Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

[Skeptic Ginger]

There is no magic here. That's just a straw man ....
Morality is an opinion. It is a value judgment, a subjective point of view that holds some outcomes, or acts, or people, or whatever as being preferable to others. Moral claims ("ought statements") are not true or false, nor can they be.

Scientific statements ("is statements") are true or false. They are a different category of claim entirely.

As if value statements had no truth? A large proportion of science involves value assessments.

Moral claims are arrived at by some combination of "is" statements and "ought" statements. You need both, but you also need to keep the two distinct in your mind.

Piggy doesn't grasp this yet: He is still incapable of disentangling his "ought" statements from his "is" statements, and as far as he's concerned he doesn't need to learn to do that because he knows everything there is to know already from reading pop science books and watching Harris on youtube.

It's interesting that I get why you don't get it. And you think you understand something Piggy and I don't (though I'm reluctant to speak for Piggy because I don't think he appreciates it). But I assure you, I understand the difference you are trying to define.

You claim "ought" is a value judgement. We agree.

You claim science is about facts and not value judgements. We don't agree.

I gave Democracy Simulator specific examples. Look at that post. Earthborn has replied but I can't get to that reply until later tonight.

 

[Piggy]

Ok. So would these dilemmas rightly be called moral dilemmas? They are not factual dilemmas. Therefore science can't solve moral dilemmas? Once all the facts are in and we still are in disagreement about what we ought to do, science cannot avail us?

No, that's not what I'm saying.

What I mean is this.... Regardless of whether the dilemmas are "moral" or not (I'm not convinced the distinction is meaningful, but that's another story) we are not guaranteed that reality will always put us in situations where there actually is a better choice.

Consider, for example, a non-moral dilemma: You have to get somewhere on time, and you can either take a taxi or the subway. Based on the information you have -- even if it is all the information available -- it is impossible to determine which will get you there faster, or if both will get you there on time, or if neither will. Which do you choose?

That's what I mean.

Reality is not obligated to present us with situations in which fully informed alternatives actually lead to a right or wrong choice.

There's no reason why "moral" choices should be any different.

And with questions like "Should we bomb Iran?" the variables are so numerous, and the actual events as they play out so unpredictable, and the potential outcomes under various scenarios so subject to chance, that no method of inquiry could possibly hand you an answer.

ETA: This is also a social, rather than individual, decision, which means there is the possibility (in this case, the certainty) that what is best for one group is not best for another, which complicates matters even further.

So while a scientifically informed morality is the best we can do, it still is not capable of answering all our specific questions.

This brings me back to:

Can we move from 'what is' to 'what ought to be', without expressing a moral value (or moral premise if you prefer) that is not scientifically decidable?

What is your position on this? Do you agree or disagree?
What do you think that Sam Harris' position is on this? Does he agree or disagree?

Forgive me if I have got both you and Sam Harris wrong, but you have both given some indication that you think the statement is not true. Back on page 3 you say clearly:

I don't believe there does need to be any purely arbitrary moral premise.

What does purely arbitrary moral premise mean? Does it mean a moral premise that is not scientifically decidable?

I think if we can clear these few points up, I will have an understanding of your position.

I'm losing you here. Maybe it's because it's late, or because page 3 was so long ago, or something else. Could you rephrase? I'm happy to answer, but I'm not following at the moment.

 

[Piggy]

I'm single and anatomically male but with some gender issues.

In a scientific utopia I'd have been cured of my unreproductive tendencies and would have become a father.

I'm unrepentant!

Oh, too bad, that. I'm on the lookout for an anatomical female who has no desire for parenthood. Oh, well.

 

[Apathia]

Oh, too bad, that. I'm on the lookout for an anatomical female who has no desire for parenthood. Oh, well.

Take heart! They exist.
Me saintly, mother, didn't really want kids, but her generation required it.
Both her daughters and me, her son, somehow inherited that attitude.
We saw how unhappy our existence made her and didn't want to suffer the same unhappiness ourselves!

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

As if value statements had no truth? A large proportion of science involves value assessments.

No. This is just wrong. Science involves no moral value judgments.

It involves some partially subjective judgments, but that is not at all the same thing.

