David Hume vs. Sam Harris

[sphenisc]

Eh? I'm helping produce a thesis at the moment. (Purely from an Office 2010 pov, not content). A vast amount of peer-reviewed science gets published every year. It's written by scientists. They are obliged to produce detailed reasoning to show how they came to their conclusions. At least in the hard sciences, pretty much the same procedures are followed world wide, and can be relied on to the extent that very little is produced which is actually wrong - though I suppose a lot of it isn't of any very great value. When something like Cold Fusion crops up, the system is designed to investigate extraordinary claims.

There's also a vast "scientific" literature out there. Some of it is popularisation, produced by scientists for people who wouldn't be able to follow the original papers. Some of it is speculation - scientists thinking aloud about future possibilities. Some of it is rubbish. How can one tell if it's rubbish or not? Well, the safest bet is to assume that if it's not part of the peer-reviewed world, then it's not to be relied on.

There's nothing fascist or unreasonable about this. Indeed, the ability of scientists world-wide to ignore restrictions of race, nationality and belief systems is quite heartening. A physics library in India will look much like one in Australia, and they will all be working with the same science.

Here the thing :

If reviewers used the definition "the test for science is whether it's in the science literature produced by scientists." then either the papers being reviewed aren't novel, or by definition they're not science.
Either way they wouldn't be published.

Papers are published.

Therefore that's not the definition they use.

 

[westprog]

What if we can scientifically demonstrate that scientism is more scientifically reliable than these "belief systems" you speak of?

It still won't be science. You could scientifically demonstrate that arbitrary guesswork is a better way of making choices than rolling dice. That doesn't make random guesswork science.

And since scientism and religion both deal with metaphysical subjects not accessible to science, (by definition - otherwise it wouldn't be scientism, it would be science) such a demonstration isn't going to take place anyway.

 

[westprog]

Here the thing :

If reviewers used the definition "the test for science is whether it's in the science literature produced by scientists." then either the papers being reviewed aren't novel, or by definition they're not science.
Either way they wouldn't be published.

Papers are published.

Therefore that's not the definition they use.

Then if we are being very very particular, perhaps they determine whether the contents of the papers are worthy to be made science, which will be manifested when they are accepted.

Clearly there is science going on which doesn't pass this test. It's just a matter of whether we are missing out on anything scientifically important by ignoring it. I doubt it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

What if we can scientifically demonstrate that scientism is more scientifically reliable than these "belief systems" you speak of?

Then it would be less worse than religion in a very abstract way, and less good than actual rationalism in a very important and concrete way.

A follower of scientism would still be a person who hung around with skeptics but didn't quite get it.

(Under some circumstances such scientism could be much worse than theism, of course. Morally I've got much more in common with, say, a Church of England churchgoer who opposes torture than I have with a Harris-acolyte who supports torture. They're both philosophically unsophisticated or actively irrational, but the Harris-acolyte supports or enables crimes against humanity and the Church of England person does not).

 

[epepke]

I don't think it's necessary to use neuroscience to hypothesise that almost everybody acts in such a way as to maximise what they think is their well-being. Suppose that we do a massive amount of research to confirm that this is the case? Where does that leave us?

It might be interesting to know that it isn't the case.

 

[westprog]

It might be interesting to know that it isn't the case.

It depends what you mean by "well-being". If it includes altruism because that's what people want to do, then everyone will act to maximise their well-being by definition. If it doesn't include altruistic acts - we already know that people do that.

 

[Dani]

Despite Sam Harris' sometimes embarrassing use of logic and incredulity toward any disagreement, I do agree with him that science seems to me to be undervalued when it comes to questions of how to improve society or whether to engage in certain practices. When faced with a question such as state health care policy or spanking our children people seem to gravitate toward ideological or intuitive reasons rather than scientifically tractable reasons that could be explored with evidence. However, there are certainly already plenty of scientists researching "well-being" or things relevant to it. Psychologists, sociologists, pharmacists, economists, policy researchers... Sam Harris is not (as far as I've gotten in the book) advocating anything be done that isn't already being done by science, he would merely have us re-define morality so that we could insert the label "moral" into the conclusions of some of these scientific studies."

I hadn't read this post until now. The whole post was a very interesting read. Thanks.

This is one of the things that bother me and even annoy me about Harris' position. He seems to be presenting a massive, global, strawman argument in his introduction.

