Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

[JJM 777]

So when it can be shown that the person raped is not a happy camper anymore, science can't scentifically say this to be a bad thing.

Actually science can give this objective information, in the following manner:

And why, again, is "suffering bad" a moral issue?

"Suffering = evil, happiness = good" is maybe the only objective and potentially scientifically measurable indicator of morals / ethics that I can think of. Brain research is not so developed yet that we can measure anyone´s pain or bliss, but we can make good estimations already. Why torturing a child in front of her mother is evil, while giving food to poor hungry orphans is good, is objectively measurable by the suffering or happiness that follows from these actions.

If we analyze the suffering or happiness that follows from diverse activities, we could rate them with some numeric indicator, for example from 0 (worst possible suffering) to 100 (greatest possible happiness). Then the general population would know how good or bad the various activities are, based on the measured and reported suffering or happiness that follows from them. Then they would make decisions how good or bad they want their lives to be.

moral choices and enforcing consequences need to be based on circumstances I believe, capable of "evolving"

Everything depends on circumstances, for example the circumstance of who owns the food that you consume, or in combat who is the aggressor and who is the self-defender.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Do you think that absent religious dogma indoctrinating them otherwise, Mid-Eastern people would have radically different intuitions about flogging and stoning individuals from you and I?

Linda

I'd like to think not, but I'm not sure.

I think people are naturally attracted to moral absolutes because they offer a feeling of security through providing "correct" answers to problems which don't have any.

 

[Democracy Simulator]

Let's take this slowly:

Harris alludes to Hume's is/ought problem in his talk and he also mentions it explicitly in the book. Does anyone disagree with this?

Although he mentions it, Harris does not solve the is/ought problem in either the book or the talk, therefore the problem still stands. Does anyone disagree with this?

Note that in the book, Harris mentions Hume and is/ought, but then goes along to address G.E. Moore's Open Question argument. He ducks out of the confrontation with Hume. Does anyone disagree with this?

If the is/ought problem stands, then science (what is) cannot determine human values (what ought to be). It simply can't. Facts and values are forever separated, until we assume a non-scientific premise (as Sam Harris admits that he does with his ‘well-being’ assumption). Does anyone disagree with this? Harris seems to disagree with this. He says things like:

I am going to argue that the separation of facts and values is an illusion.

Yet facts and values are separated and Hume explains exactly how they are separated, which is why he is germane to the discussion. If Harris had argued that facts and values are not separated if first we assume other things to be true, then I would not have an issue with him. Yet he never makes this crystal clear, preferring instead the headline-grabbing statements such as the one above and the one included in the subtitle of his book.

The strongest reference Harris makes to is/ought is from one of his rebuttals. Harris writes:

Many of my critics piously cite Hume’s is/ought distinction as though it were well known to be the last word on the subject of morality until the end of time. Indeed, Carroll appears to think that Hume’s lazy analysis of facts and values is so compelling that he elevates it to the status of mathematical truth:

Note that Harris does not refute Hume anywhere at anytime. Yet here he describes Hume's analysis of facts (is statements) and values (ought statements) as 'lazy'. Note that this is critical of Hume without exactly saying whether he is right or wrong. Unfortunately, I now feel compelled to call this criticism, 'lazy' for what it is: a weasel word. It gives the impression that Hume’s analysis is deficient, but as anyone who knows Hume will understand, Hume’s observation about is/ought is either refuted or it stands. It is not a matter of Hume not having the energy to solve it. No one has solved it including Harris. Calling it ‘lazy’ makes no sense and does not address the problem in any meaningful way. I would suggest that it is a criticism that verges on stupidity.

Also, Harris seems to fundamentally misunderstand his critics. Yes Harris makes a lot of other arguments in the book and the talk, but until he honestly addresses Hume these criticisms involving is/ought will not go away. It would be simple for Harris to say:

‘No, you’ve all got the wrong end of the stick, I haven’t refuted Hume, I am not claiming that I have, I’m sorry for the confusion.’