It's interesting that I get why you don't get it. And you think you understand something Piggy and I don't (though I'm reluctant to speak for Piggy because I don't think he appreciates it). But I assure you, I understand the difference you are trying to define.

You claim "ought" is a value judgement. We agree.

You claim science is about facts and not value judgements. We don't agree.

Okay. You're either using the wrong definition of value judgment, or just wrong.

I gave Democracy Simulator specific examples. Look at that post. Earthborn has replied but I can't get to that reply until later tonight.

I was hoping to get out of replying to that mass of rhetorical questions but oh well, I'll take a shot at it.

Rhetorical questions, by the way, are frowned on in philosophy because they are primarily used as a sneaky way of getting out of stating a claim. Instead they hint at a claim, foist the burden of figuring out the implicit claim on the reader, and offer the author plausible deniability if their claim turns out to be questionable. It usually is, of course, because people don't resort to rhetorical questions unless they've tried to state their view more clearly and can't figure out a way to make it sound sensible.

This is the non-paradigm shifted version of the subject.

Let's look at an analogy. Can one use the scientific process to determine intelligence?

Someone who does not have an IQ allowing the ability to read is clearly not as intelligent as the computer genius who developed Facebook.

Can one make a value judgement who is more intelligent here based on observed evidence?

I'm guessing you want us to answer "yes" to the first question instead of "define intelligence for us and then we'll talk", and then "yes" to the second question instead of "Who cares? You are equivocating between subjective factual judgments with respect to fuzzy concepts on one hand, and moral evaluations on the other hand, and claims about the first do not necessarily apply to the second".

So you observe the computer genius has no friends and despite his billions seems to regret his social isolation. And the person who cannot read has a constantly cheerful disposition and lots of social interactions with the same people suggesting they are his friends.

Can we make a value judgement who is happier here (provided we analyze sufficient data previously established as a measure of happiness)?

Same again: You are equivocating between judgments about fuzzily-defined factual matters and moral evaluations that something is morally preferable to something else.

Equivocation isn't a paradigm shift, it's just wooly thinking.

What people don't always recognize is that morality, love, beauty and so on are just as naturalistic as anything else which is a function of the human brain. Morality is no different qualitatively than intelligence. We can easily prove these esoteric things are the same because people with specific brain damage demonstrate just how the brain evaluates and manifests morality, beauty and love.

We all realise this. None of this is news to anyone. It wasn't news to us before and it hasn't suddenly become news now. This is not a new paradigm.

Why is a moral ought any different from an objective hot?

Because you can arrive at a conclusion about hotness purely from a series of "is" statements.

My point is, if you are going to make the claim something is outside the realm of science, then tell us what that outside is. Is it some function that is not within the biological processes of the brain? Pixie dust? Invisible sky daddies? Magic?

We already have. Science restricts itself to factual claims. "Ought" statements are not factual claims. You keep confusing genuine ought-claims like "doctors ought to inform test subjects of all relevant risks" with psychological fact-claims like "Ted thinks that doctors ought to inform test subjects of all relevant risks".

I can see the same categories for morality and beauty as I can see for intelligence and hot. One just needs to be reminded all these value judgements involve 'relative to something', not an absolute value. But that is a common issue in all kinds of things no one argues are outside the realm of science.

Nope, this is just plain wrong. "Hot" and "cold" are subjective evaluations of objectively observable phenomena to do with heat transfer. "Moral" and "immoral" are subjective opinions about whether given acts, situations and whatnot are morally preferable, and there is no physical phenomenon like heat transfer to point to as the basis for them.

There is no such thing as an atom of evil, or a quantum of immoral energy. There's no objectively observable phenomenon to serve as the equivalent basis for an evaluation. Science can't say "Hitler emitted 294% more atrocity waves than Pol Pot per square unit surface area per unit time". Thus the idea that science can determine relative levels of immorality is silly.

At best it can predict what people will think is immoral, but as Piggy has been at pains to demonstrate people think all sorts of crazy and inconsistent things are immoral. That gets you nowhere.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I just read Harris' response, and I was disappointed. Though he brings up the criticisms I wanted to hear about, he goes on to do a lot of melodrama.

