Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

[AlBell]

I'm sorry if my reality-based approach doesn't fit into your conceptual philosophical boxes. There's nothing I can do about that.

The problem is all your comments are based on a framework of intrinsic values -- which cannot be derived or supported scientifically -- you accept but pretend don't exist.

 

[Dani]

Well, for example, fundamentalists posit their scriptures as external sources for their values. They see their values as coming not from themselves, but from divine revelation.

And they're wrong. Not morally wrong, but factually wrong.

Now, how do we make a moral choice between, say, the Taliban's custom of essentially treating women as men's property, on the one hand, and the modern Western approach of recognizing women as having equal (if not identical) rights with men?

I'd say that I like freedom in humans to a great extent.

Well, the Taliban point to their book to argue that their judgments are correct.

And they're wrong to do so. They believe that a book is the word of God. There are at least two assumptions with no factual evidence: that God exists and that an ancient book is the word of God.

A bio-sci approach looks to science to determine that the brains of women and men are not different in any way that should make women suffer less from confinement, restriction, and being treated like property, much less being subject to punishments such as having their noses, eyes, and lips cut off for failing to conform to such treatment.

Well, there's possibly a way to falsify the reasons why some people treat women like that. They are possibly wrong about some facts, and science can answer those facts.

Are these two ways of viewing the question equally valid? Are they "arbitrary"?

No, and no.

They're not equally valid because I think that treating women like that is outrageous to say the least. And here I'm making a moral judgment.

And no, they're not entirely arbitrary, but not entirely determined by our biology either. It's also determined by our cultural evolution and context and by our conscious choices.

They are not equally valid because scripture can say anything at all, and has a track record of being demonstrably wrong on all sorts of verifiable points, whereas science has demonstrably led to concrete advancements of knowledge and understanding of our world.

Exactly. They're factually wrong.

They are not arbitrary for the same reason.

Not entirely arbitrary. We're conditioned, no doubt about it.

So science cuts through both Gordian knots.

One of them is loose, if I understood you well.

Moreover, science can help us understand why people do cling to scripture in the face of contrary evidence.

Yes, I agree.

But it doesn't stop there.

Science helps us decide how to handle the situation in which these values clash. Just because science offers us an objective basis for our moral decisions, it does not follow from there that we can simply ignore the opinions of religious fundamentalists.

I wouldn't say that science offers us an objective basis for our moral decisions. I don't know if that's your intention, but that sounds too reductionist. I'd say that science offers us very valuable information for our moral decisions.

No, we must take them into account because they are a reality, and so we can use science to help us understand how to properly address a situation like religious persecution without inadvertently making the situation worse by being heavy-handed about it and simply ignoring human nature.

Yes, and there are multiple strategies. Which one we choose relies on our knowledge, like you say, but also on a moral decision, which is "what do we prefer?".

At every turn, science can inform our decisions and actions: the is, the ought, and the should.

It can inform our decisions when we have set our preferences about the ought and should.


Having said that, I think that the neurobiological approach is very interesting and can give us objective answers about morality, which doesn't mean that can give us objective moral answers. There are many factors that affect and are affected by our decisions, and neurobiology is just one of them. I agree with most of Harris' speech, but I think his introduction is a strawman. He seems to be criticizing moral relativism and not so much the distinction between what constitutes a value and what constitutes a fact.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

I think the OP title is confusing "Science can answer moral questions" sounds like science can answer questions such as "Should we be good?", "Is rape bad?" "Should we allow abortions?" "Should we eat meat?" etc etc

What science can answer is the evolutionary and genetic reasons that led us to answer such questions in a way, and then answer the same questions a different way. In other words, the evolution of our memes, or to be more precise, the evolution of the Shifting Moral Zeitgeist (R. Dawkins)

There is no actual answer to these questions in an objective way, since as we see in nature's behavior, nothing that happens is guided by any standard moral tendency. Things that we humans consider good happen as often and as randomly as things that we consider bad (Organisms are born and also organisms are killed in "unfair" ways). Nature creates life and wipes life out in a completely random manners all throughout the cosmos.

Science can only address these questions the same way it can address questions of subjective conscious experiences. Science cannot tell you whether the feelings of love you had towards a girl were "sincere" or not, but it can at least address why those feelings "seemed" sincere to you. It can account for the chemical processes that led you to that mental and emotional state. It still does not question whether you were sincerely in love with the girl or not. That one question is entirely yours to decide for yourself.

 

[Piggy]

The problem is all your comments are based on a framework of intrinsic values -- which cannot be derived or supported scientifically -- you accept but pretend don't exist.

Biology is not an intrinsic value, it's just how we're wired, just like we're wired to see the stoplight as green, red, or yellow.

The truth is, our moral choices are not at all arbitrary.

