David Hume vs. Sam Harris

[Wowbagger]

In many of my responses, I will refer to the "Miles" I wrote about in my previous post. Please see that post for more information.

Good character. Duty. Etc.

Good character is a hallmark of well-being. In the natural world, it would be very difficult (though perhaps not completely impossible) to obtain a good character without being generally well off. Environments hostile to well-being more often generates a lot of bad characters.

Duty utilitarian. If you have a problem with well-being being utilitarian, it also applies to duty. I'm just sayin'.

The only thing you can argue with this is that science can investigate what works best given a framework that one decides upon ahead of time -- such as maximizing well-being, or the greatest good for the greatest number, however you want to express it. Scientific investigation can very nicely work out what works in such a situation.

A very nice Middle Distance argument. (see my previous post)

We could also investigate what works best from a deontological perspective. Or from the perspective of character ethics.

No doubt we could. Yes, there are alternatives to science. But, the presence of alternatives does not mean science is not capable of doing the job.

For a Last Mile argument (again, see prev. post), I would say science is going to be more reliable, in the long run. Character ethics, for example, would naturally build a less accurate approximation of reality, than the one science could provide.

That doesn't mean there are no risks. One risk in using science is that you could accidentally allow pseudo-science into the door. And, it is awfully difficult to detect pseudo-science, sometimes. Though we are getting better at it. Back in WW2, for example, some folks used to think eugenics was a science, even though it had no real solid scientific basis behind it.

Sam Harris' problem is that he thinks he knows what is self-evident. Nietzsche would likely argue with him that no, he doesn't. There are simply too many different cultural influences that determine what we each think is self-evident.

Clearly, if it was self-evident, he wouldn't have so much trouble convincing people of it! Even bright, intelligent people!

Even if it is not truly self-evident, we can still build, and defend a case of evidence for it. A case that will become more convincing to more people over time. We see science, at least in the Middle Distance, seeping in more and more, as a factor in all sorts of moral issues.

By analogy: The Theory of Evolution is not, exactly, self-evident either. But, we managed to build a very strong case for that, over time. So strong, in fact, that the only people who disagree, now, are the kooks.

You can, of course, derive an "ought" from an "is" and an "ought".

This is looks like the First Mile argument in modified form. (see my previous post)

One can acknowledge the power of science while still understanding that science has some limitations; it is under no obligation to deliver us things that are meaningless, illogical, nonsensical, or unscientific.

It is not meaningless: For example, what science shows us about the impact of abortions, and when it is appropriate to allow one, have a lot of meaning towards what we value about life.

It is not illogical: I have only seen illogical solutions to problems coming from religious morality.

It is not nonsensical: Science is grounded in the empirical.

Which part of his arguments are?

Science is provisional in nature: It's always changing as we discover new evidence. It is experimental in nature: It tests the merit of ideas, systematically. It is also grounded in the empirical: This makes it more reliable, in the long run, in spite of its provisional and experimental nature.

In a similar way, Sam Harris is proposing moral standards that are provisional and experimental in nature, and yet grounded firmly in the real, empirical world. That makes it scientific in nature, or at the very least, "science-like" in nature.

There already is a view of morality that is provisional and that is allowed to change with the world. It is called "moral relativism" and it is the thing Sam Harris wants to get rid of.

Ah, this is an important point to bring up!

The key difference between science and relativism is that relativism does not imply a discipline or framework for making moral decisions, whereas science does. Though, that framework, itself, is subject to the same process for revision.

Relativism usually, (though not always), implies that all decisions are equally valid. Science, being grounded in the empirical world, would not. Science can actually show us how we can discover where the imbalances are.

We know, for example, how much of a role evolutionary heritage plays in the decisions we make, the things we value, and the social contracts we make. Rudimentary moral systems will tend to emerge naturally, and that implies relativism would never have a strong basis in reality.

Just because we are breaking the Tyranny of a Discontinuous Mind (to use a Dawkins phrase), doesn't mean just anything goes!

That has an easy answer: no one has solved this. No one ever will. It is ultimately unsolvable.

Assuming this is true (and ignoring that even MdC agrees it is not really a moral question):

It is kinda harsh to judge a moral system on the basis that it can't answer questions that are unsolvable by anything!

