Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

[JoelKatz]

I'm pretty sure this is wrong too. We have good philosophical reasons to believe that moral claims simply cannot be true or false, because they do not make any testable claims whatsoever. You can make testable claims about colour.

The only testable claims you could make about color before we understood color was that people with normal vision could pick the "differently colored" cube reliably. For example, suppose you had no color vision and no moral sense. Absent a scientific understanding of color, what could I do to convince you?

I couldn't let you pick three random objects and then show that I and others could identify them by color because they might all have the same color or all three might be different. But if you let me pick three objects such that two are the same color and one is different, I could show you that I and others could reliably find the differently-colored object.

We can do the same thing for morality. I can pick three scenarios, and then others can reliably pick the same scenario as the one that is morally different.

Such tests are purely exercises in descriptive morality. You can figure out why primates have the behavioural instincts they do, but it cannot ever in theory prescribe moral behaviour.

If you think that descriptive morality is all there is to morality you're what's referred to as a moral nihilist. It's a perfectly coherent position, it's just not much use.

This is like saying that until we have an objective way to measure colors, red is just whatever people think it is. I agree that the argument will be easier to make once we have a better scientific understanding of morality, but I disagree with the conclusion anyway. When people call something "wrong", just as when they call something "red", they are getting at real properties of the thing, they just don't know precisely what those properties are. Our scientific understanding of red didn't change the validity of using color precisely the way people always were and I find it extremely unlikely that understanding morality will do that either.

I agree that we are capable of moral error. That we think something is wrong does not prove it "really is" wrong, just as seeing something as red doesn't prove *it* really is red. (In fact, it says things about the whole context in which we are seeing it.) But the real "wrong" once we understand it is very unlikely to be much different than the naive wrong.

It might be though. We don't know yet.

 

[JoelKatz]

I don't think the analogy between morality and color is that good. To begin with, there is widespread agreement on some extreme cases where there is practically no moral debate, but disagreement on many particular cases. To follow the analogy, there is widespread agreement on what's black and white, but disagreement on what's yellow, green, blue, red, orange, violet and all the cromatic spectrum in varying degrees in relation to the two referential points. The differences between our respective moral values are not comparable to the differences between our respective color perception. We hardly debate about colors, while we debate about morals all the time.

Only because we now understand color and color wasn't that important. But in fact, we could have had precisely the same debates about color.

People could have argued over where red ends and orange begins. They could argue that blue is just what we call blue and not a real physical property because the sky isn't always blue, isn't blue in the dark, and so on. Colorblind people could have insisted there was no such thing as color, and people just called things different colors for purely subjective reasons. And so on.

Second. Our relationship with color is perceptual, while our relationship with morality is conceptual. This is a very relevant difference.

I think we sense colors and sense the morality of actions in much the same way. I agree that this is an important difference though.

Through our perception we can observe things and we assume that what we perceive exists independently of us. We can observe light and measure it in different ways. We haven't observed morality in that sense. Morality is as objective as anthropocentrism: they are ideas that arise within human minds. That is all the objectivity there is from a purely perceptual, empirical point of view. So no, it's very conceivable that there is nothing objective behind it. Neuroscientific investigation is really interesting in providing correlations to our perceived states of mind. It can help us physically locate what produces a state of mind, but doesn't tell us anything about what exists independently of us unless we want to engage in circular reasoning.

I don't see why these same arguments couldn't have been made precisely the same way about color. Perhaps our minds 'paint' the world as a tool for us to more easily separate objects, for example. (And I subjectively find these arguments about morality to be just as absurd as similar arguments about color being subjective.)

I might have more objections, but first I'd like to know what do you mean by "objective property of a conscious act".

Just as color is an objective property of an object, even though how it appears depends on all kinds of other factors, so morality is an objective property of a conscious act (that also depends on circumstances and so on). We just don't know exactly what it's measuring yet.

 

[Sophronius]

There is no reason whatsoever to believe that morality is anything other than a set of beliefs or principles embedded in human nature. If it ever does turn out that science can show that morality is an actual property of the universe (like colour) and not something that exists purely in the minds of conscious creatures, that would be very interesting indeed. However, the odds of this occurring are no greater than the odds of ghosts turning out to be real. Arguing otherwise is simply extending special treatment for your favourite wooism.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

There is no reason whatsoever to believe that morality is anything other than a set of beliefs or principles embedded in human nature.

