I’ve tried on this site to keep up with the ongoing discussion about Sam Harris’s new book, The Moral Landscape. In it, Sam proposes that there can be a science of morality, one engaged in discovering which actions best promote “well-being”, which Harris sees as the true object of morality. His book is well worth reading, and has sparked intense (and oftentimes vituperative) debate about ethics. I think this is good, because from time to time we really do need to revisit our notions of morality. Sam’s neo-utilitarianism is, I think, correct in many ways, although (and he admits this), it’s not perfect—especially when trying to resolve specific moral dilemmas.
Some of the book’s reviews, though, were just plain dumb, for example Deepak Chopra’s at SFGate. Most recently, Russell Blackford wrote a long, serious, and thoughtful review/critique of the book at Journal of Evolution and Technology.
Sam has pondered for a long time how to respond to his many critics. My own policy is usually to ignore bad reviews, because simply engaging them makes one look petty or fractious. As John Brockman once said in another context, “You show up, you lose.” But there are so many critiques of The Moral Landscape, and so much commonality in the criticisms, that Sam feels impelled to respond—and I agree that he should. He’s published his response, called simply “A response to critics,” at HuffPo, and if you’ve followed this debate, you should definitely read it. I find everything that Sam writes worth reading: he’s smart, thoughtful, and has a great prose style wedded to a dry humor:
What should I say, for instance, when the inimitable Deepak Chopra produces a long, poisonous, and blundering review of The Moral Landscape in The San Francisco Chronicle while demonstrating in every line that he has not read it? (His “review” is wholly based on a short Q&A I published for promotional purposes on my website.) Admittedly, there is something arresting about being called a scientific fraud and “egotistical” by Chopra. This is rather like being branded an exhibitionist by Lady Gaga.
But Harris, in his HuffPo piece, takes his serious critics seriously, concentrating on Brother Blackford. I won’t summarize what Sam says except to point to his main thesis. He writes:
It seems to me that there are three, distinct challenges put forward thus far:
1. There is no scientific basis to say that we should value well-being, our own or anyone else’s. (The Value Problem)
2. Hence, if someone does not care about well-being, or cares only about his own and not about the well-being of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science. (The Persuasion Problem)
3. Even if we did agree to grant “well-being” primacy in any discussion of morality, it is difficult or impossible to define it with rigor. It is, therefore, impossible to measure well-being scientifically. Thus, there can be no science of morality. (The Measurement Problem)
I believe all of these challenges are the product of philosophical confusion. The simplest way to see this is by analogy to medicine and the mysterious quantity we call “health.” Let’s swap “morality” for “medicine” and “well-being” for “health” and see how things look:
1. There is no scientific basis to say that we should value health, our own or anyone else’s. (The Value Problem)
2. Hence, if someone does not care about health, or cares only about his own and not about the health of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science. (The Persuasion Problem)
3. Even if we did agree to grant “health” primacy in any discussion of medicine, it is difficult or impossible to define it with rigor. It is, therefore, impossible to measure health scientifically. Thus, there can be no science of medicine. (The Measurement Problem)
Sam is really good at clarifying his ideas by making analogies with situations familiar to all of us.
Sadly, Josh Rosenau, who’s never met a Gnu Atheist he likes, snidely dismisses Sam’s piece on his website. Here’s the entirety of Rosenau’s post:
January 29, 2011
Harris . . .treed
Category: Culture Wars • Policy and Politics
Shorter Sam Harris: A Response to Critics:
People are saying mean things about my bad book and I don’t know what to say.[6600 words later]
If I pretend morality is just like health, then all the objections are wrong.
Good God! First of all, Harris is not “treed”: whether or not you agree with him, he defends his points ably, with no sign of desperation. Nor is it obvious that he’s lost this debate. Second, Sam’s analogy with health, as you’ll see, is a good one, and makes you think. Finally, it’s ironic that Rosenau, who’s famous for writing tediously long posts that are deeply muddled, faults Harris for writing what is after all a concise response to his many critics. And at least Sam’s writing has a quality that’s notably missing in Rosenau’s: humor.
Has Biologos passed the torch to Rosenau ?
Or maybe he found a paycheck from Templeton in is morning mail.
I found the analogy to health quite compelling.
Sam Harris also points out that other areas of human endeavour make presuppositions, for example in science there is a desire to understand the universe and a respect for evidence and logical coherence. Scientists need not apologize for presupposing the value of evidence and Sam Harris claims the same footing for his thesis.