Then most of his critics would disappear in a puff of smoke.

Yet we are left with a kind of confusion about whether Harris believes he has solved is/ought or not. Does anyone disagree with this?

Given all this, I think that Harris could halt a lot of confusion by answering whether he believes Hume is right or wrong in his observation (for that is what it is) about is/ought statements and if he believes Hume is wrong, how exactly is Hume wrong. The fact that given copious opportunities he does not address this issue is telling. Is it because:

If the is/ought problem stands, then science (what is) cannot determine human values (what ought to be)?

Also, one final point: given that Sam Harris has written a work of moral philosophy and that solving the is/ought problem would be a groundbreaking event in moral philosophy and that Sam Harrris repeatedly alludes to is/ought and is critical of is/ought (Hume's lazy analysis); then it is therefore quite right for philosophers and those interested in moral philosophy to pick him up on this point, demonstrate that he hasn't solved it and demand some clarification as to whether he thinks he has solved it. Does anyone disagree with this?

 

[JoelKatz]

Also, one final point: given that Sam Harris has written a work of moral philosophy and that solving the is/ought problem would be a groundbreaking event in moral philosophy and that Sam Harrris repeatedly alludes to is/ought and is critical of is/ought (Hume's lazy analysis); then it is therefore quite right for philosophers and those interested in moral philosophy to pick him up on this point, demonstrate that he hasn't solved it and demand some clarification as to whether he thinks he has solved it. Does anyone disagree with this?

I think it's a fair point to ask Harris. But I also think the is/ought problem arises from looking at morality in a way that is likely to be completely wrong.

To use yet another color vision analogy, imagine if we didn't know the physics of color vision at all. We might start writing down that strawberries "look red" and grass "looks green". We might make up a massive table of how things look and begin an analysis of "color philosophy" to find the redness in strawberries and the greenness in grass. We might even imagine an "is/color problem". Nothing in what strawberries are seems to tell us why people consider them red. Nothing in what grass is seems to tell us why people judge it to be green.

The solution is simple -- that humans judge something to be wrong is part of what that something is (just as 'reacts explosively with water' is part of what sodium is). The question for science is why and how. Once we understand that, there won't be an is/ought problem anymore just as once we understood why people judged strawberries to be red and grass to be green, the "is/color problem" went away.

In part the problem went away because our understanding of what 'red' is changed from 'seems red to people who seem to have normal vision' to specific objective characteristics. That needs to happen to our understanding of 'good', and when it does, the is/ought problem will go away by itself.

 

[fls]

Let's take this slowly:

Harris alludes to Hume's is/ought problem in his talk and he also mentions it explicitly in the book. Does anyone disagree with this?

No.

Although he mentions it, Harris does not solve the is/ought problem in either the book or the talk, therefore the problem still stands. Does anyone disagree with this?

Yes. He discusses why he thinks that this is an "artificial and needlessly confusing way to think about moral choice" on page 37. That is, he does not 'solve' the problem because, as Joel Katz pointed out, it is a way of looking at morality that is likely to be wrong.

Note that in the book, Harris mentions Hume and is/ought, but then goes along to address G.E. Moore's Open Question argument. He ducks out of the confrontation with Hume. Does anyone disagree with this?

Yes, per above.

If the is/ought problem stands, then science (what is) cannot determine human values (what ought to be). It simply can't. Facts and values are forever separated, until we assume a non-scientific premise (as Sam Harris admits that he does with his ‘well-being’ assumption). Does anyone disagree with this? Harris seems to disagree with this. He says things like:

Yet facts and values are separated and Hume explains exactly how they are separated, which is why he is germane to the discussion. If Harris had argued that facts and values are not separated if first we assume other things to be true, then I would not have an issue with him. Yet he never makes this crystal clear, preferring instead the headline-grabbing statements such as the one above and the one included in the subtitle of his book.