That's like saying there is no reason to believe maths is anything other than a set of beliefs or principles embedded in human nature.

There are processes in our brain that do maths, to be sure, but that might not turn out to be the same thing.

If it ever does turn out that science can show that morality is an actual property of the universe (like colour) and not something that exists purely in the minds of conscious creatures, that would be very interesting indeed.

That won't happen, because moral reasoning does not make any falsifiable hypotheses.

However, the odds of this occurring are no greater than the odds of ghosts turning out to be real. Arguing otherwise is simply extending special treatment for your favourite wooism.

This merely demonstrates that you haven't understood the conversation thus far. Nobody is endorsing any wooism, unless you count all moral axioms as woo, in which case Harris is a believer in woo since has has at least one moral axiom which is not evidence-based.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

This is like saying that until we have an objective way to measure colors, red is just whatever people think it is. I agree that the argument will be easier to make once we have a better scientific understanding of morality, but I disagree with the conclusion anyway. When people call something "wrong", just as when they call something "red", they are getting at real properties of the thing, they just don't know precisely what those properties are. Our scientific understanding of red didn't change the validity of using color precisely the way people always were and I find it extremely unlikely that understanding morality will do that either.

This all begs the question of whether, even in theory, science could ever measure morality or the lack thereof objectively. I have explained to you why it can't.

At best it could give us an understanding of primate social instincts. However we might well decide that some of those instincts lead to morally wrong behaviour, and at that point the project falls over.

 

[Sophronius]

That's like saying there is no reason to believe maths is anything other than a set of beliefs or principles embedded in human nature.

I was replying to JoelKatz, who claimed that morality is an "objective property of a conscious act", in the same way as colour. I think you'll agree that this is nonsense.

There are processes in our brain that do maths, to be sure, but that might not turn out to be the same thing.

Math is very different from morality. It can easily be objectively shown that math allows a person to make sense of how the universe works. It is not possible to go to the moon without math. The same can not be said for morality.

If everyone on the planet disagreed as to how exactly math works and all equations resulted in a different outcome every time they were used, then math would be just like morality. And just like religion, for that matter.

That won't happen, because moral reasoning does not make any falsifiable hypotheses.

Or any hypothesis for that matter.

This merely demonstrates that you haven't understood the conversation thus far. Nobody is endorsing any wooism, unless you count all moral axioms as woo, in which case Harris is a believer in woo since has has at least one moral axiom which is not evidence-based.

You may not be, but others here are.

 

[AlBell]

Homosexuality is a risk factor for many harmful things, which have been discovered by science.

Let's not go there. It's not relevant to the topic at hand, anyway.

Wow. A hot-button moral issue of the day for many in the US, and it does not belong in a thread discussing science vis-a-vis morality?

If this question doesn't belong here, what does?

 

[Paulhoff]

Homosexuality is a risk factor for many harmful things, which have been discovered by science.

Really, like what?????

Paul

 

[JoelKatz]

There is no reason whatsoever to believe that morality is anything other than a set of beliefs or principles embedded in human nature. If it ever does turn out that science can show that morality is an actual property of the universe (like colour) and not something that exists purely in the minds of conscious creatures, that would be very interesting indeed. However, the odds of this occurring are no greater than the odds of ghosts turning out to be real. Arguing otherwise is simply extending special treatment for your favourite wooism.

Reality is all of a piece. Human minds, and their contents, are not "less real" than photons. The contents of our minds are consequences of the properties of the stuff our brain is made out of.

Ghosts have never been observed or detected in any way, moral properties of actions have been. Nobody has ever shown a case where the majority of people see the same ghost in the same place and describe its properties similarly. Yet the majority of people will agree on the moral properties of torturing children for pleasure. Whatever explains this agreement, it is something, and it is something real.

At one time, the only way we could measure color was "it looks red to me, at least under these conditions". The agreement on the colors of objects, however, is sufficient to justify concluding that color is an objective property or objects that are colored. (That appears in different forms under different circumstances, but a property nevertheless.) It would have been irrational to assume (or even entertain the possibility) that color was just our minds "painting the world" subjectively. That would render the general agreement incomprehensible.