I have not seen a response to this argument by his critics.
Actually, various people have pointed out that, to the extent that Harris cedes the notion of grounding ethics in science, he’s not really saying anything new. The idea that science can tell us how to optimize well-being is nothing new — indeed, medicine is a good example of that, and the same principles have been applied to animal welfare for ages.
I’d argue that the only reason that Harris’ book has received so much attention is precisely because of the implicit promise that it would solve the three problems he outlines. If it doesn’t, what really is its unique contribution?
You could just as easily say that since the notion of health is grounded in science, the concept of health adds nothing new. This is not the case.
Nothing that I read in Sam Harris’ book promised to solve any problems, just to provide a mechanism for solving problems in human morality.
I found it compelling that he used health as a basis for his argument. Health is, I think, reasonably analogous and easier for people to relate to than ‘morality.’ Simply, in my mind only perhaps, because morality has been so screwed by its coupling with religion and it’s bronze-age barbarisms…
I also enjoyed his talk about humor. Because that is what I use as an example when I face scientific-process Luddites. Science can tell us about the mind, including such esoteric concepts as ‘humor.’
And while, if history is any guide, you’ll always get sloppy thinkers when it comes to the science of the mind, to give up is to surrender to the irrationality and the ‘god of the gaps.’
I’m slightly mystified why in these debates there is scarcely any mention of John Stuart Mill, who a mere 140 years ago wrote pretty much the same thing as Sam has—including the analogy to ‘health’: “Questions of ultimate ends are not amenable to direct proof. … The medical art is proved to be good, by its conducing to health; but how is it possible to prove that health is good?”
And touching on a larger point: “The subject is within the cognizance of the rational faculty; … Considerations may be presented capable of determining the intellect either to give or withhold its assent to the doctrine; and this is equivalent to proof.” (All quotes from the second-to-last paragraph in Chapter I of Utilitarianism)
Well it might be partly because there are so many philosophers one could mention. That’s one reason I’m not crazy about the book: Harris presents it as if it’s new and different, when it’s not at all.
If only he’d presented it as “here is some of the latest brain research that shows yet more of how we can understand well-being” and then tied that into the existing on-going conversation about morality. That would have been a better book, and it would have been better received.
There is certainly a large segment of the mainstream population for whom this is a completely foreign or totally unnacceptable idea. See people like Deepak Chopra and the many others who think Harris’ system puts us on the slippery slope to genocide.
I don’t even think those responses rise to the level of being wrong. Whereas valid criticisms at least accept certain premises about what morality is, and getting people to publicly accept those premises is progress itself.
I didn’t take Harris to be presenting his thesis as being completely new, but I did take him to be presenting it as controversial. Which it is. Most religionists, including the educated ones, deny that science can say anything about morality, and most secularists deny the existence of moral truth altogether. That’s why he wrote the book, reviving an old debate and pushing it further.
To be fair, this lack of novelty is the same criticism levelled at the New Atheists. He is raising issues and making an argument that is timely, valuable and cogent which is enough for me.
I think he forgot an additional point: 4. He has not provided any moral truth determined by science (The No Evidence For His Claims Problem)
No need to. Harris is arguing that well-being as a measure can be used to determine a possible best outcome. Not the existence of moral truths.
The title of the book is “The Moral Landscape: How science can determine human values.”
I think he should determine some human values using science just to support his title with a little evidence, specially since aparently he even manages to explain “how” it can be done.
But if you say he doesn’t need to support his claims with evidence, that’s okay.
Values are not “moral truths”. They are our best approximation, or we think they are.
He hasn’t done either of those so the point stands.
Values are not “moral truths”, they are what we derive moral truths from. Science can help us derive moral truths from values but it cannot derive values.
Values are an existential choice. This is where Sartre baulked and hit the brick wall. He promised us an Ethics instead he gave us the Critique of Dialectical Reason.
What claims, Jose? I asked you this on another thread and you didn’t answer. By the way, have you read the book?
He gives examples of how science can determine human values in the book and elsewhere. If the name of the book was “The human values science has determined” you might have a point.
I did answer. You go to the other thread and check it out.
Imagine Darwin saying ‘Okay I didn’t bother to find any evidence of common descent or natural selection but hey, at least I suggested how the whole thing could have happened, that surely must be good enough for a book, no?’ Silly, right?
You gotta walk the walk.
