science might tell us how to get the best result. This is essentially the only substantial point that Harris makes that I agree with him on. As Kevin Lowe has pointed out, it is certainly not an earthshaking development in moral philosophy.

Harris problem is that he initially sets up argument A:

Science can tell us what we ought to value.

And then makes argument B:

Science can tell us what the best action is, given our values.

The shift comes via his dodgy Values/Facts statement which has been pulled apart earlier. This is why I said his argument failed because of the fallacy of equivocation.

Ok, fine. That's a wonderful premise.

Now, what exactly is your argument for it?

You've made some important assertions here.

How are you going to go about defending and supporting them?

 

[Apathia]

Science could tell us (to a rather trivial extent) what values might (when held in extreme or in rigid interpretation) be unhealthy to Human Kind (at this juncture in our evolution).
It can inform values clarification. But it only speaks to what might be healthy as opposed to unhealthy. It doesn't answer all of when physical health should, should not, or to what extent be risked for some goal.
Sure. It tell us that people who value their health live longer.
But it doesn't tell me why I should live longer.
Why do I want to be old and infirm without the means to be healthy?

Does Science tell us the ant is wiser than the grasshopper?
Well, actually not.

 

[Piggy]

Let me ask this.

Consider the points of view informed primarily by (a) modern science, (b) the fundamentalism embraced by the Taliban, and (c) the mindset of Ted Bundy.

Is there anyone here who really doubts that those different points of view will have a significant impact on the question of whether, and to what degree, women should be subject to domination by men?

I sure don't.

And if you accept that, then how can you say that science does not have something to say about how we answer moral questions?

The fact is, science already does have a profound impact on how we answer those questions.

As Harris explains, that's simply a fact.

 

[Apathia]

Let me ask this.

Consider the points of view informed primarily by (a) modern science, (b) the fundamentalism embraced by the Taliban, and (c) the mindset of Ted Bundy.

Is there anyone here who really doubts that those different points of view will have a significant impact on the question of whether, and to what degree, women should be subject to domination by men?

I sure don't.

And if you accept that, then how can you say that science does not have something to say about how we answer moral questions?

The fact is, science already does have a profound impact on how we answer those questions.

As Harris explains, that's simply a fact.

I do indeed want science to inform my decisions about how I treat people.
I don't see anyone here disagreeing that science should inform our decisions.
That's the high moral ground I'll take.

 

[Dragoonster]

Let's say science shows us that the best way to promote maximum social well-being is to have the society entirely made up of women, because of physical traits making them more pacifistic, or their social interactions being better for well-being, or whatever.

Science would suggest we should isolate men to breeding camps, where we extract their semen. And we abort all male fetuses that are not needed to repopulate those camps.

Science would also say we should genetically engineer those women to be lesbians so they wouldn't lose the positive sexual well-being.

That an okay "moral answer" for you?

ETA: My point might not be clear. Or the example might not be the best. But it's that if we belive science can tell us what we ought to do, we run a great risk of giving up our own moral judgement to it, so anything we saw it suggested would be accepted, no matter how actually immoral it was. In that sense I don't see much if any difference between his science morality and Islamic morality or any of the other things he doesn't like.

Or...if this would be "balanced" by introducing our judgement to stop excessive scientific guidelines to achieve well-being, then science isn't really necessary as a decider of "ought" at all, since our subjective judgement would override it.

 

[Democracy Simulator]

Ok, fine. That's a wonderful premise.

Now, what exactly is your argument for it?

You've made some important assertions here.

How are you going to go about defending and supporting them?

Tell me where I'm wrong in my analysis of Sam Harris' argument.

Sam Harris makes a certain argument, provides a key premise 'Values = Facts about the wellbeing of conscious beings' and proceeds to make a different argument due to the equivocation contained in this premise. Is that not so?

 

[Democracy Simulator]

Let me ask this.

Consider the points of view informed primarily by (a) modern science, (b) the fundamentalism embraced by the Taliban, and (c) the mindset of Ted Bundy.

Is there anyone here who really doubts that those different points of view will have a significant impact on the question of whether, and to what degree, women should be subject to domination by men?

I sure don't.