What science CAN do, and what Drachasor was posting about, is give us some solutions we can experiment with, to see which one yields the best outcome, for everyone's well being and satisfaction.

No, he has been pretty clear on numerous occasions that he thinks we must because without it we would not be able to speak meaningfully about morality.

For clarification: I know what Sam Harris was saying. I was expressing that I think he is wrong, here. Nothing in Science is self-evident. Everything must be defended.

I think Sam Harris' position is largely defendable, even if I disagree with him that it is "self-evident".

Why should I? Have I claimed that there any that are defendable?

Does this mean we agree that science can take the Last Mile? (see my previous post)

I think science is the wrong tool to answer moral questions.

Which parts of my abstraction is this referring to? First Mile, Middle Distance, and/or Last Mile? (see my prev. post)

its power comes from getting rid of such teleological thinking. Trying to cram it back in will only result in a hideously bad science and repugnant morality.

No, no, no, no, NO!! You got something horribly mistaken, in there! We are NOT cramming teleological thinking back into science. When we apply science to morality, we are taking the teleological out of morality.

We are NOT putting the teleological into science!! Everything about the idea of using science is about letting go the idea that there should be final answers, or final goals, or ultimate sources of anything; and that applies to morality, too. BUT, (unlike relativism) we are still keeping a general framework, or method for making decisions, that is itself subject to the scientific method.

TO BE CONTINUED...

 

[Wowbagger]

CONTINUING REPLIES...

I think the core of the issue is whether or not it should, but you show no evidence that it even can.

You are commenting on examples where it covers the Middle Distance and possibly the Last Mile.

I will work on that First Mile thing, later.

Here you are doing the exact thing that Hume complained about; jumping from "is" to "ought" without any logical connection between them.

The jumping is a First Mile issue, and not terribly important.

Let me summarize for you how science makes an impact here:

Question: Is it right to convince people that the world is about to end?

Facts we can deduce from science:
1. The world is not likely to end, any time soon.
2. There is NO evidence for redemption after death.
3. Convincing people the world is going to end tends to add trauma to their lives.
4. Such trauma can elevate when the world fails to end at the appropriate time, and they had already given away all of their possessions.

Further question to ask: Are there any good reasons to tell people the world is going to end soon?

What we can deduce from science: No, not really.
It might be possible to parasitically exploit the situation for a short while. But, we can see from historic example that this leads to worse situations for everyone, including the exploiter, in the long run.

Logically, it seems we ought not to bother trying to convince people that the world is going to end.

Which I doubt you can.

I probably should have re-worded the burqa example, because the clothing itself is only a symptom of a much larger problem of women being repressed.

Do you need me to explain how the systematic repression of females is bad for the general well-being of a society?

Was it "science" that produced this solution? Or just pragmatic and moral people?

If it was pragmatic people, their knowledge to make practical decisions probably owes itself to the foundations of science.

If I recall, our argument about kidney dialysis and organ transplant lists were settled in the older thread: See, for example, post #135, from fls, in this thread, and its surrounding discussion:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7226388#post7226388

(Remember that dialysis machine lists and organ donor lists are isomorphs: They represent the same problem, though the dialysis-machine one is largely outdated due to the proliferation of such machines.)

No, they are not. They are not scientific questions, answers to them were not provided by science... and they weren't really answered.

They were moral questions. And, science was used (in part OR in whole) to devise solutions to them. Is that good enough?

And how many questions does "degrades their well-being" beg?

Sam Harris illustrates this well in his own book. But, perhaps I erred in focusing on the Burqas. The clothing itself is only a symptom of a much larger problem of women being repressed.

Do you need me to explain how the systematic repression of females is bad for the general well-being of a society?

In fact, we can define "well being" to be almost anything we want, and feed in the question and get out almost any answer.

There are multiple ways to define well-being, but NOT all of them are reasonable. We can use science to track down the ones that are.

Though, if you don't think well-being a good measure for morality, I would like to know what better ideas you might have.

I would also like to remind everyone that health is also part of this. The full phrase should be health and well-being. Most people have a general idea of what it means to be healthy, though are multiple reasonable ways to define good health. And, there are clearly some bad ways to define good health: One would be sent to an institution for suggesting razor blade cuts all over the body would be a healthy thing to acquire.