I followed the link. And I saw my question there with no replies to it. And your analogy doesn’t make any sense. Harris is not forwarding a scientific theory, so it is absurd to demand evidence for one. Let’s try this one more time. What claims, specifically, does Harris not provide evidence for?
Hey, the link goes to a comment I posted specifying his specific claim (that science can determine human values and that he says how to do it). Then you asked what I say he claims. Well there you go. It’s all in that comment I linked.
He doesn’t provide human values determined by science. Isn’t it a bad sign when you catch the first evidenceless claim even without having to open the book?
You’re dismissed.
Have you read any of the book beyond the ‘contentious’ subtitle?
So he lied right in the title? That’s nice.
I’ll take that as a ‘no’.
Thank you for forwarding the intellectual discourse with your scathing critique of Sam Harris’ subtitle.
Um the first chapter of the book is titled ‘Moral Truth’ and is arguing for the existence of moral truths. The ‘best outcome’ in terms of well-being would be such a moral truth.
Something that bothers me about Sam’s critics is that they seem to display a visceral distaste for applying science to morality. Their main reasoning can be summed up as “It’s too hard for science!”. However, they don’t seem to criticize religious leaders and philosophers that have taken the same task but are shooting from the hip and making stuff up as they go along.
One specific criticism is how do you measure relative well-being when there is a disparity in the number of individuals or the perceived well-being received. Seems to me this is the kind of analysis that is ripe for analysis and discussion. Clearly the well-being of a psycopath doesn’t outweigh that of her victims, or stoning of one man by a mob should not be ever justified. Can’t we start there and systematically deal with intermediate scenarios? Why can’t science at least illuminate the discussion.
The critics are simply suffering from Frankenstein complex.
The fact that Harris has struck such a nerve is perhaps a sign that there is some merit to his argument, even if it was anticipated by John Stuart Mill and others. The ‘visceral distaste’ that you mention might arise because his critics worry that his argument is NOT so easily dismissed. To me, he has raised an issue that is worth revisiting.
I recall sitting in a lunch meeting of academics, shortly after the publication of The God Delusion. They all nodded in a self-satisfied way when someone suggested that Dawkins misrepresented religion or didn’t really understand it. Yet no one felt the need to explained why. I suspected that I may have been the only person in the room to have read the book!
…or perhaps that some think he is implying far more than he can actually demonstrate, a point that is made clear by his retreat from the hard problems outlined above. Using science to determine well-being isn’t new, and the only reason that Harris grabbed attention is because of the implicit promise to provide an objective grounding for morality. If that is out the window, then, as Sam Johnson once wrote:
“Your book is both interesting and original. Unfortunately, the part that is original is not interesting and the part that is interesting is not original.”
Retreat? Give me a break.
Wait a minute. If well-being is the point of morality, then what is not objective about it? It is removing the subjectivity from morality and defining it objectively, scientifically, as we do for health.
We still have people who claim praying, for example, is healthy, but they can be shown to be wrong about that using science. Similarly, we have people who claim that smoking is not unhealthy, and that has been shown to be false using science.
I am seeing it go something like this: what is healthy is good for your health, what is moral is good for your well-being. Both sort of vague, fuzzy terms, but both amenable to science and applicable to individuals as well as populations.
It is difficult to think of any group less qualified than religious leaders to provide moral guidance.
To cede the authority for moral issues to the desert dogma crowd borders on irresponsible.
It’s not “visceral.” It’s really not.
Over at “Cosmic Variance” Sean Carroll has something to say about the Health-Morality analogy: “Morality, Health, and Science”
I laughed over that blog post. As a veterinarian my patients have no concept of health except for the parameters I measure and my determination of their health. This demonstrates that health, at least in veterinary medicine is a reasonablt objective measure.
Ask any physician (I’m married to one) and they’ll tell you how sometimes the idea of “health” of some of their patients interferes with treatment and best possible outcome that expertise dictates.
Yes, I think Sean has offered a false dichotomy. He appears to be claiming that science can only be descriptive, not prescriptive.
That would eliminate ‘evidence-based medicine’ from the scientific arena.
I don’t think he quite thought the entire thing through. But that’s what happens when you’re in a discipline that can tell you how to create an atomic explosion, but not when to use one.
