Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

[Beth]

Oh dear. It's pretty clear that I am unable to articulate this answer in a way that allows you to recognise it. Post numbers can't help that.

Linda

You're right. But I'm not the only one that doesn't see your posts have having supported the strong argument you and Harris are making.

No such answer has ever been forthcoming, and not from lack of efforts to get one.

ps. As to reading bibles:

 

[Democracy Simulator]

ETA: Maybe this gets explained in the comments. I only read the first page of them, because it seemed to consist of others pointing out (quite rightly) that Kevin seems to have missed the point of what Harris was getting at, and I didn't feel like slogging through several pages of that. I'll do it if you tell me it gets better, though.

Linda

Yes, the discussion gets better and Kevin answers their points one-by-one.

I have not read all of the book and certainly not the notes. I have read parts of it that I thought seemed to summarize his arguments. Most of my criticism thus far has been based on the original TED talk (which started the thread) and Harris' various rebuttals of others' arguments. Knowing Harris' general argument it seems to me that Kevin Currie-Knight's review is fair and gets to the heart of the problems. Yet, perhaps it is not an entirely accurate review as you have suggested, and without reading the book in it's entirety, I am unable to comment.

Anyway, I will now buy myself a copy of the book and familiarize myself with it all, including the notes, so as to be absolutely certain I am not misrepresenting his arguments and that we are on the same page; perhaps he does not equivocate so much and clears things up elsewhere, but from what I can remember he talks about the fact/value seperation being 'illusory' (strong claim), yet does not address this adequately, among other things. It is interesting that you think he is making a strong claim; perhaps we can come to an agreement about what that claim is and whether Harris achieves it?

Anyway, off to do some reading, I won't comment further until I have finished the book.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Oh dear. It's pretty clear that I am unable to articulate this answer in a way that allows you to recognise it. Post numbers can't help that.

Bear in mind that to anyone familiar with moral philosophy even at the first year level your claim is very much like saying "I have proved that 2+2=5 in the standard number system, and I've explained how I did so over and over. I know I can't be wrong, so obviously I'm just not explaining my proof very well". From the perspective of someone who knows that 2+2 just isn't 5, it's rather evident that the problem is not in your communication skills, nor in our comprehension skills.

What people think is moral is a question science can answer, and science has done so to some extent.

Why people think those things are moral is also a question science can potentially answer, and science has done so to some extent.

(These issues are referred to as "descriptive morality", since they just describe what people think without passing judgment on it).

How to bring about things we think are moral is a question that science answers wonderfully well.

Whether these people are right in their moral views is a question science cannot ever answer even in theory. That's the problem of "prescriptive morality" which science has no means of solving.

You can deny that there is such a thing as "moral good" or "right" or whatever, if you want to embrace moral nihilism. You can do that if you like.

What you can't do is pull such a thing as "moral good" or "right" out of any number of factual claims arranged in any fashion.

What Harris does is claim "human flourishing is a moral good" and then equivocate until he is blue in the face between the descriptive and prescriptive senses of that claim. Descriptively he's absolutely right. Prescriptively he doesn't have a scientific leg to stand on.

 

[Beth]

what I can remember he talks about the fact/value seperation being 'illusory' (strong claim), yet does not address this adequately, among other things. It is interesting that you think he is making a strong claim; perhaps we can come to an agreement about what that claim is and whether Harris achieves it?

He makes a good argument for it in terms of how humans think about such things. However, I'm not convinced that just because humans process these abstractions similarly in our brains implies that the separation between them is illusory.

 

[Democracy Simulator]

Oh dear. It's pretty clear that I am unable to articulate this answer in a way that allows you to recognise it. Post numbers can't help that.