He for example seems to criticize moral relativism, but actually focusing in its normative form. He doesn't seem to even admit that a meta-ethical position doesn't necessarily translate into a normative position (in fact, in most cases it doesn't). After that he acknowledges that the moral landscape might have multiple different peaks for a same moral question. While his position doesn't constitute moral relativism, it doesn't look like moral realism either when he admits that two choices for a same moral dilemma can be equally right. And this approach, in practice, leads to a position that is closer to that of a moral relativist (not normative) than a moral realist. That's because moral relativists don't usually wonder whether it's right to kill their children. In fact, his position leads, in practice, to what most of the people actually do: agree on the easy questions and disagree on the difficult ones. This "d'uhs" me.

My conclusion is that Harris is right about the irrelevant things and wrong about the relevant things, and that makes his effort quite irrelevant and especially disappointing coming from a distinguished figure like him. He claims to solve the relevant things and then proceeds to "solve" the irrelevant things (which are already solved in practice).

From what I've read and watched, Harris also alternates different arguments that are mutually exclusive. If we have to assume morality as an a priori knowledge built into the scientific method, then we don't need to seek evidence by gathering facts through the scientific method; and if we need to seek evidence by gathering facts through the scientific method, we don't need to assume morality as an a priori knowledge built into the scientific method. He makes both arguments, and this makes it look like he's shooting in the dark, trying to justify his already arrived at conclusion.

 

[westprog]

From what I've read and watched, Harris also alternates different arguments that are mutually exclusive. If we have to assume morality as an a priori knowledge built into the scientific method, then we don't need to seek evidence by gathering facts through the scientific method; and if we need to seek evidence by gathering facts through the scientific method, we don't need to assume morality as an a priori knowledge built into the scientific method. He makes both arguments, and this makes it look like he's shooting in the dark, trying to justify his already arrived at conclusion.

It's always a bad sign when obfuscation is an essential element of the argument. It's difficult to see how what Harris has to say can be actually useful for objectively deciding just how much it's acceptable to tax the middle classes to help the poor, or whether transplants should be involuntarily harvested, or any of the other practical ethical problems.

In practice, morality is derived on a case law basis. We figure out if something is right or wrong, and then calculate a set of rules from that. If the rules we've devised fail for a given scenario, we revisit and tinker with them. It's not "scientific" except that the experimental test is how we feel about it.

 

[Meed]

He for example seems to criticize moral relativism, but actually focusing in its normative form. He doesn't seem to even admit that a meta-ethical position doesn't necessarily translate into a normative position (in fact, in most cases it doesn't). After that he acknowledges that the moral landscape might have multiple different peaks for a same moral question. While his position doesn't constitute moral relativism, it doesn't look like moral realism either when he admits that two choices for a same moral dilemma can be equally right.

You couldn't have two equal peaks under Kantian or Biblical ethics, but you could under utilitarianism I think (where two courses of action lead to the same net change in utility). Harris strongly implies a utilitarian view, he just doesn't address any of the obvious difficulties associated with it.

 

[Wowbagger]

I figured I would let everyone know that I have started re-reading Sam Harris' book. I will have a lot more to say, when I am done. But, I'm not getting the same message from it, that some of you are claiming it makes. A lot of you are jumping to label his ideas with certain words, unaware that they abhor most of such classifications. It is not the sort of thing philosophy has been trained to handle.

 

[angrysoba]

I figured I would let everyone know that I have started re-reading Sam Harris' book. I will have a lot more to say, when I am done. But, I'm not getting the same message from it, that some of you are claiming it makes. A lot of you are jumping to label his ideas with certain words, unaware that they abhor most of such classifications. It is not the sort of thing philosophy has been trained to handle.

Could you be a bit more specific?

He certainly seems to say that he has solved the is-ought distinction but having read his book and the new afterword he seems to have glossed over it by saying [I'm paraphrasing] "If you ask why we should care about the flourishing of human well-being then you're not worth talking to anymore."

When you say that a lot of people are jumping to label his ideas with certain words, do you mean his tendency to sound utilitarian or the accusation that his work is scientism?

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I figured I would let everyone know that I have started re-reading Sam Harris' book. I will have a lot more to say, when I am done. But, I'm not getting the same message from it, that some of you are claiming it makes. A lot of you are jumping to label his ideas with certain words, unaware that they abhor most of such classifications. It is not the sort of thing philosophy has been trained to handle.

Bear in mind that it is one thing to claim that your ideas are not the sort of thing philosophy has been "trained" to handle, and it is another, totally different thing for this claim to be true.

