Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions

[Earthborn]

I am flattered that you thought I was capable of providing a complete description of medicine in five words.

I wasn't criticising you for not providing a complete description, only that your description left out the crucial component of medicine that makes it different from human biology: the moral component. I have no problem coming up with a description of medicine in five words that is more complete than yours.

Medicine is: making people better.

Whether I ought to give antibiotics is most certainly derived from an understanding of what happens to the body when infected with pneumococcus.

Only after you have decided that a body infected with pneumococcus is something that ought not to be. Implicit in all medical interventions is a moral judgement; that something is "wrong" and needs to be corrected. And while well-being is an important consideration in this judgement, it isn't "science" that makes this judgement.

Symptoms, such as pain are amenable to much more detailed investigation (including objective measures) than "what the patient says it is".

I don't think there are many objective measures of pain used in medical practice, and that's a good thing. It shouldn't be the people administering the drugs to decide "objectively" for the patient how much pain s/he can endure. They are instead taught that "pain is whatever the patient says it is" and that pain is inherently subjective.

Similarly, comparisons are regularly made between quantity and quality of life.

Does science offer us an answer which is more important? Or even the criteria by which we can decide which is more important in which circumstance. I doubt it. The issue is relative to the circumstances and highly subjective.

There is also the well-being of those who enjoy watching red squirrels cavort more than they enjoy watching grey squirrels cavort,

I don't think that when it comes to moral issues in which one group of conscious creatures might be deliberately killed, the colour preferences of another group of conscious creatures is all that important. But that's just my opinion, I can't back it up with science or anything.

the well-being of those who value squirrel diversity, the well-being of those who are horrified at the thought of cute little furry creatures being killed no matter what color they are, the well-being of creatures which eat squirrels, etc.

Or in other words an endless list of conscious creatures whose well-being would need to be considered. Science and Harris' "well-being of conscious creatures" principle could answer a simple moral question in an infinite amount of time.

See, even you eventually got around to considering human well-being in your calculations too.

Sure, I can do that. I just don't think science provides us with a way to determine whether human well-being or bee well-being is more important in the grand scheme of things.

As I say, my answers my or may not be correct, but I think "the well-being of conscious creatures" provides a useful framework in which to discuss the questions.

Yes, a useful framework in which to discuss the questions. Just not a useful framework in trying to answer them.

No, that is a common fallacy. "You are not allowed to criticise others unless you are perfect". Clearly nonsense.

Not so clearly nonsense in science. If scientist A criticises scientist B for having made calculation errors in B's theory, scientist A cannot claim to have an obviously better theory if there are also calculation errors in it.

Similarly if you criticise someone's morality one the basis of logical inconsistency, your criticism made be valid. But it doesn't show how your morality is better unless you can show it is more consistent.

I have no option to say that I am not morally obligated to choose either. No option to skip and no planet X. :/

Yes, there are a few such questions. Probably the reason why I didn't get a perfect score; I had to answer some of the questions more or less randomly.

Logic is, of course, not the only thing that's important in life.

I'm not convinced that in morality logic is all that important at all. It seems more important to me to be able to recognise when one's moral logic breaks down and does not provide a moral answer, even to recognise that often there is no answer.

1) I want to make everyone happier!
2) Black people are inferior and should be beaten whenever possible.

One can see how belief number 2 contradicts with number 1.

Such a person would likely not see it as a contradiction. S/he may not include black people when speaking of "everyone", or may believe that black people become happier when they are beaten whenever possible.

 

[Earthborn]

Well then, please tell me where are all these morals coming from,

Why don't you explain where you think "all these morals" are coming from? They are certainly not coming from science, as Sam Harris has at best only begun establishing a "science of morality".

and why is it every Christian I know always tells me that without a so-called god, we can't have any.

Perhaps because on this issue, they are wrong. Without God, we won't have any absolute moral standards (and it is not obvious we would have them with God). As we can have art without absolute standards of beauty, we can have morality without absolute standards of morality.

 

[Paulhoff]

Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is a sense of behavioral conduct that differentiates intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and bad (or wrong). A moral code is a system of morality (for example, according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. Immorality is the active opposition to morality, while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.