Linda

Actually I couldn't resist answering this - neither you nor Harris have answered this challenge, which I would characterize as the strong claim:

Harris effectively defines 'good' as that which maximizes the well-being of conscious creatures and 'bad' as that which minimizes the well-being of conscious creatures. He recognizes that this core value of his entire system is a presupposition and that it is not a fact, nor is it the result of facts; i.e. it is not amenable to scientific investigation as to it's truth or falsity, either we accept it or we don't. It makes no difference that Harris thinks this presupposition is 'not a problem', or is intuitively right, what matters is that this core value is not purely a matter of facts. And remember Harris has acknowledged this is so. Let's call this core value, Value A

Now the trick is, to come up with any other moral value, let's call it Value B, on the basis of matters of fact alone, without introducing anything else into our consideration. Any attempt at introducing Value A into our thinking about Value B, automatically introduces something else into consideration than matters of fact, as Value A is not a matter of fact, but rather is a presupposition. As Harris' entire system is based on the presuppositional Value A, then every single other value that he talks about is dependent on Value A being purely a matter of fact, if it is also to be purely a matter of fact and therfore in principle decidable by empirical investigation alone, (i.e. science) As Value A is not purely a matter of fact, none of his other values can be either.

This is what I see as the strong claim that he alludes to in his TED talk and in the sections of the book where he talks about Hume and is/ought. In order to successfully answer Hume's challenge, he needs to answer the challenge above, otherwise there is always, at some point, a divorce between matters of fact and moral values. A divorce which Harris claims is 'illusory'.

If he (or you) cannot answer this, then you can only make the weaker claim:

Once we have decided our core moral values, science can help to inform our choices.

Anything else is necessarily an equivocation as there is not a third way. It might seem like there is a third way and it might seem like science can answer some moral questions, but the strong claim is that science can do this without invoking Value A along the way. Anything other than answering the challenge above boils down to the weaker claim.

Ok I'll shut up now and read the book

 

[Democracy Simulator]

He makes a good argument for it in terms of how humans think about such things. However, I'm not convinced that just because humans process these abstractions similarly in our brains implies that the separation between them is illusory.

My argument all along has been that he makes this claim in the context of Hume and moral philosophy (which I believe from memory he starts that book section with) and uses language very suggestive of addressing Hume's is/ought problem, which he also does in the TED talk. Yet, if he does not answer the challenge I outlined above, then Hume still stands and there is no strong claim, as such.

Perhaps he should have clarified that he was not intending to answer Hume and it was not meant in that context, but if you are interested in Philosophy, boy it sure seems like it.

 

[Dragoonster]

This is a pretty simply question to answer, especially once you shed references to religious texts. It is pretty clear that advances in the understanding and treatment of disease have been beneficial to humans and other animals. Where do you see problems?

Uh, in where the stem cells are appropriated from. "Once you shed religious texts" is a rather lazy dismissal of everyone who thinks little fetuses deserve X rights. How has Harris' moral science declared that little fetuses don't deserve rights?

No, I haven't read the book. So please, quote the passage where Harris defines "conscious creatures" and "well-being" thereof. Is a crow conscious? A fetus? A cow? I certainly expect you to answer this definitively via Harris and his all-explaining book. Then, once I've seen Harris' definition of "conscious creatures" I can dismiss fetuses from that class.

Awaiting the quote of Harris' definition...

 

[bokonon]

Harris effectively defines 'good' as that which maximizes the well-being of conscious creatures and 'bad' as that which minimizes the well-being of conscious creatures. He recognizes that this core value of his entire system is a presupposition and that it is not a fact, nor is it the result of facts; i.e. it is not amenable to scientific investigation as to it's truth or falsity, either we accept it or we don't. It makes no difference that Harris thinks this presupposition is 'not a problem', or is intuitively right, what matters is that this core value is not purely a matter of facts. And remember Harris has acknowledged this is so. Let's call this core value, Value A

Now the trick is, to come up with any other moral value, let's call it Value B, on the basis of matters of fact alone, without introducing anything else into our consideration. Any attempt at introducing Value A into our thinking about Value B, automatically introduces something else into consideration than matters of fact, as Value A is not a matter of fact, but rather is a presupposition. As Harris' entire system is based on the presuppositional Value A, then every single other value that he talks about is dependent on Value A being purely a matter of fact, if it is also to be purely a matter of fact and therfore in principle decidable by empirical investigation alone, (i.e. science) As Value A is not purely a matter of fact, none of his other values can be either.