 

[Sophronius]

Reality is all of a piece. Human minds, and their contents, are not "less real" than photons. The contents of our minds are consequences of the properties of the stuff our brain is made out of.

Your claim was that morality is an "objective property of a conscious act". That implies that actions can be "good" or "evil" regardless of what people think of them. This is completely unsubstantiated, and moreover, utterly meaningless.

Ghosts have never been observed or detected in any way, moral properties of actions have been. Nobody has ever shown a case where the majority of people see the same ghost in the same place and describe its properties similarly.

Moral properties of actions have never been observed. You think they can be inferred, which is not the same thing. And there can be events where a lot of people will agree that something looks like a ghost, though of course rational people will dismiss this possibility.

Yet the majority of people will agree on the moral properties of torturing children for pleasure. Whatever explains this agreement, it is something, and it is something real.

Oh sure. There's a reason for the agreement. The explanation is the same as the explanation for religion: That desire is part of human nature. That does not make atheists wrong, of course.

At one time, the only way we could measure color was "it looks red to me, at least under these conditions". The agreement on the colors of objects, however, is sufficient to justify concluding that color is an objective property or objects that are colored. (That appears in different forms under different circumstances, but a property nevertheless.) It would have been irrational to assume (or even entertain the possibility) that color was just our minds "painting the world" subjectively. That would render the general agreement incomprehensible.

This argument is used all the time by religious people. "There has to be a god, otherwise why would so many people turn to religion?" It's argumentum ad populum, and it doesn't work because people can and are systematically wrong. Popular agreement doesn't prove a thing.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Really, like what?????

Paul

http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/FastFacts-MSM-FINAL508COMP.pdf

As a group male homosexuals will be more at risk of contracting STIs because they are more promiscuous and engage in anal sex more than other groups.

 

[JoelKatz]

Your claim was that morality is an "objective property of a conscious act". That implies that actions can be "good" or "evil" regardless of what people think of them. This is completely unsubstantiated, and moreover, utterly meaningless.

I've spent the past several posts substantiating it. Your argument is equivalent to saying that there is nothing to something being "red" other than that people say it looks red to them.

Suppose I write three stories on sheets of paper. Two describe actions I consider morally appropriate (say, reading a book and mowing a lawn) and one describes actions I consider morally reprehensible (say, torturing children for pleasure).

Now, you show those three stories to ten random people and ask them to pick the story with the most immoral conduct. They all pick the same story. How do you explain that?

If you want to say it's not a property of the story but a property of their interaction with the story, then you might as well argue that the sky is only blue when people look at it. The sky has the property of appearing blue when people look at it because of what the sky is. Similarly, the story has the property of moral evil when people think about it because of what *it* is.

Moral properties of actions have never been observed. You think they can be inferred, which is not the same thing. And there can be events where a lot of people will agree that something looks like a ghost, though of course rational people will dismiss this possibility.

We only know that colors are observed because we understand their physical nature. If we didn't understand the nature of color, you could make a solid argument that we could only infer colors as our mind paints objects to help us separate them.

Oh sure. There's a reason for the agreement. The explanation is the same as the explanation for religion: That desire is part of human nature. That does not make atheists wrong, of course.

Human nature is an objective property of physical objects. We agree that the sky is blue because of what the sky is and because of what we are. Sure, change us and the sky won't look blue to us anymore. But that won't change the properties of the sky itself that made us call it blue so long as we are the way they are.

This argument is used all the time by religious people. "There has to be a god, otherwise why would so many people turn to religion?" It's argumentum ad populum, and it doesn't work because people can and are systematically wrong. Popular agreement doesn't prove a thing.

Oh, I agree. Popular agreement to a claim doesn't prove the truth of the claim at all. But popular agreement to something proves that there is something that is causing that agreement. Merely knowing that people agree that the sky looks one color and the grass looks another color, we can conclude that there is some property of sky and grass that accounts for this. However, it tells us nothing of the nature of that property. That's for science to figure out.