He describes the lack of real distinction between facts and values in detail in Chapter 3: Belief.

The strongest reference Harris makes to is/ought is from one of his rebuttals. Harris writes:

Note that Harris does not refute Hume anywhere at anytime. Yet here he describes Hume's analysis of facts (is statements) and values (ought statements) as 'lazy'. Note that this is critical of Hume without exactly saying whether he is right or wrong. Unfortunately, I now feel compelled to call this criticism, 'lazy' for what it is: a weasel word. It gives the impression that Hume’s analysis is deficient, but as anyone who knows Hume will understand, Hume’s observation about is/ought is either refuted or it stands. It is not a matter of Hume not having the energy to solve it. No one has solved it including Harris. Calling it ‘lazy’ makes no sense and does not address the problem in any meaningful way. I would suggest that it is a criticism that verges on stupidity.

Also, Harris seems to fundamentally misunderstand his critics. Yes Harris makes a lot of other arguments in the book and the talk, but until he honestly addresses Hume these criticisms involving is/ought will not go away. It would be simple for Harris to say:

‘No, you’ve all got the wrong end of the stick, I haven’t refuted Hume, I am not claiming that I have, I’m sorry for the confusion.’

Then most of his critics would disappear in a puff of smoke.

I doubt this is true. The critics seem to be insisting that Hume is relevant, so any attempts to placate them would still leave Harris with his main premise unaddressed by his critics.

Yet we are left with a kind of confusion about whether Harris believes he has solved is/ought or not. Does anyone disagree with this?

Yes. I think the confusion comes from not attending to what Harris has said, and instead trying to fit them into the framework moral philosophers are in the habit of using.

Given all this, I think that Harris could halt a lot of confusion by answering whether he believes Hume is right or wrong in his observation (for that is what it is) about is/ought statements...

Clearly not, since Harris explicitly states that he believes Hume, and those who use this notion of "ought" to be wrong.

...and if he believes Hume is wrong, how exactly is Hume wrong. The fact that given copious opportunities he does not address this issue is telling. Is it because:

If the is/ought problem stands, then science (what is) cannot determine human values (what ought to be)?

Also, one final point: given that Sam Harris has written a work of moral philosophy and that solving the is/ought problem would be a groundbreaking event in moral philosophy and that Sam Harrris repeatedly alludes to is/ought and is critical of is/ought (Hume's lazy analysis); then it is therefore quite right for philosophers and those interested in moral philosophy to pick him up on this point, demonstrate that he hasn't solved it and demand some clarification as to whether he thinks he has solved it. Does anyone disagree with this?

Yes. I think it would be more worthwhile to address the ideas that Harris raised, such as the research demonstrating that there isn't a distinction between facts and values, rather than forcing him to address an issue which seems likely to be wrong anyway, just so that his response can be ignored again.

Linda

 

[JoelKatz]

Yes. I think it would be more worthwhile to address the ideas that Harris raised, such as the research demonstrating that there isn't a distinction between facts and values, rather than forcing him to address an issue which seems likely to be wrong anyway, just so that his response can be ignored again.

For example, consider:

"I like vanilla ice cream."

This may seem like an impenetrable value judgment. Some people like vanilla ice cream, some don't. It's subjective. Science cannot test this claim. It's forever outside the bounds of science. What could science possibly do with such an untestable subjective value judgment?

But:

"The interaction between vanilla ice cream and my taste buds is such that my brain is stimulated in the areas associated with pleasure."

Well, this is an objective statement about a physical interaction. Science can test it and determine if it is true or false.

The only thing it took to get from the first statement to the second was to really understand what it means to "like" something (and I admit, this does change the understanding). A similar understanding of "good" may well do the same thing for moral judgments.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Yes. He discusses why he thinks that this is an "artificial and needlessly confusing way to think about moral choice" on page 37. That is, he does not 'solve' the problem because, as Joel Katz pointed out, it is a way of looking at morality that is likely to be wrong.