I don't think Harris attempts to come up with "any other moral value, let's call it Value B" which doesn't depend on Value A.

To me, science itself is based on a similar "Value A" (let's call it "Value C") -- "we should value empirical evidence and reason."

Does science then proceed to attempt to reach conclusions which are not based on Value C? I don't think it does.

I'm not so interested in defining whether Harris' claim is the strong claim or the weak claim; it seems to me to be the reasonable claim. For people who can accept Value A -- which it seems to me will be the vast majority of the people with whom I'm interested in discussing moral choices -- it provides a rational basis for sifting decisions into piles of "better" and "worse".

 

[bokonon]

Uh, in where the stem cells are appropriated from. "Once you shed religious texts" is a rather lazy dismissal of everyone who thinks little fetuses deserve X rights. How has Harris' moral science declared that little fetuses don't deserve rights?

No, I haven't read the book. So please, quote the passage where Harris defines "conscious creatures" and "well-being" thereof. Is a crow conscious? A fetus? A cow? I certainly expect you to answer this definitively via Harris and his all-explaining book. Then, once I've seen Harris' definition of "conscious creatures" I can dismiss fetuses from that class.

Awaiting the quote of Harris' definition...

To begin with, they aren't called "fetal stem cells," they're called "embryonic stem cells." The embryo is a mass of cells about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. It doesn't possess a brain or even a neural tube, so it is not conscious.

What Harris lazily dismisses is the (perhaps religious) argument that such a mass of cells is any more capable of feeling pain than a fingernail or a lock of hair, and the (clearly religious) argument that the mass of cells should be treated the same as a day-old infant because it possesses a soul.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I don't think Harris attempts to come up with "any other moral value, let's call it Value B" which doesn't depend on Value A.

To me, science itself is based on a similar "Value A" (let's call it "Value C") -- "we should value empirical evidence and reason."

Does science then proceed to attempt to reach conclusions which are not based on Value C? I don't think it does.

I'm not so interested in defining whether Harris' claim is the strong claim or the weak claim; it seems to me to be the reasonable claim. For people who can accept Value A -- which it seems to me will be the vast majority of the people with whom I'm interested in discussing moral choices -- it provides a rational basis for sifting decisions into piles of "better" and "worse".

Should we kill grey squirrels to protect red squirrels?

 

[bokonon]

Sure, why not. We have thriving populations of grey squirrels on this side of the Atlantic, should you ever want to hang out with them.

If it were possible to make the grey squirrels stop reproducing in the presence of red squirrels, that would be even better.

Should we kill killer bees to protect more docile varieties? Kill cats to protect songbirds?

My own answers would be yes, because I value diversity and recognize that people have caused the problems these actions would attempt to resolve. My answers may not be the "right" answers, but we can discuss them in the framework Harris has outlined.

 

[Kuko 4000]

I've stepped out of this discussion because in this format it's too time consuming for me (I'd much prefer a 1-1 real time chat with someone more knowledgeable than me, but the people I've contacted here have not had the time or interest, which is understandable), and because I still haven't read Harris's book - BUT - in the hope of learning something new, I would like to hear Democracy Simulator's reply to one of my older posts that mirrors my own thoughts about the is-ought problem and its relevance to real life moral issues:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6446029&postcount=424

Just thinking aloud for a moment, please correct me if there's any obvious mistakes here.


Example of morality:

I'm pointing a gun at my friend's head.

He will die if I pull the trigger.

He will stay alive if I will NOT pull the trigger.

This is the way things are = IS.​

Going purely by "IS" (the way things are), there is no right or wrong, or better or worse, answer to the question: Should I pull the trigger?

If the aim is to kill my friend, I should pull the trigger.

If the aim is to NOT kill my friend, I should NOT pull the trigger.

The correct action to take to reach the desired outcome = SHOULD / OUGHT.​

Example of science:

Scientist are programming a manned space shuttle.

Using math and physics gets the manned space shuttle to the Moon.

Using random guessing gets the manned space shuttle to some random place.

This is the way things are = IS.​

Going purely by "IS" (the way things are), there is no right or wrong, or better or worse, answer to the question: Should I choose math and physics over random guessing?