Paul

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

This isn't even particularly relevant. If we are talking about understanding what positions are occupied based on how we act, and whether this moves us towards greater or lesser well-being, then of course you shouldn't care because you are not asking any questions. Harris is talking about how to answer questions, not how to derive questions. If it doesn't matter what position you occupy on the moral landscape, then it doesn't matter to know how your position would change.

If you are not asking, what should I value?, then the moral landscape is irrelevant.

I've tried three times to parse this and I just can't make head or tail of it as a response to the point I made. My best guess is that you are denying that Harris ever said we could get ought claims out of is claims, and restating the (very banal, very obvious and completely uncontested) point that science is useful in achieving goals.

Whatever you are saying, it doesn't seem to be a way of getting around the fact that as a matter of fact Harris did in fact claim to have solved the is/ought problem.

If we reduce the population of stray cats in order to reduce the incidence of congenital toxoplasmosis, isn't the distress of babies suffering from disability or death or the distress from considering the death of kittens relevant to the question? Nobody is suggesting a utility scale.

Similarly this isn't a response to what I wrote. The point is that there is no possible scientific answer to the question of how we should weigh these issues up. You cannot determine what action is morally best purely by scientifically investigating the issue.

You need to make some kind of moral value judgment to get the process of moral belief-formation off the ground.

I suspect that it comes from his background in philosophy. Books on the same kinds of subject from economists get called 'neuro-economics'. Those from doctors get called 'public health'. Etc.

This is a false equivalence, because "neuro-economics" and public health do not claim to solve the is/ought problem and we are talking about whether or not Harris can back up his claim to have solved the is/ought problem.

I agree that the description of the moral landscape does not tell you that you should ask questions of it. This is relevant to those who ask, "what should I value", just like medicine is relevant to those who ask "how can I be healthy?"

There are two claims in play here.

One is the claim that if we have pre-existing moral goals, science can help us achieve them. This is an utterly banal claim. Nobody sane has ever suggested otherwise. If that's all Harris is claiming (and it's not) he is saying nothing of any interest whatsoever.

The other is the claim that we can get moral goals from science without bringing any pre-existing moral goals to the table. This is what he explicitly claims at the start of his talk - that he has solved Hume's is/ought problem. He hasn't.

Jumping backwards and forwards between banality and error really fast does not get you to any philosophical insight. You just get a confused muddle of banality and error, which is what I believe your position consists of.

If I can suggest an exercise for you: If you respond, before you hit "submit reply" delete every sentence in your response which is any kind of variation on the claim that science is useful for finding out facts or bringing about outcomes. The reason to do this is that absolutely nobody ever, in any way, shape or form is arguing otherwise. As such no possible variation on this claim is of any relevance to the contested point,

I think if you will do that for us, trim out all of the banality leaving only the error, it will become much more obvious what you are actually saying and whether or not it makes any sense.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

Why don't you explain where you think "all these morals" are coming from? They are certainly not coming from science, as Sam Harris has at best only begun establishing a "science of morality".

Morals don't come from science. Morals come from human brains.

Science studies human brains. Science can give answers as to human brain behaviors, human brain activities and human brain outcomes (such as morals and culture)

Perhaps because on this issue, they are wrong. Without God, we won't have any absolute moral standards

God is not mandatory to have moral standards. God is just "just another cultural excuse" for behaving morally. If what you were claiming were true then there would be no such thing as moral atheists, nor immoral theists.

 

[Dani]

I forgot to answer this:

This doesn't have anything to do with whether you care whether other people are hit on the head with a hammer. It is only about which brain states you personally would associate with suffering, so it only matters whether you would have any preference between being hit or not.

Linda

Fine. Now I'd like to know the following rational steps:

1. How from an observation that most people don't like being hit on the head with a hammer, do we conclude that people care about the well-being of conscious creatures.
2. If you solved 1 (which I doubt) how do we scientifically conclude that people should care about the well-being of conscious creatures.

It doesn't look like he stands on a firm ground anyway.