Linky from earlier in the thread.

So what about people who think that morality has nothing to do with anyone’s wellbeing? I am saying that we need not worry about them—just as we don’t worry about the people who think that their “physics” is synonymous with astrology, or sympathetic magic, or Vedanta. We are free to define “physics” any way we want. Some definitions will be useless, or worse. We are free to define “morality” any way we want. Some definitions will be useless, or worse—and many are so bad that we can know, far in advance of any breakthrough in the sciences of mind, that they have no place in a serious conversation about human values.

One of my critics put the concern this way: “Why should human wellbeing matter to us?” Well, why should logical coherence matter to us? Why should historical veracity matter to us? Why should experimental evidence matter to us? These are profound and profoundly stupid questions.

Look into their eyes, and tell me that what has been done to them is the product of an alternative moral code every bit as authentic and philosophically justifiable as your own. And if you actually believe this, I would like to publish your views on my website.

He is clearly in "wellbeing" utilitarianism (And he stretches to make the term as vague and shifting as possible), and if you don't like it, you suck.

Now that we have consciousness on the table, my further claim is that wellbeing is what we can intelligibly value—and “morality” (whatever people’s associations with this term happen to be) really relates to the intentions and behaviors that affect the wellbeing of conscious creatures. And, as I pointed out at TED, all the people who claim to have alternative sources of morality (like the Word of God) are, in every case that I am aware of, only concerned about wellbeing anyway: They just happen to believe that the universe functions in such a way as to place the really important changes in conscious experience after death (i.e. in heaven or hell). And those philosophical efforts that seek to put morality in terms of duty, fairness, justice, or some other principle that is not explicitly tied to the wellbeing of conscious creatures—are, nevertheless, parasitic on some notion of wellbeing in the end (I argue this point at greater length in my book. And yes, I’ve read Rawls, Nozick, and Parfit).

Here he really summarizes everything. Wellbeing is the intrinsic good (bold), and if you disagree you suck. There can be no disagreement!

Personally, I think he fails to mock Virtue ethicists, and only lifts their word "flourishing".

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

He is clearly in "wellbeing" utilitarianism (And he stretches to make the term as vague and shifting as possible), and if you don't like it, you suck.

Here he really summarizes everything. Wellbeing is the intrinsic good (bold), and if you disagree you suck. There can be no disagreement!

Yup. He's just a modified utilitarian who is trying to pass of his particular theory as The One True Scientific Morality by mocking anyone who thinks differently, running a line very like Piggy's ("I just know what's right and wrong, it's so obvious that I don't need to justify it! Ta-dah!").

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No. This is just wrong. Science involves no moral value judgments.

Notice how you changed that question before answering it?

Try again. I fixed it for you. Describe the difference between the many value judgements we make via the scientific process and 'moral' values.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Notice how you changed that question before answering it?

Call it a clarification: I thought you were up to speed on the terms we were using, but clearly not.

Try again. I fixed it for you. Describe the difference between the many value judgements we make via the scientific process and 'moral' values.

I just did, and you just snipped it and ignored it. Statements about whether an object does or does not fall into fuzzy but factual categories ("intelligent", "hot", "green") are not the same thing as statements about whether a given outcome, trait, action or whatever is preferable on moral grounds. You cannot legitimately equivocate between the two. You can get to the first purely by using "is" statements, but not the second.

This subtopic is nothing more than the product of confusion about what the term "value judgment" means in this context. It does not mean the same thing as "subjective judgment".

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

<snip>

And as for a bright line dividing atmosphere and outer space, I can't agree with your thinking. There is no line to be found, and no need to attempt to draw one. Why would we?

Why would we attempt to draw a line between adolescence and adulthood? I've known some very sensible 14 year olds and moronic 30 year olds. Surely science could come up with a test to weed out all the morons from being able to vote or run for office? What does science say about the effects on human wellbeing of idiots such as Sarah Palin having political power? Could science be used to justify her (and other idiots) being barred from office?

Finally, why are you asking me those specific questions, when I have made it abundantly clear that I agree with Harris that science cannot hand us answers to every human dilemma we face?