Joel Katz is still hung up on the naturalistic fallacy, despite any number of efforts to educate him. That's the fallacy which I stated earlier that you were hung up on - nice to have that confirmed.

He describes the lack of real distinction between facts and values in detail in Chapter 3: Belief.

Yup. Naturalistic fallacy. Harris fails first year philosophy, again.

I doubt this is true. The critics seem to be insisting that Hume is relevant, so any attempts to placate them would still leave Harris with his main premise unaddressed by his critics.

Nope. Totally wrong. If Harris gave up the publicity-seeking, book-selling charade and said "I own up, I'm just another welfare utilitarian and I haven't solved the is/ought problem at all" I'd have no beef with him whatsoever.

Yes. I think the confusion comes from not attending to what Harris has said, and instead trying to fit them into the framework moral philosophers are in the habit of using.

The framework you refer to is called "logic", "rigour" or "minimal academic standards".

Yes. I think it would be more worthwhile to address the ideas that Harris raised, such as the research demonstrating that there isn't a distinction between facts and values, rather than forcing him to address an issue which seems likely to be wrong anyway, just so that his response can be ignored again.

Research can no more demonstrate that there isn't a distinction between facts and values than it can demonstrate that there isn't a distinction between deduction and induction. It's not a matter which you can address with any number of factual observations, and if you think otherwise you aren't thinking outside the box, you're just making a category error.

What science might do is show some people just can't grasp the fact/value distinction - but then again this thread alone is more evidence for that claim than we'll ever need. I don't need to give anyone an MRI to tell you that.

 

[JoelKatz]

Joel Katz is still hung up on the naturalistic fallacy, despite any number of efforts to educate him. That's the fallacy which I stated earlier that you were hung up on - nice to have that confirmed.

This is absolutely false for reasons I explained.

To use yet another color vision analogy, the naturalistic fallacy would be "green is all and only whatever people call green". However, what happened when science began to understand color was that we understood enough to reject the fallacy. We now know, for example, that many different combinations of light frequencies can appear to be green to people with color vision.

A scientific understanding of color vision allowed us to reject the naturalistic fallacy and define a new sense of 'green' that refers to a particular pure frequency. And we can accept with scientific rigor that yellow and blue together may "look green" but not really "be green".

A scientific understanding of morality will let us reject the naturalistic fallacy with morality as well. We will one day understand that things may "seem wrong" but not really "be wrong".

Of course, we don't understand that distinction *yet*, just as we once didn't with color vision. All we knew was some things "looked green" and some "looked red".

To put it another way, one of the main roles for science with respect to morality is to let us understand what moral judgments really are so that we can separate the parts to fully rid ourselves of any fallacious naturalistic reasoning.

It was understanding, scientifically, what was really going on when a person "saw green" that allowed us to understand that something can "look green" but not really "be green". It will be understanding, scientifically, what's really going on when a person "judges good" that will allow us to understand that something can "seem good" but not really "be good". Just as we once didn't really know what "really be green" meant, we only knew what "looked green" meant, we now don't really know what "really be good" means, we only know what "seems good" means.

 

[fls]

Joel Katz is still hung up on the naturalistic fallacy, despite any number of efforts to educate him. That's the fallacy which I stated earlier that you were hung up on - nice to have that confirmed.

Yup. Naturalistic fallacy. Harris fails first year philosophy, again.

What Harris and I (and JoelKatz, I think) have been talking about is the opposite of the naturalistic fallacy, although I realize that pointing this out does not matter to you.

Nope. Totally wrong. If Harris gave up the publicity-seeking, book-selling charade and said "I own up, I'm just another welfare utilitarian and I haven't solved the is/ought problem at all" I'd have no beef with him whatsoever.

Then it seems that Harris' ideas are not intended to address your particular concerns.