 

[Earthborn]

Morals don't come from science. Morals come from human brains.

Indeed.

Science studies human brains. Science can give answers as to human brain behaviors, human brain activities and human brain outcomes (such as morals and culture)

It can describe them, but it cannot not prescribe them. Moral standards are prescriptions, not descriptions.

God is not mandatory to have moral standards.

I didn't say that it was. I am pretty sure I left a word in my argument that you kept out in your response: "absolute".

If what you were claiming were true then there would be no such thing as moral atheists, nor immoral theists.

No, it would just mean that atheists cannot claim an absolute source of their morality. Not having such an absolute source did not ever prevent anyone from behaving morally.

 

[Dani]

Despite the reticence of most scientists on the subject of good and evil, the scientific study of morality and human happiness is well underway. This research is bound to bring science into conflict with religious orthodoxy and popular opinion—just as our growing understanding of evolution has —because the divide between facts and values is illusory in at least three senses:

(1) whatever can be known about maximizing the well-being of conscious creatures—which is, I will argue, the only thing we can reasonably value—must at some point translate into facts about brains and their interaction with the world at large;

I said this before. "Maximizing the well-being of conscious creatures" is too broad to help us make a meaningful distinction in moral dilemmas where there is conflict between different conscious creatures. Anyway, apart from this objection, nobody is questioning that science can help us maximize the well-being of conscious creatures. In other words, nobody is questioning that health care works. I wonder what's the reticence of other scientists he's talking about.

(2) the very idea of “objective” knowledge (i.e., knowledge acquired through honest observation and reasoning) has values built into it, as every effort we make to discuss facts depends upon principles that we must first value (e.g., logical consistency, reliance on evidence, parsimony, etc.);

This one is particularly poor. That there are principles in science doesn't mean that his principle is scientific. No scientific principle tells us what is morally good.

(3) beliefs about facts and beliefs about values seem to arise from similar processes at the level of the brain: it appears that we have a common system for judging truth and falsity in both domains. I will discuss each of these points in greater detail below. Both in terms of what there is to know about the world and the brain mechanisms that allow us to know it, we will see that a clear boundary between facts and values simply does not exist.

There are neural correlates of different human activities. For example, face learning and long repetition priming arise from similar processes at the level of the brain. So this is not strong evidence that facts and values are the same. It only means strong evidence that our brains develop similar processes when we make moral and factual statements. The difference between the existence of capital punishment and the convenience of capital punishment isn't illusory.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Morals don't come from science. Morals come from human brains.

Science studies human brains. Science can give answers as to human brain behaviors, human brain activities and human brain outcomes (such as morals and culture)

By this argument maths comes from human brains, so instead of doing maths we should do neuroscience. Logic comes from brains, so instead of doing logic we should do neuroscience. Moral philosophy comes from human brains, so instead of doing moral philosophy we should do neuroscience.

God is not mandatory to have moral standards. God is just "just another cultural excuse" for behaving morally. If what you were claiming were true then there would be no such thing as moral atheists, nor immoral theists.

Earthborn used the phrase absolute moral standards. You have responded as if she left out that adjective.

 

[annnnoid]

I wonder how ‘maximizing the well-being of conscious creatures’ (however dubiously this morality is arrived at) translates into an adjudication of neural states?

Harris seems to be saying…’look, we’ll just, for the moment, assume well-being to be a desirable objective and just look at this…all these various areas of the brain just turn out to be so much more…’….what, exactly? Brain area ‘x’ turns out to have different fMRI characteristics in Buddhist monk than in heroin addict and somehow this magically translates into a scientific basis for morality?

How, exactly, does one adjudicate the relative ‘health’ of any particular neural correlate (especially given that inverse referencing is still very very very far from a perfect science), especially without resort to either an existing or arbitrary standard? Seems to be some kind of circular reasoning going on here.

 

[fls]

In this sense, gods are part of a body of facts.

Beliefs about gods, yes.

And how is it relevant?

It is relevant to whether the position is up or down on the moral landscape.

"Preferred", in a scientific context, must have a scientific justification.

No it doesn't. What reference point should be used when describing the motion of the planets?