Yes, science can’t hand us answers to moral dilemmas. It can only provide us with information to base our moral reasoning on which is in turn based on our personal moral values.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I bet Sam Harris thinks the earth revolves around the sun.

 

[Piggy]

I just read Harris' response, and I was disappointed. Though he brings up the criticisms I wanted to hear about, he goes on to do a lot of melodrama.

I think he nails it right on the head here:

One of my critics put the concern this way: “Why should human wellbeing matter to us?” Well, why should logical coherence matter to us? Why should historical veracity matter to us? Why should experimental evidence matter to us? These are profound and profoundly stupid questions.

Seriously. It matter to us because that's how we're built. In fact, saying that our wellbeing matters to us is a tautology.

 

[Piggy]

Why would we attempt to draw a line between adolescence and adulthood?

Now you're on a tangent off a tangent.

If you'd like to go back to the Bundy example in its (relevant-to-the-OP) context, that'd be fine.

But we're now two steps removed from the topic of this thread.

 

[Piggy]

It can only provide us with information to base our moral reasoning on which is in turn based on our personal moral values.

Which are grounded in your biology.

 

[Piggy]

I bet Sam Harris thinks the earth revolves around the sun.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

 

[fls]

We already have. Science restricts itself to factual claims. "Ought" statements are not factual claims. You keep confusing genuine ought-claims like "doctors ought to inform test subjects of all relevant risks" with psychological fact-claims like "Ted thinks that doctors ought to inform test subjects of all relevant risks".

Sorry to jump in here in order to steal this example...but it touches on what I am trying to understand (and still struggling to articulate in a way that avoids misunderstanding).

The distinction you are making between these two kinds of statements is clear. What is not clear is our interest in the former, given this distinction. It makes sense to ask what we ought to do in the context of societies heavily intertwined with religion, as the 'ought' obviously is still meant to have a referent. But what is our interest in the statement "doctors ought to inform test subjects of all relevant risks" if it is necessarily stripped of all referents? I see that answers to questions stripped of all referents have the advantage of a kind of universality, but what has that to do with anything?

Linda

 

[fls]

It would be helpful to me if those claiming this represents utilitarianism to answer those questions proposed by Harris.

Why should logical coherence matter to us?
Why should historical veracity matter to us?
Why should experimental evidence matter to us?

Linda

 

[Piggy]

To those who contend that concern with human wellbeing is an arbitrary standard, consider this thought experiment:

Suppose we figure out how the brain creates consciousness and we build a conscious machine. But not being the product of evolution, this machine doesn't care whether or not it continues to exist or if it is properly maintained.

To that machine, "killing" other similar machines or committing "suicide" by shutting itself down would be a task like any other. They would in fact be arbitrary actions.

But humans are the product of evolution, and evolution has built into us a very strong primal concern for our wellbeing. The evidence for this fact permeates human thoughts, actions, and cultures. And of course it could be no other way, because a conscious creature that doesn't care if it dies or suffers or slaughters its kin will not be successful in the long run.

The standard of human wellbeing is not arbitrary. It's rooted deeply in our biology.

 

[fls]

The argument goes:

Science cannot answer moral questions because I can make statements which have no real world correlates.

I want to understand how one gets from the first part to the second.

Linda

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Now you're on a tangent off a tangent.

If you'd like to go back to the Bundy example in its (relevant-to-the-OP) context, that'd be fine.

But we're now two steps removed from the topic of this thread.

My personal view is that the best you can achieve in ethics is to try to be consistent. I.e. apply the golden rule in one of its many forms*. That's why I think Bundy's behaviour was wrong.

Sam Harris appears to want a morality based on survey and/or power. I'm not sure how we could even in principle use science alone to decide between choosing act in a way which resulted in the entire population being miserable and acting in a way which resulted in 99% of the population ecstatic and 1% dead. What are the correct values (or weights if we're using numerical computation) to apply to 'misery', 'ecstasy' and 'death'? Do we take a survey and compute the average? Do we just ask Sam or other authority figure what the answer is?





*BTW, "Do to others as you'd have done to yourself" also includes "Do to others as they want done to them" if you want people to ask you before doing things to you.