It is only when we say that we want this or that to happen can we choose rationally from these two options. By itself, choosing to go with science has no greater intrinsic value compared to random guessing, just as with the example of morality. The point I think Harris is making here is that many people seem to require higher (and as we can see from the examples above, impossible) standards from the science of morality than from the science of physics, for example. In this light, the whole IS / OUGHT problem seems meaningless to me.

I could be wrong about his intentions, but I enjoy thinking and talking about these things (much more than writing about them), and would appreciate any specific reading tips about morality and ethics, not just "read philosopher X or Y". In any case, whether he is wrong or right about anything, I think it's great that someone speaks so visibly and openly about cultural relativism and the problems that come with it. I hope this will at least increase the public discussion about these important issues.

Oh, and this post is connected as well:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6544698&postcount=1030

I want to understand why or how the whole "is-ought" problem is relevant when it comes to deciding questions of what is good and what is bad regarding human decisions or actions = morality. We all agree that there is no ultimate good or bad, or at least there are no good reasons for us to believe that there is, right? We just have to make these things up. Just like we do with other branches of science. Appreciating certain kinds of evidence is only worth something special if we have decided what we want to achive beforehand (say, we want our manned space shuttle to go to the moon instead of some random place), otherwise it's nothing special at all.

 

[fls]

There are facts to be known about the universe. If we organize those facts in terms of the the movement and constituents of objects, we get Physics.. If we organize those facts in terms of life, we get Biology. We can take the body of facts about the functioning of the human body and get Medicine.

if we map those facts in terms of death, disability, disease, discomfort and dissatisfaction we discover that there are different positions that individuals and groups occupy on that map. Furthermore, if you map those facts in terms of the presence and absence of the 5 D's, you have a landscape of positions which can be occupied. We call that 'health' now, but in the past* 'health' referred to a different map which was organized in terms of facts about religious beliefs or superstitions or a variety of other characteristics.

As Harris points out, there is also a body of facts about the brain states of conscious creatures. And if we map those facts in terms of specific kinds of brain states, like pleasure, pain, satisfaction, autonomy, security, etc., there are different positions to occupy on this map. In general, this can be called a map of 'well-being'. Like 'health', there is a directionality to these factors, such that a position can be higher or lower on a landscape. Which factors are part of our map are those whose alteration leads to change in position on our map (not as circular as it appears ). For example, including the factor "eye-colour" would not alter a position up or down, including "boredom" would alter it a small amount, and including "physiological stress" would alter it a large amount.

Just like it is practically impossible to form a map of 'health', or a map of Biology or a map of Anthropology, it would be practically impossible to form a map of 'well-being'. But just like 'health', it is possible to discover facts relevent to the positions occupied on the landscape, like drugs which move positions up towards the absence of disease.

What Harris asks of you, when speaking about which actions humans should perform, is that reference is made to a body of facts. If you think that the body of facts should be formed a bit differently, this is something which can be approached empirically (i.e. the actual form of the body of facts does not need to be assumed). And he asks that preference can be shown for one direction. He asks that preference can be shown towards the direction of decreased suffering rather than increased suffering. That's all. And in the second talk that Paulhoff referenced, he points out that it is a far more obvious and easy thing to ask that decreased suffering is preferred to increased suffering, than to ask for us to prefer parsimony. That is, he stands on much firmer ground asking individuals if they prefer being hit on the head with a hammer, than if he asks them to forego belief in a creator (in reference to parsimony).

So we have a body of facts which in subsumed under the general title of well-being of conscious creatures. What should we call it? Well, we have something called 'morality'. It refers to something else, but there is some overlap in the kinds of facts which inform both. Why don't we use that name?

Well, look at what happens. There is a lot of baggage associated with the term 'morality', and that baggage gets transferred to our body of facts, without it being of any relevance. For example, there is something called an "is/ought problem" associated with morality which has nothing to do with our body of facts. Maybe we'd better call it something else, or we'll end up arguing about utility values for each position on the map, or what the definition of "is" is.

Oops. Too late.

Linda

 

[Paulhoff]

Should we kill grey squirrels to protect red squirrels?