Research can no more demonstrate that there isn't a distinction between facts and values than it can demonstrate that there isn't a distinction between deduction and induction. It's not a matter which you can address with any number of factual observations, and if you think otherwise you aren't thinking outside the box, you're just making a category error.

Wouldn't the very definition of "category error" be "thinking outside the box"?

What science might do is show some people just can't grasp the fact/value distinction - but then again this thread alone is more evidence for that claim than we'll ever need. I don't need to give anyone an MRI to tell you that.

That's an excellent point and quite relevant to what Harris and I have said - on what basis has a fact/value distinction been made?

Linda

 

[Earthborn]

To use yet another color vision analogy, the naturalistic fallacy would be "green is all and only whatever people call green".

That's not a naturalistic fallacy, because it makes no appeal to "nature", only an appeal to opinion.

However, what happened when science began to understand color was that we understood enough to reject the fallacy.

When science began to understand colour, making an appeal to the "nature" of colour was no longer fallacious. There is no reason to suspect moral concepts will evolve in a similar way; scientists are working too hard to prevent that from happening. To be taken seriously as scientists they have to build a reputation of being morally neutral, as impartial observers.

 

[JoelKatz]

That's not a naturalistic fallacy, because it makes no appeal to "nature", only an appeal to opinion.

I don't think the difference really matters. As far as what we see as green, it's our nature that directly determines our opinion of what colors look the same. We had to understand colors to really know this, but it was always true. You can fix it, more or less, by substituting "looks green to people" for "call green".

The point is, I fully accept (in fact, it's my main point) that our understanding of what "wrong" is will likely change when we have a scientific understanding of how people make moral judgments -- just as our conception of what "green" really is changed when we learned how people make color judgments. We will learn that things might not "be wrong" even though they "seem wrong" just as we know things might not really "be blue" even though they "look blue" because we understand scientifically how our color sense works and will understand scientifically how our moral sense works. I am making the very opposite of the naturalistic fallacy.

When science began to understand colour, making an appeal to the "nature" of colour was no longer fallacious. There is no reason to suspect moral concepts will evolve in a similar way; scientists are working too hard to prevent that from happening. To be taken seriously as scientists they have to build a reputation of being morally neutral, as impartial observers.

As I've argued, there is every reason to suspect moral concepts will evolve in a similar way and no reason to think they won't.

The idea that scientists should be morally neutral is facially absurd. You can't do science if you're morally neutral. Valuing obfuscating and prevaricating equally with truth-seeking and honest reporting of evidence in the name of moral neutrality would be scientific suicide. Just as we had to use our other senses to do science even before we understood how they work, we must use our moral sense to do science even though we do not understand how it works. Just as science taught us how the other senses work, it will do the same for our 'internal' senses, including our moral sense.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

This is absolutely false for reasons I explained.

To use yet another color vision analogy, the naturalistic fallacy would be "green is all and only whatever people call green". However, what happened when science began to understand color was that we understood enough to reject the fallacy. We now know, for example, that many different combinations of light frequencies can appear to be green to people with color vision.

A scientific understanding of color vision allowed us to reject the naturalistic fallacy and define a new sense of 'green' that refers to a particular pure frequency. And we can accept with scientific rigor that yellow and blue together may "look green" but not really "be green".

Nope, this is still completely wrong.

Your thesis still relies on the assumption that there is a correspondence between what we, as a result of evolved biological processes, instinctively perceive to be moral and "what is moral".

It's a twofold error because firstly there is no such thing as "what is moral". There are only more or less coherent, or more or less useful, value judgments which have no truth value. Secondly even if there was such a thing as "what is moral", we have no sense organs that could detect such a phenomenon.

One last time: When we perceive colour we are perceiving something that corresponds in a mechanistic and to-a-degree reliable way with objectively existing, external phenomena. When we have moral ideas we are not. There is no analogy.