I believe the expression is, “to a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
How so? We do “evidence-based” animal husbandry where the goal isn’t the health of the animal but instead to produce some other outcome (such as veal calves, or geese raised to produce liver pate). We do “evidence-based” studies of human medical practices whose goals are not health but cosmetic outcomes (such as botox and plastic surgery). What we value isn’t given to us by the evidence, and what we count as “medicine” in the broad sense is largely a matter of our values, and not objective science.
“and what we count as “medicine” in the broad sense is largely a matter of our values, and not objective science.”
That’s where you’re wrong, I believe. What counts as medicine is largely what works (as determined by objective science). Where our values determine what counts as medicine is in the realm of pseudoscience. Think getting your chakras aligned.
What works to do what? Is elective cosmetic surgery medicine? Is using steroids to bulk up medicine? Are limb-lengthening procedures for those with shorter-than-average legs medicine? Is chemical castration of sex offenders medicine?
“Medicine” (and “health”) is a matter of what we value — these are not purely objective qualities.
What works to promote physical health.
Elective cosmetic surgery is clearly outside of ‘medicine’. If you were using steriods for a medical purpose it would be medicine. Is using pot to get high medicine? These are profoundly stupid questions.
And no, medicine and health are not mainly about what we value. The steroid user can be objectively wrong that he is more healthy than another person. Regardless of whether he values his roid-produced condition as “healthy”.
And how is that definition derived from objective evidence? Why is “medicine” that? Are you defining it that way by fiat? Are plastic surgeons not practicing medicine?
Who said that the definition is derived from objective evidence?
Physical health is something we can speak sensibly and objectively about. We have given the area of human inquiry concerned with physical health the name “medicine”. I don’t see how physical health is a matter of what we value, except in the trivial sense of valuing being alive and being generally free from pain.
Surgery is not medicine, that’s why the degree for doctors where I live is MBBS, bachelor of medicine, and bachelor of surgery! They are different. They’re relationship to health in another question.
How so? We do “evidence-based” animal husbandry where the goal isn’t the health of the animal but instead to produce some other outcome (such as veal calves, or geese raised to produce liver pate).
And as long as you don’t claim that its about health there is no confusion. In fact, the very fact that it can be knowingly differentiated from health proves the point just the same.
All you’ve shown is there are evidence based things other than health (fair enough). But not that health isn’t evidence based.
It appears as if you’re saying that it’s obvious that cosmetic surgery is not focused on the health of the patient. According to whom? By what standard?
If you asked the patients, I’d bet that many of them will say something different. No it doesn’t extend their life but I think this is what Harris is getting at with his reply – these simplistic measurements are not how we we view health. If a person needs surgery to add 10 inches to his jump, it won’t help his lifespan but for some people it will help their quality of life which is a facet of health. Why isn’t this the same with cosmetic surgery?
Rosenau: Friggin’ analogies, how do they work?
Rosenau is looking more foolish by the week.
There’s no question we value health, and we don’t need science to validate that value. Same for morality: the desire to flourish in association with our conspecifics and other species, however we define flourishing, isn’t something science demands of us; it’s just the sorts of creatures we are.
The question Harris hopes to settle by appealing to science is what definition of health we *should* accept; what set of values we *should* adopt. But science is only in the business of describing, as natural phenomena, the facts involved in various conceptions of health and values. It can’t decide the normative questions of what counts as optimum health (steroid enhanced muscles vs. Jack Lalanne suppleness) or what counts as a moral society (equal rights for all vs. a theocratic hierarchy), since scientific descriptions are value-neutral, or at least aspire to be.
Normative questions only get answered by appeal to values themselves. If I want to convince you that Jack Lalanne was right about health, I’ll appeal to that part of you that *already* values balance above brawn. If I want to convince you that liberal, not conservative, morality is right, I’ll appeal to your *already existing* intuitions that there are no grounds for withholding equal rights to out-groups, not your *already existing* tribal inclinations. All this is a matter of political and personal persuasion, not science.
That said, taking a science-based, naturalistic view of ourselves does in fact lead us to a more progressive, liberal set of values, precisely because we’re not in thrall to those religious and non-scientific (e.g., white supremacist) conceptions of proper social hierarchies that place men above women, straights above gays, whites above non-whites, believers above non-believers, etc., etc. There are no scientific grounds for denying anyone equal human rights. So in that sense, yes, science can help determine human values, but not because it can prescribe what’s morally good.
“(steroid enhanced muscles vs. Jack Lalanne suppleness)”
There could very well be many subjective reasons why one would be more healthy than the other. Off the top of my head steroids have many deleterious side effects.