If I were you I would treat Harris' claims that his ideas are "not the sort of thing philosophy has been trained to handle" in exactly the same way that you would treat a homeopath's claims that homeopathy is "not the sort of thing science has been trained to handle". In other words, treat it as the pre-emptive excuse of a scoundrel rather than a legitimate epistemological claim.

 

[Humes fork]

I figured I would let everyone know that I have started re-reading Sam Harris' book. I will have a lot more to say, when I am done. But, I'm not getting the same message from it, that some of you are claiming it makes. A lot of you are jumping to label his ideas with certain words, unaware that they abhor most of such classifications. It is not the sort of thing philosophy has been trained to handle.

Keep in mind that the issue is what facts there is that utilitarianism is the "true" moral system. Harris just assumes it is.

 

[Dani]

You couldn't have two equal peaks under Kantian or Biblical ethics, but you could under utilitarianism I think (where two courses of action lead to the same net change in utility). Harris strongly implies a utilitarian view, he just doesn't address any of the obvious difficulties associated with it.

I agree, but the point I was making is that this position, in practice, doesn't resolve our more difficult moral dilemmas. It can, in principle, solve the problems we already solve, and proposes different "peaks" with conflicting interests whenever we struggle to reach a consensus.

So where's the advance? And this is just one of the problems of utilitarism.

 

[Wowbagger]

When you say that a lot of people are jumping to label his ideas with certain words, do you mean his tendency to sound utilitarian or the accusation that his work is scientism?

Actually "scientism" seems like an accurate word to describe his ideas.

Most of the other words people are using seem to miss certain important aspects.

Keep in mind that the issue is what facts there is that utilitarianism is the "true" moral system. Harris just assumes it is.

I don't think "utilitarianism" adequately describes his ideas. Harris assumes no such thing. You seem to be getting some aspect of the message wrong.

I will have more to say in a week or so, after I am done with the book. Perhaps I should have waited until then to even announce that I was re-reading the book. But, I didn't want it to seem like I was abandoning this thread.

I see the latest edition does have a new afterward. I will be sure to read that, as well. (I only have a first edition hardcover copy on me, at the moment.)

Bear in mind that it is one thing to claim that your ideas are not the sort of thing philosophy has been "trained" to handle, and it is another, totally different thing for this claim to be true.

If I were you I would treat Harris' claims that his ideas are "not the sort of thing philosophy has been trained to handle" in exactly the same way that you would treat a homeopath's claims that homeopathy is "not the sort of thing science has been trained to handle". In other words, treat it as the pre-emptive excuse of a scoundrel rather than a legitimate epistemological claim.

Philosophers are trained, perhaps too hard, to look for how various philosophies are taxonomized. The ideas Harris is expressing seem to defy most of your attempts, which results in mislabeling, mischaracterization, etc. Then you seem to judge the book on that.

If you look at the message for the message, instead of what type of message it is, you might find there is little to disagree with.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

It is not the sort of thing philosophy has been trained to handle.

I will be the first to admit that many 'philosopher's' immediately jump to put arguments into well-worn categories so as to trot out the already formulated counter-argument, often inappropriately; I've seen it many times before.

But I'm not sure your statement above makes sense. Philosophy is not a thing but a process of thought. Does it make sense that there is something that it has not been trained to handle? The whole point of philosophical training, as I understand it, is to provide rigor in one's thinking. If there is one 'thing' that philosophy has not been trained to handle it is fuzzy-headedness.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Philosophers are trained, perhaps too hard, to look for how various philosophies are taxonomized. The ideas Harris is expressing seem to defy most of your attempts, which results in mislabeling, mischaracterization, etc. Then you seem to judge the book on that.

Once again, the fact that Harris says his ideas defy philosophers' attempts to characterise them is not proof his assertion is true. It's just proof he's made that assertion.

Unless you actually understand the relevant philosophy you do not have an informed opinion on whether or not Harris' ideas actually do this, any more than a sucker who has read one book by a homeopath has an informed opinion as to whether science can investigate homeopathic claims.

If you can tell me what the definition of utilitarianism is and exactly how Harris' ideas differ from utilitarianism then there's the basis for a conversation, but I feel safe in saying that you can't and won't do that.

If you look at the message for the message, instead of what type of message it is, you might find there is little to disagree with.

I do wish you'd look at my message for the message.

I say that because I've sent the message to you repeatedly that YES, there is little in Harris' book to disagree with (if you are broadly sympathetic to a minor variation on welfare utilitarianism) EXCEPT his false claim to have solved the is/ought problem.