You can repeat your colour analogy from now until the heat death of the universe and it will always be completely wrong. No amount of elaboration or repetition can fix it.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

What Harris and I (and JoelKatz, I think) have been talking about is the opposite of the naturalistic fallacy, although I realize that pointing this out does not matter to you.

Piggy played this game as well - he made multiple contradictory statements, and then when any of them were shown to be nonsensical he repeated a different one and got outraged because he'd been "misinterpreted" again.

It reminds me of Chalmers' spoof of Goodman:

Zabludowski has insinuated that my thesis that p is false, on the basis of alleged counterexamples. But these so- called "counterexamples" depend on construing my thesis that p in a way that it was obviously not intended -- for I intended my thesis to have no counterexamples. Therefore p.

Wanting to be right doesn't make you right.

Then it seems that Harris' ideas are not intended to address your particular concerns.

If you are privy to some secret version of Harris where his real ideas are expounded, as opposed to the public version where he claims to have solved the is/ought problem but when cornered admits to just being a welfare utilitarian, then please link us to this source of wisdom.

Otherwise it looks to me like you are not so much moving the goalposts as claiming with a straight face that the real soccer field is in a secret location hidden several miles away, and so the barrage of balls going into your goalposts don't count.

Wouldn't the very definition of "category error" be "thinking outside the box"?

There's a well-known aphorism about not being so open-minded that your brains fall out. "Thinking outside the box" makes it possible to find novel solutions, and also makes it possible to fall into errors that the box was originally constructed to exclude you from. The mere fact that you are outside the box does not make you right, or even make it likely that you are right.

That's an excellent point and quite relevant to what Harris and I have said - on what basis has a fact/value distinction been made?

One minute you're claiming that you have relevant postgraduate study under your belt, and the next you don't even understand what basis the fact/value distinction has been made on. (Plus you had no idea at all about what Bentham contributed to the field, or for that matter Kant. How the heck can you have gotten up to the postgraduate level in moral philosophy and be clueless about Kant?).

Anyway, if you had the chops you pretend to have, it would be the work of minutes to find relevant on-line resources and find out for yourself the basis for the fact/value distinction. Then you could post in a paragraph or two your own argument for why we should erase that distinction, instead of posting the absolute minimum possible and trying to snipe from a position of maximal safety.

 

[JoelKatz]

Nope, this is still completely wrong.

Please, show me how.

Your thesis still relies on the assumption that there is a correspondence between what we, as a result of evolved biological processes, instinctively perceive to be moral and "what is moral".

Yes, but since it doesn't rely on what that correspondence is, I don't see how it can be wrong. Also, since it relies on an open definition of "is moral", it also cannot be wrong. It's inconceivable that there exists no definition of moral that can make that work, and it leaves "what is moral" as an open question.

It's a twofold error because firstly there is no such thing as "what is moral". There are only more or less coherent, or more or less useful, value judgments which have no truth value. Secondly even if there was such a thing as "what is moral", we have no sense organs that could detect such a phenomenon.

But I agree with all of those things. By our naive notion of "blue", there really was no such thing as "is blue" either. We had to understand color vision to make "is blue" mean something.

One last time: When we perceive colour we are perceiving something that corresponds in a mechanistic and to-a-degree reliable way with objectively existing, external phenomena. When we have moral ideas we are not. There is no analogy.

I've addressed this argument so many times I don't know what I can do but point to the many places I've addressed it.

You can repeat your colour analogy from now until the heat death of the universe and it will always be completely wrong. No amount of elaboration or repetition can fix it.

Then please show me why it's wrong rather than simply stating it's wrong. Without an understanding of the physical implementation of color, how do you know it corresponds mechanistically? And without an understand of precisely what happens when we judge something to be good, how do you know it doesn't?

You are simply dogmatically asserting that color is different for no justifiable reason despite the fact that the evidence for moral judgments is almost precisely the same as it was for color before we understood the physics and biology of color vision. Yet you must concede that this was obvious for color vision even at that time. We don't yet understand the physics and biology of how we make moral judgments.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Please, show me how.