 

[Paulhoff]

http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/FastFacts-MSM-FINAL508COMP.pdf

As a group male homosexuals will be more at risk of contracting STIs because they are more promiscuous and engage in anal sex more than other groups.

Google STI and get back to me.

And has for more promiscuous, that is way over done, sounds like you have problems with gays.

Paul



Promiscuous............. one name Charlie Sheen

 

[Sophronius]

I've spent the past several posts substantiating it. Your argument is equivalent to saying that there is nothing to something being "red" other than that people say it looks red to them.

No, because colour is an actual property of the universe, as science has shown. Your claim that therefore, it will also be shown that morality is an actual property of the universe is utterly unsubstantiated.

Suppose I write three stories on sheets of paper. Two describe actions I consider morally appropriate (say, reading a book and mowing a lawn) and one describes actions I consider morally reprehensible (say, torturing children for pleasure).

Now, you show those three stories to ten random people and ask them to pick the story with the most immoral conduct. They all pick the same story. How do you explain that?

We've been over this. Empathy is part of human nature.

If you want to say it's not a property of the story but a property of their interaction with the story, then you might as well argue that the sky is only blue when people look at it. The sky has the property of appearing blue when people look at it because of what the sky is. Similarly, the story has the property of moral evil when people think about it because of what *it* is.

I think I know where you're coming from. The reason that people describe it that way is because those things are defined that way. People one day decided that a certain colour they could perceive would be called "blue". In the same way, people decided that a certain kind of action they could perceive was "bad". In this sense colour and morality are the same, and both quite real. In your example, the word "bad" describes an underlying reality: Namely that in one example someone is hurt (needlessly) while in the other's nobody is. As such, calling it evil is not entirely meaningless.

The part where you go wrong is where you insinuate that this is BECAUSE a certain word is used. You say, because everyone calls a specific colour blue, there must be an underlying objective reality. Likewise, because everyone calls a specific act evil, there really must be such a thing as evil. You got it the wrong way around. Something doesn't become evil because people say it is, people call it evil in an attempt to describe an underlying reality. However, the word evil doesn't just describe reality ("suffering" would do this much better.) it mainly describes the feelings a specific person has towards the act. This simply cannot be an objective property of an act itself, as feeling is entirely subjective by nature.

We only know that colors are observed because we understand their physical nature. If we didn't understand the nature of color, you could make a solid argument that we could only infer colors as our mind paints objects to help us separate them.

True. We could still reliably tell that the same object painted with different colours looked different, however. This would prove that colour is a very real thing, because that difference is what is described as colour.

Likewise, you could describe a number of acts to a group of people, who would all have different judgements of them. This proves there is such a thing as morality.

But that does not prove that morality is something intrinsic to the universe itself. For that, you would have to eliminate the human factor. But if you do that, all moral judgements would disappear. This is where morality differs from colour.

Human nature is an objective property of physical objects.

No, this is just plain false. Human nature is a part of humanity. Human nature is not a property of a rock. If you do not believe me, look it up in the dictionary.

Oh, I agree. Popular agreement to a claim doesn't prove the truth of the claim at all. But popular agreement to something proves that there is something that is causing that agreement. Merely knowing that people agree that the sky looks one color and the grass looks another color, we can conclude that there is some property of sky and grass that accounts for this. However, it tells us nothing of the nature of that property. That's for science to figure out.

Nobody is saying that there is no difference between mowing the lawn and torturing a kid. I am saying that any value judgements on "right" or "wrong" are made by humanity, and not part of the act itself.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Google STI and get back to me.

And has for more promiscuous, that is way over done, sounds like you have problems with gays.

Paul



Promiscuous............. one name Charlie Sheen

As usual, the evidence Ivor presents supporting his statement about the risks associated with characteristic behaviours of a particular group is rebuffed with an individual case.

This is the sort of stupid bloody response that makes me inclined to leave the forum.

 

[Paulhoff]

As usual, the evidence Ivor presents supporting his statement about the risks associated with characteristic behaviours of a particular group is rebuffed with an individual case.

This is the sort of stupid bloody response that makes me inclined to leave the forum.

I know many gays, they are anything but how you like to make them out.

Again, seems you have problems with gays.


Paul

 

[AlBell]

I know many gays, they are anything but how you like to make them out.