But, we can abbreviate all that to just "well-being", in this thread.

I offered some directions in which well-being could be empirically measured in a previous post.

The problem is that it's impossible, ever, to scientifically validate said non-scientific moral value judgments, nor to form moral value judgments without them.

Harris and everyone else who claims to have solved this problem have just smuggled in a non-scientific moral value judgment somehow and tried to pass them off as science.

If you read my previous posts, you will see that I consider this a First Mile argument, which I think are neither as important nor as interesting as the other positions in which we can insert science.

Sorry, that's impossible. To do that, morally good1 and morally good2 should be totally compatible. They're not.

Of course there are going to be conflicts and trade-offs to resolve. The two do NOT need to be perfectly 100% compatible, for MG3 to happen.

Evolutionary biology, in way, shows us how that can work. There are inherent conflicts between members of a species, largely from the amount of genes any two of them share. And, this has an impact on how resources are shared. Each member is acting for the survival of their own genes.

If what you said is true, then it should be impossible for something like societal altruism to emerge, from such an inherently selfish bunch of entities. But, it generally does, once it is discovered that acting for the good of society can also offer greater benefit to the individuals and their families, within that society. And, expanding such a society, carefully, over time, would yield greater advantage, still!

Biology can show us how a lot of MG1s can result in an MG2, in the long run.

This can't be done without some non-scientific moral value judgments about how to reconcile differences in desired outcomes, how to reconcile differences of opinion about what constitutes the overall well-being of society, and the possibility that we might want to call some desires or outcomes evil regardless of what any body else thinks.

On one hand, nature already does this. On the other, you should read about what I said about the First Mile of moral decision making, in one of my previous posts.

But it seems to me that he only really gets around the fact-value problem rhetorically:

I think Harris' whole entire book reads like a preamble to some larger book that would actually get into the actual, nitty-gritty details. (Though it still has value as such.)

But, that doesn't mean we can't try to take a few steps to do better than his rhetoric.

In the Afterword to the book he makes what I think is a new claim which is that a science of morality would simply be grounded on the same fundamental values as, say, medicine and that the value of favouring the personal and collective well-being of conscious creatures should be presupposed.

It's a good start for getting off the ground, but perhaps you are right. It needs more "meat". I think we can gain a lot by looking at these issues from my First Mile/Middle Distance/Last Mile perspective. Especially since (I hope) the middle section is not controversial. It gets the foot firmly in the door for everything else.

When we finish filling in the last part with science, we can decide if we all should work on the first part or just give it up.

By the way, it seems that the fact-value distinction and the is-ought distinction are not identical even though they often overlap.

A good point to make.

Thank you. Objectively equivalent scenarios are the final nail in the coffin of the hopes for an objective system of morality. Simply put, if your options are objectively equal, whatever it is you use to decide between them is not objectivity. You have to sneak something else in.

We could objectively do both, at the same time! Perhaps in different places. It might not be wise to have a single system in place for running elections, anyway. That way no one can fully exploit every election the same way.

If you disagree, this is really a First Mile problem, anyway. Just because we need a value to "sneak in" when using science to answer moral questions, doesn't mean that science isn't answering the question, for all intents and purposes.

Whatever gets me the most fish.

Too specific. And, some of the vegetarians would disagree.

Don't burgle your neighbour when it's raining?

Damn. I hate it when I use the wrong "whether" word.

Curse you, Paul2!! You started this thread just see us rant at each other like mad men, aye?! You're not even participating in it!

Well, guess what, punk! I am going to express my feelings, regardless if you find them entertaining or not!!

If you find this thread boring and it ends up wasting your time, you won't get any sympathy from me. If you do end up finding it highly amusing: Consider that a happy coincidence!! Punk!

 

[Dani]

Approach to First Mile Argument #1: Admit that it makes a good point.
I could respond that quoted statement by saying this:

"Yeah, okay, fine! So, the first step is a value judgment. Big freakin' deal! As long as all the other steps are science, science, science... all the way to the end, one can STILL make a case that, for all intents and purposes, science is STILL making moral decisions!"

Science is not making moral decisions in this case. It's the tool we use to help us obtain the facts once we've made the moral decision, which is the first step you described.

Other than this, yeah, big freakin' deal. I don't think most people are claiming that this is a big deal. Just that it's wrong, plain wrong, to claim that the first step is scientifically arrived at.