Straw-man.

Paul

 

[Beth]

As Harris points out, there is also a body of facts about the brain states of conscious creatures. And if we map those facts in terms of specific kinds of brain states, like pleasure, pain, satisfaction, autonomy, security, etc., there are different positions to occupy on this map. In general, this can be called a map of 'well-being'.

It’s a map of brain states that correspond to individual well-being. My understanding of Harris’ moral landscape is that it refers to societal states, not individual brain states. That is, he is searching for moral truths that can lead to higher states for well being for all the individuals within a society. Certainly, a better understanding of the brain states correlating to individual well-being can inform our mapping of what he terms the moral landscape.

What Harris asks of you, when speaking about which actions humans should perform, is that reference is made to a body of facts. If you think that the body of facts should be formed a bit differently, this is something which can be approached empirically (i.e. the actual form of the body of facts does not need to be assumed). And he asks that preference can be shown for one direction. He asks that preference can be shown towards the direction of decreased suffering rather than increased suffering. That's all.

You say “that’s all” as if that request doesn’t negate the strong claim he is making. It seems to me that it does.

And in the second talk that Paulhoff referenced, he points out that it is a far more obvious and easy thing to ask that decreased suffering is preferred to increased suffering, than to ask for us to prefer parsimony. That is, he stands on much firmer ground asking individuals if they prefer being hit on the head with a hammer, than if he asks them to forego belief in a creator (in reference to parsimony).

Sure, it’s a fine thing to ask. Many people agree with it, just as many people find utilitarianism to be a fine and noble philosophy. Some people are reluctant to give up belief in a creator and forgo parsimony instead. That’s also fine, they simply aren’t doing science when they do that. Just as Harris isn't deriving an 'ought' from an 'is' when he makes that request.

 

[Dani]

Harris would agree that there can be differences (TML pp 33-34):

I have said, there may be many different ways for individuals and communities to thrive -- many peaks on the moral landscape -- so if there is real diversity in how people can be deeply fulfilled in this life, such diversity can be accounted for and honored in the context of science. The concept of "well-being," like the concept of "health," is truly open for revision and discovery. Just how fulfilled is it possible for us to be, personally and collectively? What are the conditions -- ranging from changes in the genome to changes in economic systems -- that will produce such happiness?

I consider the concept of well-being synonymous to good health, so as long as we define health and acknowledge the problems we can find in doing so, I have no objection to what Sam Harris says here.

My objection is that there is difference between what individuals care about with respect to the well-being of conscious creatures, and this is not only relevant to the different peaks on the moral landscape according to Harris' assumption, but to Harris' assumption itself.

Harris argues that morality and values relate to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures. A long-lived star would only be "good" if its longevity contributed somehow to the well-being of conscious creatures. Certainly, if humanity discovered a way, some 4-billion years from now, to increase the longevity of our own star, then taking action to prolong its life, and thereby the lives of ourselves and other conscious creatures on the planet, could be seen as a good moral act.

It appears clear to me that describing something as "good" doesn't constitute an objective description of anything. Our concerns about our own well-being are not part of the scientific method, but that doesn't stop me from caring about my own well-being and that of other people, so in the end my approach would potentially lead to the same results with the same moral assumptions.

It may be obvious to you that we should value well-being, but there is push-back on that point (some of it can be seen in this thread) which Harris deals with. You seem to agree on that point, so we can move on.

I apologize because I realize that I didn't make myself clear at all. I only agree that we commonly care about our own well-being due to our survival instincts, in a descriptive sense. I said that it's obvious because it's an almost universal behavior.

Your claim that we find what is generally valuable through consensus is part of the problem. Harris argues, and I agree, that society's consensus often results in systems which are not conducive to the well-being we presumably value, and that subjecting them to scientific scrutiny can help to reveal where this happens.

The emergence of a value such as the golden rule is caused by a consensus between individuals with different interests. This is not exactly a problem.