Understanding that, and understanding how and why they vary (or don't) from person to person, culture to culture, and situation to situation offers us an opportunity for an objective approach to moral issues.

This is not just arbitrarily different from, say, the Taliban's approach, it is superior because it is better informed and therefore more accurate.

 

[Piggy]

And no, they're not entirely arbitrary, but not entirely determined by our biology either. It's also determined by our cultural evolution and context and by our conscious choices.

But it always ends up at biology because we are our biology. Biology underlies our cultural evolution (if we were different animals, it would be different as well) and the choices we tend to make.

 

[Piggy]

Yes, and there are multiple strategies. Which one we choose relies on our knowledge, like you say, but also on a moral decision, which is "what do we prefer?".

Q: Why do we prefer what we prefer?

A: Because we're people, not cats, dolphins, stonefish, eagles, or marmots.

 

[Piggy]

It can inform our decisions when we have set our preferences about the ought and should.

What makes you think that we are free to do that? Why do you believe that "we" set those preferences?

 

[AlBell]

But it always ends up at biology because we are our biology. Biology underlies our cultural evolution (if we were different animals, it would be different as well) and the choices we tend to make.

Hmmm. I'd say human consciousness, thought, and communication are used to select arbitrary moral choices that ameliorate or over-ride many underlying biological impulses.

Successful social groups learn through one means or another, the usual being religion, coercion by force, or a combination of them, to abide by those arbitrary choices.

 

[Piggy]

I'd say human consciousness, thought, and communication are used to select arbitrary moral choices that ameliorate or over-ride many underlying biological impulses.

What makes you say that?

From my perspective, moral choices really aren't significantly different from any other type of choice.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

There you go.

It's a matter of balancing all of those concerns in a way that's actually informed, instead of consulting the ancient book or the magic oracle.

That's all it really is.

Some here are attempting to misrepresent SH's argument as if he were claiming that science will actually hand us the answers, but he explicitly dismisses this notion.

...after he explicitly endorses it. If we are talking about what Harris said, you can't cherry-pick some of his claims and say they are his "real" message and that we are misrepresenting him when we remind you that he claimed he was going to show that science could solve the is/ought problem.

Rather, what he's saying is that moral decisions informed by science -- answers to moral questions and dilemmas arrived at with the help of science -- are objectively better than those which are not informed by science (such as those arrived at by using the methods of the Taliban).

In other words, the choice of a science-based morality is not arbitrary. It is, in fact, superior.

If that's all he was saying there wouldn't be a thread. As I have told you and told you, everyone here agrees with this. The idea that anyone disagrees with this claim is pure straw man.

There's no point going around about this ad nauseam.

My point -- and Harris's and Pinker's -- is that we can skip any consideration of intrinsic good. (Which, yes, is an idealized abstraction.)

Why is a stoplight green? Because it is intrinsically green or because something else makes it green? No, it's green because our brains see that wavelength of light that way.

We can dispense with the question.

You cant dispense with the is/ought problem by waving your hands at it and declaring that you have made it go away.

Whether or not a light is green is a purely factual claim which is true or false for everybody. Science can tell us if a stoplight is green or not.

Whether it is good that the light is green is purely a matter of opinion. Science alone cannot tell us whether it is good that the light is green.

Similarly, we can dispense with it when it comes to moral decisions and simply not bother with any notion of intrinsic good at all.

Without one or more intrinsic goods there can be no instrumental goods, and indeed no good at all.

You can try to conceal this by arranging your "instrumental" goods in a circle and claiming each depends on the next, but all that does is disguise the fact that your "instrumental" goods are just intrinsic goods you have put a silly hat on.

I'm sorry if my reality-based approach doesn't fit into your conceptual philosophical boxes. There's nothing I can do about that.

You're in the boxes whether you like it or not. As I've said before, people smarter than you have been discussing these exact issues for much longer than you have been alive. You haven't thought of something new they missed, you've just fallen into errors they showed to be erroneous well over a century ago.

You might as well be pretending that your free energy machine ignores everything we know about physics and chemistry because "it's a new reality-based paradigm that doesn't fit into conceptual boxes like physics and chemistry". You can no more magically anoint yourself as immune to the is/ought problem by proclaiming that you are outside the box than you can magically anoint yourself as immune to conservation of energy by the same semantic manoeuvre.

 

[porch]

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.

Piggy, I hope you don't mind me dipping this far back into the past, but I keep thinking about this post.

I can see how (a) modern science is different from (b) fundamentalism. I assume that inherent in your definition of fundamentalism is a rejection of science and rationality. I don't get how (c) Ted Bundy fits in to the picture.

Couldn't a Ted Bundy type benefit equally well as, say, a humanitarian from being informed by modern science?


from a more recent post:

I'm on record as saying that science can inform, in a game-changing way, not just the facts in evidence, but also the "ought" as it's being called. I'm not trying to hide the fact that this is what I'm discussing.