People already have moral values, and the fact that they're scientifically justified or not is irrelevant. They do have moral values anyway. You should already know that this was never a big deal to almost anyone. Only to normative moral relativists, but that's their ridiculous problem.

And this is a recurrent misrepresentation in these debates.

 

[Humes fork]

People already have moral values, and the fact that they're scientifically justified or not is irrelevant. They do have moral values anyway. You should already know that this was never a big deal to almost anyone. Only to normative moral relativists, but that's their ridiculous problem.

And this is a recurrent misrepresentation in these debates.

Indeed, I think the biggest worry of Sam Harris and those who take his side in this debate is that they are concerned with how the Taliban can be condemned if there are no moral facts. They seem to want to say something like "Sorry dudes, but it's a scientific fact that forcing people to wear burkas is wrong". It is perfectly possible to condemn the morality of the Taliban, but it is not possible to do so with the help of moral facts, because there are no such facts.

Of course, a scientific worldview will influence how we think about morality and moral issues, even if it can't make moral decisions by itself. To believe that morality can be determined by science seems to be only a slight improvement from believing that it can be handed down from a god. We have to resist such temptations and accept the world as it is.

And I must say that I'm very, very disappointed that Dawkins and Shermer buy into Harris' idea. They if anyone ought to see just how flawed it is.

 

[Earthborn]

But, frankly, I think the First Mile is the least important thing to debate over.

You may personally think it is the least important thing to debate over, but if we are still discussing Sam Harris' ideas it isn't. Harris wants his scientific morality to prove how for example the Taliban are wrong. His disagreements with the Taliban are purely a "first mile" issue; Sam Harris wants to base morality on his atheist interpretation of science, the Taliban wants to base it on an extremist interpretation of religion. When discussing those examples, we can't just handwave the first mile away by saying "that's not important right now".

Even more problematic is that Harris wants his scientific morality to prove how much more moderate religious moralities are also wrong. He's especially keen on trying to dress up his anti-Islam bigotry with a "scientific" veneer.

Is there any good, compelling reason not to base moral decisions ultimately on what science has to say on the matter? I have not found any, yet, myself.

How about this for a compelling reason: on many moral dilemmas science does not have to say anything. Science simply doesn't enter into it.

One risk in using science is that you could accidentally allow pseudo-science into the door.

I think Harris' ideas are pseudo-science.

The key difference between science and relativism is that relativism does not imply a discipline or framework for making moral decisions, whereas science does.

Does science imply that? I don't think it does. It certainly didn't seem that way until Harris came along.

Relativism usually, (though not always), implies that all decisions are equally valid.

No, it implies that there is no absolute point of view that determines whether decisions are equally or unequally valid. It implies that from every point of view some decisions will appear equally valid and others not, and that will be different from every point of view.

We know, for example, how much of a role evolutionary heritage plays in the decisions we make, the things we value, and the social contracts we make.

No, we don't.

Rudimentary moral systems will tend to emerge naturally, and that implies relativism would never have a strong basis in reality.

No, it implies the exact opposite. Moral systems emerge naturally, but different moral systems develop in different circumstances. What seems wrong in one environment may seem right in another, and vice versa. That's moral relativism.

For clarification: I know what Sam Harris was saying. I was expressing that I think he is wrong, here. Nothing in Science is self-evident. Everything must be defended.

Good to see that you disagree with one of the most seriously anti-scientific concepts in Harris philosophy. But if the idea that "morality is about the well-being of conscious creatures" is not self-evident, what is left of his philosophy? It seems you disagree with him on the fundamental underpinning of his ideas.

No, no, no, no, NO!! You got something horribly mistaken, in there! We are NOT cramming teleological thinking back into science. When we apply science to morality, we are taking the teleological out of morality.

If you are taking the teleological out of morality, then you are taking the morality out of morality. Something that does not tell us what our goals should be, what we ought and ought not to do is not morality, but at most a description of what our morality was in the past. Sam Harris wants his scientific "moral landscape" to be prescriptive and not just descriptive; asnd that's where he tries to cram teleological thinking into science.

Are there any good reasons to tell people the world is going to end soon?