What Harris seems to be worried about are some forms of normative moral relativism. I think that this concern inspired him to write this book. However, it isn't necessary to try to prove that science can answer moral questions to deal with that concern. The normative moral relativist position that tells us that we shouldn't judge other cultures is contradictive and can lead to more contradictions if they value the rights of women, for example. Most of these people are leftists who don't appreciate logic very much. I'm a leftist too, but I appreciate logic.

I agree that this is what he's doing, but I'm not understanding your objection to it. He axiomatically defines moral as it relates to the well-being of conscious creatures, and says that science can help us identify those things which increase or decrease such well-being, just as it can help us identify those things which increase or decrease molecular activity or the incidence of cancer.

Given the framework he has outlined, why would you say that science can answer questions about which glass of water is hotter or colder, but not which actions produce more or less well-being for conscious creatures?

Well, you should wonder what is his objection in the first place, since it is well accepted among critical thinkers that science can help us once we've defined the axiom from which to start. So what's he objecting to when he mentions Hume and says that the distinction between values and facts is an illusion? That's exactly what I'm wondering.

 

[Dani]

Our life, yes. The life of a star, no. Because it is clear that the lives of stars aren't relevant to our values the way that the lives of humans are.

And our moral values aren't part of the scientific method.

Yes, to the extent that it impacts our existence.

To us. Not as an objective fact.

It is also worthwhile if it means "preferred".

"Preferred" as in Parsimony, you mean? If so, yes.

Exactly. What we formerly called "morals" are anthropocentric values, which includes valuing our own lives.

You mean we no longer call it "morals"? That's ironic. I agree about the rest.

In what way are you defining "scientific" and "unscientific"?

Perception, deduction, induction, parsimony, no contradiction, excluded middle. These are rational/scientific tools. They all help us objectively describe the universe.

Anthropocentrism or "conscious-centrism" don't constitute part of the scientific method.

I don't understand where you are drawing a distinction except that you seem to be objecting to the use of an obvious example. Science finds that moral ideas depend in some part upon the lives of humans so that actions which influence life expectancy are preferred. How is this objectionable?

You just made a descriptive claim. I don't object to these type of claims.

The idea of "how to morally value things" is an outdated notion of what makes an action good or bad.

Good and bad are concepts that are in our brains. They don't exist outside our brains and are not objective properties of things in the universe.

We start with an systematic study of what it is that humans mean when they say that something is right or wrong, but once we have that understanding, we no longer need to make reference to these notions. We are capable now of recognizing that he primitive cave person who had the idea that they needed to give gifts to the witch-doctor in order to enjoy good health was simply wrong.

Agreed. And we don't need science to answer moral questions to reach this conclusion.

Once we recognize what humans are referring to by good health, then we can can refer to good health as the absence of disease and infirmity instead of whether you are in good graces with the local Shaman. Similarly, once we recognize what humans are referring to with morals, we can refer to good actions as those which reduce suffering, rather than the extent to which they correspond to the words of superstitious goat-herders.

I don't agree that "good actions are those which reduce suffering" is an accurate description of how humans behave. Suffering of whom, exactly?

Anyway, even if we reached an accurate description, that wouldn't logically lead to a prescriptive statement about how we should behave. It would only mean "we behave this way" and that's all. It's a non sequitur.

 

[Dani]

What Harris asks of you, when speaking about which actions humans should perform, is that reference is made to a body of facts. If you think that the body of facts should be formed a bit differently, this is something which can be approached empirically (i.e. the actual form of the body of facts does not need to be assumed). And he asks that preference can be shown for one direction. He asks that preference can be shown towards the direction of decreased suffering rather than increased suffering. That's all. And in the second talk that Paulhoff referenced, he points out that it is a far more obvious and easy thing to ask that decreased suffering is preferred to increased suffering, than to ask for us to prefer parsimony. That is, he stands on much firmer ground asking individuals if they prefer being hit on the head with a hammer, than if he asks them to forego belief in a creator (in reference to parsimony).

So in the end it was about an argumentum ad populum?

The scientific method, fortunately, exists independently of majorities.