If our Bundy's goals include inflicting maximum suffering upon his victims, satisfying himself, and evading punishment, science could very well inform his "ought". The best tool for the job is the best tool for the job. Still, science can't tell us whether one ought to emulate Bundy or the humanitarian. And nobody is claiming otherwise, right? Maybe that's why I don't find the topic as uplifting as some seem to. Sure, it's game-changing, like the race for the atomic bomb. You'd rather your side have it, and the other side not.

 

[Piggy]

...after he explicitly endorses it. If we are talking about what Harris said, you can't cherry-pick some of his claims and say they are his "real" message and that we are misrepresenting him when we remind you that he claimed he was going to show that science could solve the is/ought problem.

A quotation in context would be appreciated.

And there is a difference between showing that the is/ought barrier is artificial, and claiming that science can provide us with specific answers to all our specific questions.

 

[Piggy]

If our Bundy's goals include inflicting maximum suffering upon his victims, satisfying himself, and evading punishment, science could very well inform his "ought".

Indeed it could.

And here's the thing.... Bundy's morals are not the same as ours (thank you, Jesus).

Bundy is one of those guys who is wired differently from the vast majority of human beings. Some people get a huge jolt of happy-chemicals from watching other people suffer. Guys like Roy Norris and Larry Bittaker, for example, who made audio tapes of their extended torture of young women and played them back for their own pleasure.

So science can lead Ted, Roy, and Larry to a very different sort of answer than it will lead us to. In fact, we should expect that it would.

If science leads normal people to one sort of "ought", then it stands to reason that it will lead abnormal people to a quite different sort of "ought".

 

[Piggy]

If that's all he was saying there wouldn't be a thread. As I have told you and told you, everyone here agrees with this. The idea that anyone disagrees with this claim is pure straw man.

If you agree that the choice of a science-based morality is superior and not arbitrary, then I'm afraid I can't see what your objection is to Harris, since this is his thesis in a nutshell.

 

[Piggy]

You cant dispense with the is/ought problem by waving your hands at it and declaring that you have made it go away.

Whether or not a light is green is a purely factual claim which is true or false for everybody. Science can tell us if a stoplight is green or not.

Whether it is good that the light is green is purely a matter of opinion. Science alone cannot tell us whether it is good that the light is green.

Of course it can. For instance, if the colors of the stoplight were infrared and ultraviolet, that would be bad, for reasons entirely describable in scientific terms.

I'm not brushing away the is/ought problem.

What I am saying is that the notion of an intrinsic good, like the cosmic ether, is superfluous, and therefore dispensible.

 

[Piggy]

Without one or more intrinsic goods there can be no instrumental goods, and indeed no good at all.

Prove it.

 

[Piggy]

You're in the boxes whether you like it or not.

Since those "boxes" are human conceptual inventions, not actual physical observations such as the laws of gravity, and since the adherents of these camps appear to be waging a never-ending big-ender/little-ender war among themselves, I'm not entirely impressed.

As I've said before, people smarter than you have been discussing these exact issues for much longer than you have been alive.

Funny, that's what the theologians say, too.

 

[Piggy]

You might as well be pretending that your free energy machine ignores everything we know about physics and chemistry because "it's a new reality-based paradigm that doesn't fit into conceptual boxes like physics and chemistry". You can no more magically anoint yourself as immune to the is/ought problem by proclaiming that you are outside the box than you can magically anoint yourself as immune to conservation of energy by the same semantic manoeuvre.

Very ironic, seeing as how you're the one arguing the philosophical isms, while I'm the one basing his argument on biology.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

If you agree that the choice of a science-based morality is superior and not arbitrary, then I'm afraid I can't see what your objection is to Harris, since this is his thesis in a nutshell.

No. It's becoming evident that you either refuse, or are not capable, of understanding either what Harris actually said or what we are actually saying to you.

Of course it can. For instance, if the colors of the stoplight were infrared and ultraviolet, that would be bad, for reasons entirely describable in scientific terms.

I'm not brushing away the is/ought problem.

What I am saying is that the notion of an intrinsic good, like the cosmic ether, is superfluous, and therefore dispensible.

You're saying that, but you're not actually engaging with the arguments (which everyone else who has ever looked at the properly find persuasive) that the idea of an instrumental good independent of any intrinsic good is self-contradictory and nonsensical.

You are instead proposing some kind of incoherent philosophy where A is good because it brings about B, and B is good because it brings about C, and C is good because it brings about D, and so on until you either retreat into circularity by saying N is good because it brings about A, or an infinite regress where it's turtles all the way down.

 

[Piggy]

No. It's becoming evident that you either refuse, or are not capable, of understanding either what Harris actually said or what we are actually saying to you.

That's quite an assertion you have there.

Care to tease it out?