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Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can—and should—be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.
"Values reduce to facts about the conscious experience of conscious beings". 'Cmon, Sam. Are scientists that desperate to dominate all of human life that they want to argue that science can dictate morality? One group of people already tried that. Their name begins with a "n". I'll let you figure it out.
Your overall audacity is amusing, as much as it is ignorant.
"How have we convinced ourselves that every opinion has to count"? I'm laughing because of how you believe that that is the current situation beyond a small minority of people on the planet. The majority don't feel that way. What they do about it, however, is another story.
Your reductionist theory of simplifying morality into a handful of issues, and then resolving none of them except with your opinion that "we can no more respect and tolerate vast differences in notions of human well being..." is but a sure sign that when it comes to morality you have an opinion that is as valid as the Taliban's point of view on physics.
In other words, you're merely stating the obvious without offering any solutions whatsoever as to how to get to this state of affairs that you've advocated.
And it took you twenty minutes to do it.
I'm not arguing in favor of religion by any means, whatsoever, but your arguments here reflect an intellectual immaturity on this particular subject, that is quite frankly, pathetic.
Marshall:
What I hear is simply a rehash of Kant's categorical imperative. There is objective truth and it is determined not by the outcome of a decision but by the affect of the decision on human and animal suffering. While Sam is not, you are correct, offering any solutions per se, he is presenting a viewpoint that most fail to consider in the state of our society today. We want to 'accept' all viewpoints for some reason, with no thought given to the human and animal suffering. These are questions, if I may be brave enough to speak for Sam, that we can no longer ignore in the name of religion or tolerance or political correctness. Yes?
Try making sense. Your sentences are nearly incoherent. First of all I'm not rehashing Kant as I think he was a hack and I don't need dead philosophers to think for me. And please identify this "we" that wants to accept all viewpoints. If you include yourself as one of them, well honey, I've got news for you - your numbers are woefully insignificant, to the point that the only people that care about you is, well you. That's my whole point - who is Sam talking to? If it's some pacifist elite, then fine, say so. Otherwise he should pull his head out from that warm place that he's been keeping it and take a look around. The majority of people in this country and yea, the world, have quite strong feelings about viewpoints with which they vigorously disagree and find very invalid and sometimes worth killing over and I'm not even talking about the muslim world.
So the bottom line is simply this - Sam wasted 20 minutes restating the obvious in a vain and immature attempt to look like a philosopher and a deep thinker. Simultaneously he offered no solutions, no methodologies, nothing of any substance whatsoever. Nothing. His attempt at trying to posit that science has some skill at determining morality was a elitist farce. Science, which has been used as a tool for genocide, eugenics, and mass murder and the justification for for some of the worse behavior in the history of the world, is now going to determine morality? Sam might have been speaking to a bunch of pudding head feel gooders, but I've been around the block a few times and paid attention in history class. Science is a tool. It can be used for good or for evil. Sam's pretending that it is suddenly this moral barometer, is the antic of a secular simpleton.
The fact that you're even asking me if "we" can continue to afford to continue to ignore human suffering in the name of religion or political correctness reveals your own disconnect from reality. I already know the answer to that question. I knew it as a child. The answer is if at all possible, you never ignore it for any reason.
"Science, which has been used as a tool for genocide, eugenics, and mass murder and the justification for for some of the worse behavior in the history of the world, is now going to determine morality?"
This is exactly right. Why on earth should we suppose science can provide us with answers to our deepest moral questions, when it's an infinitely pliable means for achieving presupposed ends. The ends can be human enhancement, mass murder, or the improvement of the 'human race'. It's neither inherently good nor inherently evil. Sam Harris is just as dogmatic as people who suppose that we should accept what a religious text tells us as our moral exemplar. The problem with both of these people is that they presuppose some idealized, ahistorical and social version of religion or science, rather than trying to understand how the ideas are connected to the actions of institutions and individuals in various times. They both posit some underlying core of what science is, or what their favored religion is, and pretend that they can use this to explain larger questions. In fact, they focus on those aspects of science or religion which they happen to agree with, and largely ignore all the rest.
Sam's presentation kinda reminded me of Jerry Seinfeld, and although I tried my best to keep a straight face, he did get me with one or two gags. Sadly that's about all he had to offer, yet the notion of science uncovering objective moral values should still be investigated and evaluated.
Is there such a thing as objective morality? Well I'm not too sure here, yet there must be some things, some values, derived from facts, which may be resolved objectively as grounding for common moral values. This must be true, because we already have such examples in place.
For example we may follow the philosophical "golden rule" of "do as you would be done by", or "treat others as you would like or expect to be treated yourself". This moral value seems to bridge all ancient cultures, from the ancient Greeks, to Confucius to the bible, yet where did this moral value originate and from when? Objectively we say that killing and murder is wrong, yet we then justify wars. In fact we may often see the killing of one innocent as an atrocity, yet killing a hundred innocents in a war zone as merely acceptable casualties? Is there room for objective morality here, indeed none has been offered so far?
Can one make a valued assessment or take a moral position without evaluating real facts? Well the sad thing is that we nearly always do, because we are rarely party to all the facts before making judgements. We are all guilty of making judgements and choices which can be ill-conceived and based on ignorance or in apathy to rationalise or think them through.
We make pre-judgements based on moods and emotions and lack of wisdom and knowledge, (prejudices), from our immaturity and ignorance concerning cultures, religions and even make prejudiced choices based on favourite colours. Sam was rather guilty of falling into his own traps in the video, concerning his views on Middle Eastern cultures and his own pre-judgements based on "his" view of the facts.