As others seem to know many gays and find Ivor's statement one of fact.

Again, seems you have problems with gays.

As a moral issue in the US quite a large number of people indeed do.

Now, where's the Science and scientists needed to change their minds? Answer: running for cover at least in this thread; not on topic, doncha know.

 

[Sophronius]

The issue of "are gays evil" is most certainly not the topic.

The topic is: Can science answer moral questions.

If you wanted to try to prove that homosexuality is evil using science, I suppose that would be relevant. No good would come of it, but it would be on topic.

Using science to prove that homosexuals are more likely to suffer from a health hazard (regardless of whether it's true or not) doesn't cut it.

 

[JoelKatz]

No, because colour is an actual property of the universe, as science has shown. Your claim that therefore, it will also be shown that morality is an actual property of the universe is utterly unsubstantiated.

I substantiated it extensively. If it's not an actual property of the universe, why do people agree on it at all? Is it just coincidence that the vast majority of people agree that torturing children for pleasure is immoral?

We've been over this. Empathy is part of human nature.

So is it your position that 'human nature' is somehow not objective or not analyzable scientifically? Is it your position that science stops at human skin and nothing on the inside is amenable to scientific study or can be anything we want it to be?

I think I know where you're coming from. The reason that people describe it that way is because those things are defined that way. People one day decided that a certain colour they could perceive would be called "blue". In the same way, people decided that a certain kind of action they could perceive was "bad". In this sense colour and morality are the same, and both quite real. In your example, the word "bad" describes an underlying reality: Namely that in one example someone is hurt (needlessly) while in the other's nobody is. As such, calling it evil is not entirely meaningless.

Exactly. So it is an *objective* property of the action that causes us to *label* it evil.

The part where you go wrong is where you insinuate that this is BECAUSE a certain word is used. You say, because everyone calls a specific colour blue, there must be an underlying objective reality. Likewise, because everyone calls a specific act evil, there really must be such a thing as evil. You got it the wrong way around. Something doesn't become evil because people say it is, people call it evil in an attempt to describe an underlying reality.

Exactly. Thus there *is* an underlying reality.

However, the word evil doesn't just describe reality ("suffering" would do this much better.) it mainly describes the feelings a specific person has towards the act. This simply cannot be an objective property of an act itself, as feeling is entirely subjective by nature.

If that's true then why do so many people feel the same way about the same act? Is it coincidence? Is it magic? If it's not an objective property of the act that they're all detecting (and giving the same name to for the same reason we all call the sky's normal color 'blue'), then what is the other possibility?

It cannot be something just about people that causes them to treat X one way and Y another way. It must also be something about X and Y.

But that does not prove that morality is something intrinsic to the universe itself. For that, you would have to eliminate the human factor. But if you do that, all moral judgements would disappear. This is where morality differs from colour.

Of course moral judgments would disappear. Without humans, nothing would "look blue" either. The question is not whether the judgment would disappear but whether the thing that was judged a certain way would somehow stop being that way just because nobody could label it.

No, this is just plain false. Human nature is a part of humanity. Human nature is not a property of a rock. If you do not believe me, look it up in the dictionary.

Humans are physical objects. Their nature is a physical property.

Nobody is saying that there is no difference between mowing the lawn and torturing a kid. I am saying that any value judgements on "right" or "wrong" are made by humanity, and not part of the act itself.

Of course humans make the judgments. Something doesn't "look blue" unless there's someone looking at it. But it has the property of reflecting particular colors of light that causes a human being to say it "looks blue" when they do judge it.

There is no other explanation for human moral agreement about acts other than that humans are keying into some property of the act that causes them to judge it a particular way. That we do this is a property of us.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

The issue of "are gays evil" is most certainly not the topic.

The topic is: Can science answer moral questions.

If you wanted to try to prove that homosexuality is evil using science, I suppose that would be relevant. No good would come of it, but it would be on topic.

Using science to prove that homosexuals are more likely to suffer from a health hazard (regardless of whether it's true or not) doesn't cut it.

I agree. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. It's up to each of us to decide what's fair based on unprovable moral axioms. The best science can do is take a sample and see how many people share a belief in particular moral axioms.