It's also a distorted argument: being hit on the head with a hammer is something that is relevant to the well-being of one single individual (the one that is being hit) not to the well-being of conscious creatures in general. There are people who don't want to be hit on the head with a hammer but don't care much about other conscious beings. Ask Muammar al-Gaddafi if he wants to be hit on the head and you'll see what I mean.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

What Harris asks of you, when speaking about which actions humans should perform, is that reference is made to a body of facts. If you think that the body of facts should be formed a bit differently, this is something which can be approached empirically (i.e. the actual form of the body of facts does not need to be assumed). And he asks that preference can be shown for one direction. He asks that preference can be shown towards the direction of decreased suffering rather than increased suffering. That's all. And in the second talk that Paulhoff referenced, he points out that it is a far more obvious and easy thing to ask that decreased suffering is preferred to increased suffering, than to ask for us to prefer parsimony. That is, he stands on much firmer ground asking individuals if they prefer being hit on the head with a hammer, than if he asks them to forego belief in a creator (in reference to parsimony).

That preference he is asking for is a disguised "ought" claim, and I'd bet that if you unpacked it that you would find that it's not at all as simple as you and Harris make out.

You can try to soft-pedal this philosophical manoeuvre by framing it with linguistic constructs that minimise its significance ("Harris just asks you to do one teensy little thing, that's all, it's not much to ask, it can't be important") but it doesn't change the fact that you've just asked us to slide from a series of "is" claims to an "ought" claim without a scientific justification for doing so.

Science can give me excellent reasons to do X in terms of satisfying my own personal utility. If I want to experience happy brain states I should do X - no problem there, and not even an "ought" claim.

However what it can't do is give me a reason to care about your wellbeing. Yes we have some degree of empathy for other humans, but not so much that we aren't capable of killing, raping or enslaving our fellow humans, or letting them die out of sight and out of mind when we could save their lives for the price of a cappuccino. Asking people to think or act otherwise requires some kind of philosophical ought claim.

What science can't do is give me a reason to prefer one distribution of utilities over another. Concepts like "fairness" or "justice" aren't scientific ideas. Once again we have some kind of inbuilt ideas about fairness and justice but not such strong or universal ones that there is clearly one way of distributing benefits and harms that everyone agrees is best. Once again picking between different distributions requires some kind of philosophical ought claim.

What science can't do is establish utilities as commensurable or incommensurable, or establish an objective scale to weigh them by. If it saves one billion, billion, billion people from a minor itch is it okay to torture you to death, if enough itches add up to more disutility than being tortured to death? How many kittens is it okay to kill to save the life of one toddler? Can I kill you if it gets me a billion dollars? A billion billion? What if it gets me my own personal planet full of whatever I want and eternal life to enjoy it?

So we have a body of facts which in subsumed under the general title of well-being of conscious creatures. What should we call it? Well, we have something called 'morality'. It refers to something else, but there is some overlap in the kinds of facts which inform both. Why don't we use that name?

I suspect Harris uses the name because he wants to attract attention and sell books, even if the claim he is making is philosophically bankrupt.

However the name is correct because what you are doing is moral philosophy, albeit bad moral philosophy that tries to pass itself off as science.

Well, look at what happens. There is a lot of baggage associated with the term 'morality', and that baggage gets transferred to our body of facts, without it being of any relevance. For example, there is something called an "is/ought problem" associated with morality which has nothing to do with our body of facts. Maybe we'd better call it something else, or we'll end up arguing about utility values for each position on the map, or what the definition of "is" is.

Oops. Too late.

Linda

Denying that the "is/ought" problem has anything to do with your body of facts is simply erroneous.

The is/ought problem has you in its teeth the second you try to get from "it is a fact that humans like certain things" to "therefore we should act on this fact in some way for reasons other than pure personal self-interest".

As I think I've shown, exactly what you "should" do once you know about these brain states and things is also not scientifically demonstrable, and you have do to some additional philosophy before you can get to a moral system that can handle non-trivial problems.

 

[Joey McGee]

I suspect Harris uses the name because he wants to attract attention and sell books, even if the claim he is making is philosophically bankrupt.

I see no reason to doubt the fact that Sam cares very deeply about the issues at hand and is rigorously intellectually honest. I do see reason to believe that you are personally offended enough by his thesis to imagine this.