So...philosophy simply doesn't exist as any kind of arbiter of morality. All moral answers can (must) instead by answered by science, or something. Why then does he couch nearly all his claims in (sloppy) philosophical, rather than scientific terms?
Well, the kind of philosophy where you sit in a room and declare "all is fire" without explaining what that is supposed to mean.... well yes, that kind of philosophy is utterly useless. Philosophy has to be logically sound. Bare assertions, or worse, meaningless babble, is irrelevant regardless of who it is made by.
Finally, if other philosophers aren't relevant, apparently Sam Harris has singlehandedly crushed philosophy alltogether. I also missed that; if he did so he should certainly be up for some kind of enormous prize...isn't that often that a single person can definitively crush 4000 years of human thought.
Sam Harris has done no such thing. Sam Harris has ignored other philosophers because he felt that they hadn't much relevant to say on the subject. The fact is that the field of philosophy is plagued with endless discussions of utter non-issues, and I can understand why one would want to avoid those altogether. Now I'll admit, he'd have done well to address things like "you can't derive ought from is" more carefully in his book rather than just dismissing it altogether. But an long discussion of the underlying theory and existing research on the subject like one might do with a paper on economy? Not applicable here.
And your contention that most of philosophy is "utterly meaningless"...what? Just what do you mean by "philosophy"? Or what do you mean by "most"? For instance does the Golden Rule and it's infinite social/individual reaffirmations in morality and law count as philosophy? Why is murder bad? Come on.
Yep, that's mostly meaningless. "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself" is simply a very basic assertion for how one should live their life. It doesn't explain why one should obey this rule, or how how this is beneficial, or how one should treat situations where following this rule actually causes harm to others or yourself. Basically all it says is "empathy is good". As this doesn't really lead to any new insights, except for those who thought "empathy is bad" (although those won't be convinced otherwise, since no argument is made), I consider it "meaningless" in that regard.
Whose onus is this? Scientists/philosophers, to spend hours on refuting every obviously ridiculous claim and platform? Or for the maverick new idea-man to actually convince both of this sets due to either solid science, or solid philosophy? He hasn't provided anything solid, so I can certainly understand why he's being dismissed without a word, much like a local on the street corner spouting his own fantastical notion of how the world works.
Well obviously, it is his task to present a clear argument for why his idea works. I agree that he has mostly failed to do this, because he doesn't adress the obvious counterarguments and instead says "it doesn't matter". He should have begun by saying "This is what I am arguing in favour of" and followed with "this is why it works" and "this is why the obvious counterarguments fall apart". I agree that he has not done this. I do not agree, however, that his failure is not incorporating the current body of philosophical pondering of morality in his book. Simply presenting a solid case in and of itself would have been fine.
"Promoting well-being is the single highest moral imperative" (paraphrase). Uh, how again with scientific proof alone has he established this? Obviously no such proof can even once reference philosophy, since it's utterly meaningless. Oh, oops, and I made a mistake including the word "moral", since morality is meaningless. So I'm looking for scientific proof. Promoting well-being is the single highest scientific imperative.
Morality is not necessarily meaningless, if you define it properly it is perfectly possible to have a sensible discussion about it.
His response to your point was that he doesn't claim to have any such proof. He is simply positing an axiom, but finds that this doesn't invalidate his argument as his axiom is completely obvious. I do not agree with him on this, of course. He should have explained why he chose this axiom, and why he feels that making use of an axiom is all right.
Why does science prove that a person in bliss is more desirable than a person in misery? And so on. If Harris' proofs are actually by objective science, this and all other moral questions should be incredibly easily answered. It should be an easily demonstrable experiment or mathematical/physical proof.
As I said, Harris' argument does not go like this. As I understand it, his argument goes as follows:
a) It is obvious that virtually everyone prefers well being to be maximised than for it to be minimised.
b) It is foolish to act as if a lack of objective moral truth in this regard means that the Taliban cannot be criticized, for example. Objective moral truth is a non-issue, and so is "can't derive ought from is".
c) If we assume that maximising well-being is our objective, we can use science to do X Y Z.
Of course, he does not state it like that, but this is what I get from reading between the lines. Like I said, his argument isn't very convincingly made.