Yet here he does have a point, we do all set ourselves as moral masters of opinions and values, although this is not exactly a negative trait. If we do not take responsibility for our own morality and values, why should we expect others to define these moral values for us, (although we do actually rely on the moral values and teachings of our elders from their elders).
The danger lies in placing too much emphasis and trusting the sterile and cold objectivity of science to guide human values and morals. Science may well tell us that it is good and morally acceptable to act out wars and exercise vengeance, when all our religious and cultural teachings, (or philosophical teachings for non-theists), tell us otherwise. Should we trust science to dictate morals? I think not, uncover common values from facts yes, maybe, but morals should be derived from ethics and philosophies evaluated on a collective basis and from a variety of viewpoints.
All that being said..
"Emotions Key to Judging Others: New Piece to Puzzle of How Human Brain Constructs Morality from Study of Harmful Intent'
"We're slowly chipping away at the structure of morality," says Young. "We're not the first to show that emotions matter for morality, but this is a more precise look at how emotions matter."
>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100324121008.htm
Here's a few more interesting links regarding science and it's investigation concerning morality. Of course this startling discovery whilst impressive, only provides science with yet another tool to inhibit specific areas of the brain and mind, it still does not guide us to uncover the subconscious volition's concerning moralities or the motives and rewards associated with them as yet!
This discovery does imply somewhat sinister implications, and one that comes to mind instantly is the use by military forces to inhibit a soldiers morality and increase his killing efficiencies during battle, simply slip this powerful magnetic in the helmet behind the right ear, and hey presto!
Is it only me that thinks this way and in these directions? does holding your cell phone to your right ear inhibit your sense of morality? if so this may be useful for all kinds of phone communications between lawyers, bankers, politicians, your spouse, for business deals and trade negotiations, and even when pulling that occasional sickie from work?
"Moral Judgments Can Be Altered: Neuroscientists Influence People's Moral Judgments by Disrupting Specific Brain Region"
"MIT neuroscientists have shown they can influence people's moral judgments by disrupting a specific brain region -- a finding that helps reveal how the brain constructs morality."
"The researchers, led by Rebecca Saxe, MIT assistant professor of brain and cognitive sciences, report their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100329152516.htm
"Magnets 'can modify our morality"
"Scientists have shown they can change people's moral judgements by disrupting a specific area of the brain with magnetic pulses. They identified a region of the brain just above and behind the right ear which appears to control morality.The key area of the brain is a knot of nerve cells known as the right temporo-parietal junction (RTPJ.."
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8593748.stm
"The amazing brain"
"The news that scientists can switch off our morals with a magnet illustrates how much we still have to learn about our little grey cells, says Richard GrayFor example, we think of our ability to distinguish between right and wrong as a fundamental part of what makes us human, giving us a grasp of morality and philosophy. But yesterday, researchers revealed in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that they had essentially been able to switch off their subjects' moral compasses, by applying powerful magnets to a small region of the brain just behind the right ear.
"It is clear, then, that science is only just starting to scratch the surface of what the brain is capable of, and how exactly it makes us who we are. "I suspect that human potential is nowhere near its limits," says Prof Blakemore. "As we accumulate more knowledge, we will change our brains in doing so and so go on to generate yet more knowledge. There might be no limits to what the human brain can achieve."
>> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7540495/The-amazing-brain.html
"Morality Research Sheds Light on the Origins of Religion"
"The details surrounding the emergence and evolution of religion have not been clearly established and remain a source of much debate among scholars. Now, an article published by Cell Press in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences on February 8 brings a new understanding to this long-standing discussion by exploring the fascinating link between morality and religion'
""For some, there is no morality without religion, while others see religion as merely one way of expressing one's moral intuitions."
"Citing several studies in moral psychology, the authors highlight the finding that despite differences in, or even an absence of, religious backgrounds, individuals show no difference in moral judgments for unfamiliar moral dilemmas. The research suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments."
>> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208123625.htm
Special Circumstances • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Circumstances • Apr 6, 2010
It's incredible to see all the moral and cultural relativists coming out of the woodwork to bash science and rationality on a site like this.
The only question is how long do we, as a civilization, continue to accept behavior that is clearly not "nice" to put it mildly.
"It's incredible to see all the moral and cultural relativists coming out of the woodwork to bash science and rationality on a site like this."
Rationality, as far as values are concerned, would seem to call for critically inquiry. Why should science be excluded from the purview of such inquiry?
It seems to me that Sam Harris's view about science and values is as mistaken as the emotivist view of ethics. The emotivist view of ethics is that values are reducible to the feelings individuals hold, to pro- or con- attitudes. Harris's view about values is that they are reducible to what science happens to tell us. Instead, wouldn't rationality call for a critical discussion about all our values which doesn't build into itself the assumption that we should live our lives based on what science tells us? For instance, if evolution by natural selection tells us that some organisms are better fitted to reproduce, should this play a role in discussions about how we ought to act towards one another?
Clearly, Special Circumstances has a very partial view of rationality, such that there are certain domains ("science") which fail outside its purview. The problem, however, is that it's perfectly possible both NOT to be a relativist about culture or morality (e.g., we can perfectly well argue that harm and autonomy can serve as bases for ethics, and that some cultural practices (such as clitorectomy) are immoral, while at the same time turning an appropriately critical eye at the occasional uses and abuses of science. If we were to adopt a balanced view of science and recognize both its destructive uses and its beneficial uses, and also to take into account developments in academia (e.g., science and technology studies), we would see that it's deeply problematic to assume that 1) that there is such a thing as capital-S Science and 2) that it holds some special tie to rationality such that we can't even raise critical questions of it. To talk only of scientific truth, of Science and Rationality, is to presuppose an asocial, idealized image of science which doesn't in the least resemble the sciences and technologies which in fact have been a part of our world.
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