There's a well-known persuasive technique in which one precedes a false claim with a lot of true claims, then make a few more true claims afterwards for good measure. The untrained mind gets fooled by the halo effect of all the true claims near the false claim and is more likely to think the false claim is true. The trained mind isolates each claim and evaluates it separately.

Of course a con artist will praise the woolly thinkers for being "holistic thinkers" who "see the big picture", and try to rubbish the rigorous thinkers who point out the holes as "not seeing the forest for the trees". The sophisticated viewer sees straight through that, but it does play well to unsophisticated people who want very badly to think they are smarter than scientists, philosophers and other "eggheads".

 

[epepke]

Philosophers are trained, perhaps too hard, to look for how various philosophies are taxonomized. The ideas Harris is expressing seem to defy most of your attempts, which results in mislabeling, mischaracterization, etc. Then you seem to judge the book on that.

Harris seems to me to be promoting one of a large class of ideas which are either

1) Trite, or
2) Obviously wrong.

It can be difficult to point this out, because the "or" means at least two tracks of thinking, and this seems to be beyond the capacity of most people (including most philosophers).

 

[Kaosium]

I've just finished reading Sam Harris' book today and by chance this thread popped up.

<...>

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

What I said was that the fact-value distinction and is-ought distinction are not identical.

I'm assuming that you're explaining Harris' philosophy here? Either that or I am entirely unfamiliar with the distinction between fact-value and is-ought. This too is possible, I took these classes long ago. I thought 'is-fact-positive-descriptive' were all basically the same, and the opposites of 'ought-value-normative-prescriptive' and recall thinking they had so many different words for same concept merely to confuse me!

I don't think it is true that "The Nazis are bad" is effectively equivalent to "The Nazis ought not to behave in the way that they do" if you think otherwise then you are asserting that ought-statements can be derived from is-statements, something which most people here (including me, actually) disagree with and which pretty much only Harris seems to agree with (in fact, to some extent it is the crutch of his argument that it is "obvious" that a statement such as "Nazis are bad" is essentially the same as "The Nazis ought not to behave the way they do")

I don't follow this, it seemed to me Westprog had it right. The 'Nazis are bad' is an ought statement because it's a value judgment, it doesn't matter how it's phrased, that's just semantics. It doesn't appear to be 'deriving' it to put it in 'ought' terms, merely translating.

But, even if you say that these are ought-statements in disguise, then what about these statements:

The Nazis were efficient administrators.

'Nazi administration ought to be considered efficient.'

Opinion seems inherent to the sentence, efficient is a value.

(Incidentally, to be a twit, I'd note that Germans were considered efficient, and the evidence I've seen suggests that Nazi administration was not up to their standard for various reasons.)

The Taliban had an exotic code of morality.

'The Taliban morality prescriptions ought to be considered exotic in light of its rarity and brutality amongst human cultures today.'

Again it appears to be opinion to me, 'exotic' compared to what? All of history? Central Asia (amongst many other places) has had its share of rather...different...morality codes throughout history. It's hardly the only one Westerners would find strange and unpleasant, thus it becomes 'exotic' because it existed in the 21st century.

Are these fact statements or value statements? If you think they are value statements (and I think you would have a good case) then could you explain the ought-statements that they translate into.

I'm wondering if I totally missed something here. Are you saying merely by the use of words you can make a normative statement into a positive one? I mean, for real, not just cheating like that. Or is this just what Harris is doing?

Doesn't that go for just about everything?

Incidentally, from reading this thread and a cursory look around the web, this guy strikes me more as a prospective cult leader than a rational. So he says other religions are irrational and dangerous, don't (just about) all of them say the same, at least somewhere in the book or in private? He uses science as his pretense, but it appears to me like he's looking for Truth.^TM
It appears from just a peek that intolerance seethes from this guy. It's not just religion either, just going from the Wiki he judges people on the basis of whether they believe silly things. Who cares if someone believes Elvis lives? Who knows how serious they are and why they believe it anyway. Does anyone really want intolerance in the scientific world, or science defined by him? Would the innovators be allowed? What happens to Tesla, Einstein, Cavendish or Newton? What does 'well-being of conscious creatures' mean? It sounds to me like no bacon or some people become bacon!

 

[westprog]

'Nazi administration ought to be considered efficient.'

Opinion seems inherent to the sentence, efficient is a value.

Efficiency can be considered objectively. If so, then the above is an "is" statement. "ought to be considered" can be readily replaced with "is" or "was".

There are many sentences where meaning is uncertain, but vagueness of language is quite different to vagueness of concept.