Yes, but since it doesn't rely on what that correspondence is, I don't see how it can be wrong. Also, since it relies on an open definition of "is moral", it also cannot be wrong. It's inconceivable that there exists no definition of moral that can make that work, and it leaves "what is moral" as an open question.

It's not inconceivable at all that there exists no definition of moral that can make it work. I don't think there can be such a definition, in fact. There simply is no morality "out there" to perceive. Morality is ideas between the ears of humans. It's not out there in the external universe for some spooky moral sense to discern.

I've addressed this argument so many times I don't know what I can do but point to the many places I've addressed it.

Then we will just have to agree to disagree. I think you are provably, completely and fundamentally wrong. You don't see why. I can live with that.

You are simply dogmatically asserting that color is different for no justifiable reason despite the fact that the evidence for moral judgments is almost precisely the same as it was for color before we understood the physics and biology of color vision.

You can't have evidence for a moral claim. If you think you can, then you have put moral claims in the wrong mental category. They are not claims with truth values like "this light is blue" or "these photons have a wavelength of 475nm". They are value judgments which have no truth value. There cannot be evidence for or against their truth. They can only be coherent or incoherent, useful or useless, intuitive or unintuitive.

Yet you must concede that this was obvious for color vision even at that time. We don't yet understand the physics and biology of how we make moral judgments.

It wouldn't matter if we did. Not one iota.

All the physics and biology of how we make moral judgments could ever do, even in theory, is provide a descriptive morality. It could tell us what people think is moral.

It cannot provide a prescriptive morality that makes value judgments about what we should think is moral.

 

[Paulhoff]

It cannot provide a prescriptive morality that makes value judgments about what we should think is moral.

So what or who, pray tell, can make moral judgments.

Paul

 

[The Man]

That's not a naturalistic fallacy, because it makes no appeal to "nature", only an appeal to opinion.

Is it not a fact of human "nature" that we do have and form opinions? Certainly opinions do not need to be based on facts but this does not preclude them from being so based. To argue otherwise would be to assert that ones own opinions can have no factual basis.

When science began to understand colour, making an appeal to the "nature" of colour was no longer fallacious. There is no reason to suspect moral concepts will evolve in a similar way; scientists are working too hard to prevent that from happening. To be taken seriously as scientists they have to build a reputation of being morally neutral, as impartial observers.

However, when science tries to understand what makes some particular color someone's or some group's favorite color (a matter of opinion) the evolution and the available tools are still the same. Just as someone may not know why they prefer blue over red they also may not know why they prefer buying over stealing or visa versa. Just as science can begin to localize areas and functioning of our brains that indicate some preference to certain colors it might also help to do the same to certain moral considerations. It seems to me the place to start would be between those that tend to predominantly act on some specific set of moral convictions and those that seem to act without any particular set of moral convictions.

From "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962)

Prince Feisal: " With Major Lawrence, mercy is a passion. With me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which motive is the more reliable."

 

[JJM 777]

All the physics and biology of how we make moral judgments could ever do, even in theory, is provide a descriptive morality. It could tell us what people think is moral.

This is what some here seem to be looking for. Is a specific form of sexuality good or evil? Make a study of people´s feelings and opinions. Then make the same study in a different culture, or in the same place 100 years later, and you get different results.

It cannot provide a prescriptive morality that makes value judgments about what we should think is moral.

I just said in my previous post that the suffering or happiness that follows from actions could be used as an objective indicator of how good or evil the actions are. Still it remains unanswered how good or evil people should be allowed to be, that is not a question that science would answer, any more than it would answer how wide my television should be, even if it does tell us what "width" means generally, and how wide something exactly is.

Returning to the specific sexual action example, this suffering or happiness method would give more stable results than the opinion poll based method: if it makes them happy, then it makes them happy. Objective finding reported and file closed in the archives.