What we can deduce from science: No, not really.
It might be possible to parasitically exploit the situation for a short while. But, we can see from historic example that this leads to worse situations for everyone, including the exploiter, in the long run.

None of this answers the question: "Is it right to convince people that the world is about to end?"

Do you need me to explain how the systematic repression of females is bad for the general well-being of a society?

No, because that is not the topic we are discussing. What you need to explain is: "Can science determine that it is immoral."

If it was pragmatic people, their knowledge to make practical decisions probably owes itself to the foundations of science.

If it was moral people, their ideas on how to make moral decisions owes itself to the foundations of their morality, independent of science.

[If I recall, our argument about kidney dialysis and organ transplant lists were settled in the older thread: See, for example, post #135, from fls, in this thread, and its surrounding discussion:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=7226388#post7226388

No, it wasn't settled. And fls didn't present anything that indicates that it was science that solved the problem.

They were moral questions. And, science was used (in part OR in whole) to devise solutions to them. Is that good enough?

It is not good enough to defend Sam Harris' claims.

But, perhaps I erred in focusing on the Burqas. The clothing itself is only a symptom of a much larger problem of women being repressed.

Yes, you erred in focusing on burqas. The clothing is one of the least serious symptoms of a much larger problem, and it is not just the problem of women being repressed. Men are as well, perhaps even moreso. The problem is in Afghanistan there are groups of people who are superconvinced that their own moral philosophy is the only valid one and everyone else has to abide by it no matter the consequences. In short, the problem is an an excess of moral realism and a lack of moral relativism.

 

[Sophronius]

Ah, this debate again. Sadly these discussions never go anywhere, in my experience. Why? Because people insist on using terms and concepts ("oughts" versus "is", "can science answer moral questions", etc.) that are used differently by different participants, and everyone assumes that the other uses the same definitions as they themselves, and the whole thing always turns into (or starts out as) a debate about what certain words "really mean".

I would like to make a suggestion:

If this debate is to have any success at all, people need to stop using phrases like "science can/can't answer moral questions" and substitute what they really mean. Where do people here genuinely disagree?

-It seems to me that both sides agree that science can't decree that people should do things that they do not (at any level) want to do. Am I wrong in saying this?
-It seems to me that both parties agree that science CAN tell people what they should do given a set of preferences. Am I wrong about this?
-It seems to me that both sides disagree on what it takes for science to be considered able to "answer a moral question", and that this is the main source of disagreement. That one side defines moral facts in such a way that they cannot exist, and then conclude that science cannot provide them, while the other concludes that if moral facts are defined in a useful way, then science can provide them. Am I mistaken, here?

I think the most useful question in this debate is whether discussions about what morality is can be replaced by using neuroscience to directly measure people's preferences and see what is considered moral (seeing how morality necessarily comes from the preferences/ideals of thinking beings. No one argues anything for another source of morality as far as I can tell). I would say that the answer to this is yes in principle, since there is no human thought or concept that cannot be found in the human brain, given the absence of a soul. As such I see no reason to separate science and morality in the future, assuming this technology is possible.

Either way, I suggest that the most important thing right now is that we narrow down where people really disagree with one another.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

On one hand, nature already does this. On the other, you should read about what I said about the First Mile of moral decision making, in one of my previous posts.

Let's get this straight at the outset: this argument is only about what you call the "First Mile".

Absolutely nobody - ABSOLUTELY NOBODY - is arguing that science is not vital to making well-informed moral choices once you have covered that first mile. The second you start to pretend otherwise you are attacking a straw man and everything you say is fallacious.

Harris' claim is that science can cover that First Mile. We take issue with it because it can't, and because Harris' arguments on that specific issue of the first mile are rubbish.

You started this thread with a quote from Hume that specifically applies to the first mile, so you can't pretend that this isn't the thread topic. It's the exact thread topic and it's the whole of the thread topic.

 

[Frank Newgent]

Those who claim you can not derrive an "ought" from an "is" are underestimating the ultimate power Science can, and will, have in the Universe.

Why should one care?

 

[dasmiller]

Those who claim you can not derrive an "ought" from an "is" are underestimating the ultimate power Science can, and will, have in the Universe.

And Science's exhaust ports are no bigger than a womp rat!

 

[PixyMisa]

I don't think you can get "ought" from "is", on the other hand, the fact we are human inherently implies a number of oughts about out condition.