There's an easy solution to this. If you don't think it's the same, don't refer to it as morality. If you want to talk about something that isn't morals, go ahead.

I've been trying to, to some extent. The word keeps getting brought up. For example, when I was talking about values and good and bad actions, you brought the word "moral" back into the discussion.

Bad analogy. Up and down are physical references.

That was the point. We form reference points which make sense within a system, but "they are not objective properties of things in the universe," when it comes to physical references. So clearly doing so is not considered unscientific a priori.

Once you have defined what the moral landscape is, that's easy. The problem is that it's just utilitarianism, and it's nothing new.

What do you think utilitarianism is? The moral landscape as described by Harris is different from the use of utility measures, so it would help if I knew what you think utilitarianism is, in order to understand why you think they are the same.

Linda

 

[Paulhoff]

How, exactly, does one adjudicate the relative ‘health’ of any particular neural correlate (especially given that inverse referencing is still very very very far from a perfect science), especially without resort to either an existing or arbitrary standard? Seems to be some kind of circular reasoning going on here.

And the people on Sunday morning TV, how exactly do they adjudicate......

By the authority of the ONE, that is how.

Seems that some of you can't get your mind around the idea that science would look at all the these things talked about here and because of that, that method could have a better outcome has to why something may be moral, and if nothing else it will always be up to review and possible change.


Paul

 

[AlBell]

Well then, please tell me where are all these morals coming from, and why is it every Christian I know always tells me that without a so-called god, we can't have any.

And if you think that isn't at the root of other's morals here just because they haven't said it yet, may I be the first to welcome you to earth.

Paul

Yawn. So for you and others here this is a Christianity bashing thread.

We have quite a body of (human thought) efforts involved to date in describing the Christian 'moral landscape'. Hmmm. Likely the main contention for y'all revolves around the Xian thinking that aberrant sexual behavior is immoral and that abortion is immoral -- leading directly to the fetal stem-cell controversy.

How that fits into ‘maximizing the well-being of conscious creatures’ is a bit unclear to me at least.

What else in your understanding of the current version of Christian -- perhaps better said Judeo-Christian -- moral landscape do you complain about?

 

[fls]

I forgot to answer this:

Fine. Now I'd like to know the following rational steps:

1. How from an observation that most people don't like being hit on the head with a hammer, do we conclude that people care about the well-being of conscious creatures.
2. If you solved 1 (which I doubt) how do we scientifically conclude that people should care about the well-being of conscious creatures.

If we look at what we have discovered about the body facts which includes the brain states of conscious creatures, we see that there are patterns to the way humans think and why they have preferences and how they indicate their preferences. For example, statements we accept as true are associated with reward, statements we accept as false are associated with negatively valenced feelings like disgust. "Hit on the head with a hammer" anchors or provides a reference point for these patterns, is all (i.e. those patterns associated with getting hit on the head with a hammer indicate what we are referring to with preferred or avoided actions).

With a more complete knowledge of this body of facts, we would also know how the well-being of conscious creatures and caring about the well-being of conscious creatures would move us on the moral landscape - in the direction taken when we avoid the hammer or not. In the same way that we know a smallpox vaccine prevents death from smallpox, we would know what actions move us in the direction of our preferences.

Linda

 

[fls]

Sorry, I forgot about this:

Uh, in where the stem cells are appropriated from. "Once you shed religious texts" is a rather lazy dismissal of everyone who thinks little fetuses deserve X rights. How has Harris' moral science declared that little fetuses don't deserve rights?

Concern over stem cell research is not about the rights of fetuses. If you are concerned about fulfilling human potential, that ship has sailed when it comes to embryonic stem cells, as the alternative is clearly not to make humans, but to throw them out or not to start in the first place. And if we were truly concerned with making humans, at the very least we would confiscate all sperm, eggs and zygotes, blastocysts, etc. and set about the business of implanting them into incubators until we ran out of women.

No, I haven't read the book. So please, quote the passage where Harris defines "conscious creatures" and "well-being" thereof. Is a crow conscious? A fetus? A cow? I certainly expect you to answer this definitively via Harris and his all-explaining book. Then, once I've seen Harris' definition of "conscious creatures" I can dismiss fetuses from that class.