 

[JoelKatz]

There simply is no morality "out there" to perceive. Morality is ideas between the ears of humans. It's not out there in the external universe for some spooky moral sense to discern.

As I explained at least twice now, this argument doesn't make any sense. There is nothing magic about the space between our ears that somehow makes it a science-free zone. Ideas in our head are no different from leaves on a tree. They are existent entities that have definite properties that can be analyzed by science. There is nothing special about the "external universe" that somehow makes science work on it and not the "internal universe". This is a vitalism fallacy or regarding consciousness as supernatural magic.

As for it being between the ears of humans and not in the things we evaluate, there really is no difference. It makes no difference to say it is a "property of sodium" that it reacts with water than it is to say it is a property of water that it reacts with sodium or that it is a consequence of the properties of both sodium and water. These are all identical.

That normal humans see the sky as blue is a property of the sky. That normal humans judge torturing children for pleasure to be wrong is a property of torturing children for pleasure. There is no difference between an "inherent property" and a relational or interaction property. For example "weighs one pound" is no different from "weighs the same as an object that weighs one pound".

We judge things inherent properties by how they interact with other things. There is no other way to do so. How things interact with other things are its inherent properties.

You can't have evidence for a moral claim. If you think you can, then you have put moral claims in the wrong mental category. They are not claims with truth values like "this light is blue" or "these photons have a wavelength of 475nm". They are value judgments which have no truth value. There cannot be evidence for or against their truth. They can only be coherent or incoherent, useful or useless, intuitive or unintuitive.

Again, you are repeating arguments I already addressed without addressing my response. "This light is blue" is no different from "this light appears blue to humans with normal color vision". We only know this is like "these photons have a wavelength of 475nm" because we understand how color vision works in a way we don't understand our moral sense.

All the physics and biology of how we make moral judgments could ever do, even in theory, is provide a descriptive morality. It could tell us what people think is moral.

I don't understand how you could know this. Did all our understanding of color vision just tell us what people think looks blue? No. It allowed us to understand *how* blueness is in the sky. It allowed us to understand that there is such a thing as "really being blue" that "looks blue to me" only approximates in a subjective way owing to the nature of human vision.

It cannot provide a prescriptive morality that makes value judgments about what we should think is moral.

And yet, with our understanding of color vision, we can now say that some light isn't "really blue" even though it looks blue to us. That is, with color vision (which you think is even more objective than morality) we have come to understand that being "really blue", objectively blue, is different from merely looking blue to us.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I just said in my previous post that the suffering or happiness that follows from actions could be used as an objective indicator of how good or evil the actions are.

Only if you had already made the philosophical decision to adopt as an axiom that suffering is bad and happiness is good. (This is hedonistic utilitarianism as set out by Bentham).

Even then you still have to iron out all the details of your axiom. Does the suffering of bacteria count? Unborn humans? Chimpanzees? AIs? Should the suffering or pleasure of some entities be weighted more heavily than others, and if so by what mathematical mechanism? Should we be concerned by the distribution of happiness and suffering, or just the arithmetic total? Or maybe the mean instead? Do the interests of unborn future people count, or only living beings? If they count should they be discounted at some rate, and if so at what rate?

It's easy to fool oneself into thinking that it's Just Obviously True that suffering is bad and happiness is good. It's much harder to fool oneself that the specific answers to each of the above questions that you come up with are also all still Just Obviously True. Once you start getting into the details it becomes apparent very quickly that it can't be that simple.

Then some jerk comes along and says "Why should I care if other people suffer? I enjoy hurting other people. I don't agree with your axiom at all". Then what?

You can iron out those details with time and thought. You can, with some work, put together a workable moral philosophy out of hedonistic utilitarianism. However by the time you have done so it's clear that you've done a lot of philosophical work and made a lot of non-evidence-based value judgments to do it.