"Ought" questions are inherently ill-defined. Once you define them properly, you end up with "is" questions.

It's not that science can't answer certain types of question, it's that science can only answer questions that are meaningful in the first place.

 

[Meed]

From what I've read of Harris' book, his argument is basically "utilitarianism is right, because it's obviously right". And then he moves on to his pet anti-religious spiels.

I don't even dislike utilitarianism (I'm quite fond of Peter Singer). Nor do I like religion. But Harris' book is pretty much garbage in my opinion.

One thing I am glad of though, as someone who cares about animals, is that Harris and his fans will surely be moving toward veganism based on their "well being of conscious creatures" moral principle.

 

[PixyMisa]

From what I've read of Harris' book, his argument is basically "utilitarianism is right, because it's obviously right".

...

Yeah, not much of an argument, that.

One thing I am glad of though, as someone who cares about animals, is that Harris and his fans will surely be moving toward veganism based on their "well being of conscious creatures" moral principle.

Bacon contributes significantly to my wellbeing as a conscious creature. And I've never heard it complain.

 

[Frank Newgent]

"Ought" questions are inherently ill-defined. Once you define them properly, you end up with "is" questions.

It's not that science can't answer certain types of question, it's that science can only answer questions that are meaningful in the first place.

Meaningful? As in the context of relating to an ideal standard or model?

That's always a value call don't you know?

 

[Meed]

Bacon contributes significantly to my wellbeing as a conscious creature. And I've never heard it complain.

Is utilitarianism really that easy these days? Assuming you aren't a Harris proponent, that doesn't apply to you anyway.

 

[Piscivore]

Too specific. And, some of the vegetarians would disagree.

Their opinion is not as important as mine, in my conception of well-being.

 

[Humes fork]

Can the Harris proponents please show me the evidence that we should value well-being?

 

[dlorde]

Science is not making moral decisions in this case. It's the tool we use to help us obtain the facts once we've made the moral decision, which is the first step you described.

I keep feeling I've missed something obvious, because it seems to me that you make the moral choices when you define your criteria - i.e. decide precisely what you mean by 'well-being' in all relevant contexts. From that point, science can tell you whether this or that course of action will best meet those criteria.

Defining those criteria is much like drawing up a legal framework - you must try to be precise enough in your wording to avoid ambiguity, yet allow for a balance between the individual and the group, and so-on. Science can help you refine the criteria, set the balance, and remove or reduce ambiguity, but it can't tell you what the criteria are.

ISTM in Pixy's terminology, 'well-being' is an 'ought' question that must be refined into a well-defined set of 'is' questions. The process of doing that is the moral process.

Unless I've missed something obvious?

Maximize pleasure? OK, hook everyone up to a pleasure-centre stimulator...

 

[Dani]

I keep feeling I've missed something obvious, because it seems to me that you make the moral choices when you define your criteria - i.e. decide precisely what you mean by 'well-being' in all relevant contexts. From that point, science can tell you whether this or that course of action will best meet those criteria.

Defining those criteria is much like drawing up a legal framework - you must try to be precise enough in your wording to avoid ambiguity, yet allow for a balance between the individual and the group, and so-on. Science can help you refine the criteria, set the balance, and remove or reduce ambiguity, but it can't tell you what the criteria are.

ISTM in Pixy's terminology, 'well-being' is an 'ought' question that must be refined into a well-defined set of 'is' questions. The process of doing that is the moral process.

Unless I've missed something obvious?

Maximize pleasure? OK, hook everyone up to a pleasure-centre stimulator...

I completely agree with you. But what do you mean when you say that you keep feeling that you've missed something obvious?

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

A question for the Harrisites: What if science determines that a society attains maximal well-being when it is mono-racial? Do you go with the science and kick out the minority races (I am assuming it is objectively simpler to export the minority than the majority), or do you say, sorry science, that's just not acceptable; what's the best we can we do without taking that step?

If the former... you're reprehensible. If the latter, you have another standard.

 

[PixyMisa]

Is utilitarianism really that easy these days?

Bacon supersedes morality.

Assuming you aren't a Harris proponent, that doesn't apply to you anyway.

I may agree with his conclusions (some of them, at least), but his argument is unsound.