Awaiting the quote of Harris' definition...

Quoting numerous paragraphs or chapters from his book will get me in trouble with copyright violations (it violates the membership agreement) and efforts by myself and others to do so on a smaller scale don't really seem to have helped much with respect to understanding.

Linda

 

[Paulhoff]

Yawn. So for you and others here this is a Christianity bashing thread.

That is the big one I have to deal with, they are the ones lying about stuff.

Paul

 

[Paulhoff]

What else in your understanding of the current version of Christian -- perhaps better said Judeo-Christian -- moral landscape do you complain about?

That is easy, moral authority from an unproven deity.

I've have been in a so-called christian nation for over 60 years, what do you want to know.

Paul

 

[bokonon]

Whatever you are saying, it doesn't seem to be a way of getting around the fact that as a matter of fact Harris did in fact claim to have solved the is/ought problem.

I don't believe he made that claim. My reading is that he considers the is/ought problem to be a trap, which he has avoided by arguing that the only thing we can reasonably value is the well-being of conscious creatures. If you think there is a more worthy basis for values, please share.

He then goes on to say that values translate into facts which can be scientifically understood, and that the most important of these facts transcend culture.

By directing our attention to the proper basis of values, he enables us to ask the proper questions: Not "what does the supreme authority require" or "what has the evolutionary process conditioned us to desire" but what is best for the well-being of conscious creatures.

You need to make some kind of moral value judgment to get the process of moral belief-formation off the ground.

Which is what he's done. Again, if you think his moral value judgment is flawed, you are free to propose a better one.

One is the claim that if we have pre-existing moral goals, science can help us achieve them. This is an utterly banal claim. Nobody sane has ever suggested otherwise. If that's all Harris is claiming (and it's not) he is saying nothing of any interest whatsoever.

I believe it is what he's saying -- the pre-existing moral goal is to facilitate the well-being of conscious creatures. If it's of no interest whatsoever to you, I expect your lack of further posts will reflect that.

The other is the claim that we can get moral goals from science without bringing any pre-existing moral goals to the table. This is what he explicitly claims at the start of his talk - that he has solved Hume's is/ought problem. He hasn't.

It's been a while since I watched that talk. I remember he said something about proposing to do more than just tell us how to get what we want, but to help us define what we should want.

Having read his book, I don't think "helping us define what we should want" extends to his pre-existing moral goal, but to correctly casting intermediate goals in light of that goal:

Should we want women to cover themselves in public, and if so, to what extent?

Should we want restrictions on experiments involving embryonic stem cells, and if so how severe?

etc.

In other words, which course of action is more consistent with facilitating the well-being of conscious creatures?

 

[bokonon]

How, exactly, does one adjudicate the relative ‘health’ of any particular neural correlate (especially given that inverse referencing is still very very very far from a perfect science), especially without resort to either an existing or arbitrary standard? Seems to be some kind of circular reasoning going on here.

Yeah, I think the "neural lightbox" angle is nothing but crap as far as identifying well-being goes, and is likely to remain crap for the foreseeable future.

We may be able to correlate "happy" and "terrified" with brain activity of one sort or another, but unless we're trying to assess the well-being of animals or people in a vegetative state, it seems there are easier and more accurate ways of getting that information.

 

[bokonon]

nobody is questioning that science can help us maximize the well-being of conscious creatures. In other words, nobody is questioning that health care works. I wonder what's the reticence of other scientists he's talking about.

It seems to be mostly the reluctance of scientists to publicly lambast religion as a load of superstitious claptrap. I disagree with Harris on this point too -- I think science can coexist quite comfortably with most of the semi-secular forms of religion we find in the developed world, and furthermore that the placebo effect and "socializing" it provides its believers is a net gain of "well-being" for conscious creatures.

I agree with most scientists, that lambasting the actively anti-science appendages of religion (creationism, primarily, but also things like the Pope's now semi-retracted anti-condom stance, and opposition to ESC research) is probably sufficient.