And if you accept that, then how can you say that science does not have something to say about how we answer moral questions?

The fact is, science already does have a profound impact on how we answer those questions.

As Harris explains, that's simply a fact.

Science can tell us a lot of things about how our decisions will affect the world. In that way, it can help us to answer moral questions. No-one is arguing this point.

What science cannot do is tell us what our values ought to be. Sam Harris asserts that it can. Remember:

1. Science should/can have an opinion about good and evil and right and wrong.

2. Science can tell us what we ought to value.

3. Science will answer the most important questions of life, what it is worth living and dying for and what constitutes a good life.

Do you not see the difference in the argument he claims he is making at the beginning and the actual argument he goes on to make? Yes he is right when he makes the later argument, but this does not make the earlier argument (what he said he was arguing for), right. This is the problem when we equivocate. It is easy to fool oneself and others that you have the answer to a question, if you actually then answer a different question.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I may be misunderstanding you, but I think you're making an error in how you view moral decisions.

You seem to be saying that we begin with a philosophical premise, and one of those premises is that we do what feels right to us, but there are other premises we may adopt.

However, in my personal experience, and in the research I've read about the brain, and in my professional experience and reading of research on decision-making, I don't find that to be at all true.

Rather, what seems to be the case is that we always do what we feel like doing. We encounter dilemmas when we have equivocal feelings regarding our choices.

So if I live in a society which, for example, puts people to death for being homosexual, or for publicly disagreeing with the government, or for rejecting the state religion, then if I am emotionally ok with all of that, I have no moral dilemma. I'm a good citizen and I go on with my life.

However, if my genetics and development have given me a brain that's wired so that I'm emotionally distressed by all of that, then I have what you might call a moral choice to make.

This is called "psychological egoism" is philosophy, the idea that we don't actually make moral choices, we just do whatever we want to do.

It's unfalsifiable. Nothing anyone does can prove it wrong. If you donate your fortune to charity, or throw yourself on a grenade to save your platoon or whatever, it doesn't matter. The psychological egoist just says "That must have been what they really wanted to do".

I think all Harris is saying is that you're going to have a different experience if you come from a religious perspective, or a selfish perspective, or a scientific perspective, or what have you.

Actually you are completely wrong. He makes, very clearly, the arguments which have just been enumerated by Democracy Simulator. Harris is not just saying that you're going to have a different experience if you come from a religious perspective, or a selfish perspective, or a scientific perspective, or what have you.

He's saying that the fact/value distinction is erroneous, and that science can tell us what we ought to value.

So it follows that there must be a scientifically oriented, or scientifically informed, morality. Just as there is a religiously informed morality. Or a morality informed only by one's own immediate gratification (e.g. the sociopathic morality of Ted Bundy).

If you assert the truth of psychological egoism then all talk of morality is meaningless. So if we replace "morality" with "(meaningless) opinions about morality", then your statement is correct in your own terms. There would only be "scientifically informed meaningless opinions about morality", "religiously informed meaningless opinions about morality" and so on.

However this position of yours is nothing like Harris' position. It's also unfalsifiable and hence uninteresting.

Harris would say that a perspective based on science, rather than on interpretation of religious scripture, is superior because that point of view is more accurate when it comes to modeling reality. And I agree.

One more time: Absolutely nobody is saying otherwise.

But you don't even have to agree with that point in order to accept Harris's central premise, which is that a science-based approach to moral questions is indeed possible.

That's not his central premise. Democracy Simulator enumerated his central claims for you quite precisely.

You may well disagree with his conclusions about particular questions (as I do, as well) but I'm not seeing any evidence that he's wrong about the big picture.

You've been shown knock-down arguments that he's wrong about the big picture, unless you are defining "the big picture" be something other than what Harris is actually claiming. If you're not seeing them it's not because they have not been posted for you.

 

[INRM]

Dr. Kitten,

The primary flaw is that it gives the wrong answer sometimes.

For example, committing gang rape gives you and your mates more pleasure than it deprives the woman of. If you can figure out a way to reduce your risk of being caught to an acceptable level -- perhaps by murdering her afterwards -- then utilitarianism would say "go for it."

You actually make a very good point