You could always decide to not follow or believe a subjective recommendation but the point is to obtain the objective recommendation in lieu of your “*already existing* tribal recommendations”.
Science describes the consequences of using steroids, but doesn’t judge those consequences to be deleterious. That judgment is a function of your values.
There is no objective recommendation coming from science about what your values should be. That’s to say the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences won’t be issuing anything analogous to the Ten Commandments, although they could be doing a better job of making the case for science itself, http://www.naturalism.org/epistemology.htm#rivals
Liver damage, increased cholesterol, high blood pressure, prostate enlargement and immunosuppression are all objective deleterious side effects of steroids. You may choose to continue using steroids in the face of its side effects but that doesn’t mean they are not deleterious.
They’re only deleterious on the assumption that I care about maintaining the functions that are being compromised. Science doesn’t tell me I should care about that. I care because wanting those functions intact is part of my basic motivational endowment. That desire is prior to and independent of what science describes as the facts of the matter.
Precisely. What is your point? You’re not arguing here against any view that Harris holds.
The question Harris hopes to settle by appealing to science is what definition of health we *should* accept; what set of values we *should* adopt. But science is only in the business of describing, as natural phenomena, the facts involved in various conceptions of health and values. It can’t decide the normative questions of what counts as optimum health (steroid enhanced muscles vs. Jack Lalanne suppleness) or what counts as a moral society (equal rights for all vs. a theocratic hierarchy), since scientific descriptions are value-neutral, or at least aspire to be.
Tom, based on Harris’ reply outlined above, it seem as if he is explicitly disavowing that project — he seems to be saying that we just take the values as a given.
If that’s true, it’s not clear to me what is particularly new or interesting about his work. Sure, science can potentially tell us how to maximize certain things we value, including well-being, but we’ve known that since, well, forever.
I would answer differently. This is probably a semantic quibble but anyway…
They’re deleterious whether you care or not. To say that tissue damage and physiologic changes that are hostile to life are only deleterious if you have certain desires is nonsense. Science may not tell you you should care about liver function, but whether want to have a functioning liver or not, steroid use is harmful to that liver.
Exactly.
We can say that steroids have harmful side-effects but it becomes a lot trickier to decide whether they are worth the benefits. That’s the key aspect of Harris’s analogy.
And you said epistemology! Whiskey shot!
In response to your second paragraph:
The science of medicine isn’t only in the business of describing. There are right and wrong ways to respond to high blood-pressure (provided you want to live). It is scientifically true to say that you shouldn’t take pseudoephedrine if have the condition.
Likewise, there are surely right and wrong ways to respond to (or prevent) family dysfunctions.
“It can’t decide the normative questions of what counts as optimum health (steroid enhanced muscles vs. Jack Lalanne suppleness) or what counts as a moral society (equal rights for all vs. a theocratic hierarchy)”
Insofar as “moral” makes reference to the well-being of people it absolutely can. And “moral” does. It seems quite clear that by and large the systems of value and morality throughout the world are purposed toward promoting ‘the good life’, ‘flourishing’, or “well-being”. And one crucial point that Harris makes is that when we talk about ‘flourishing’, there is a there there. It is not all arbitrary. All brain states are not equivalent. We really can speak sensibly (indeed, scientifically) about it. People can be mistaken or ignorant about what is it and how to achieve it.
And though medicine may have difficulty saying what constitutes “optimum” health that doesn’t suggest in the least that it has nothing to say about health. That it can make no distinction between health and dishealth. You seem to be saying as much however, when it comes to the health of the mind.
I agree that conceptions of human flourishing aren’t arbitrary, since we largely share a genetically transmitted core of human needs, desires, fears and basic moral intuitions. But what Harris thinks science can do in understanding these natural phenomena is arbitrate the variation in values, in conceptions of human flourishing, that gets generated by different cultures and worldviews.
But science only describes and predicts, it doesn’t prescribe. *Given* the desire to prevent high blood pressure, modern medicine offers excellent resources. *Given* a particular conception of human flourishing, science can help bring about the society we want. But it doesn’t have the prescriptive resources to tell us what we *should* want.
Shoulds only derive from values based in human motives as shaped by biology and culture; they don’t and can’t derive from objective, evidence-based descriptions of states of affairs, which is what science offers.
Why can’t science arbitrate the variation in values and conceptions of flourishing? Science can arbitrate variation in “medical” practices and conceptions of health, no?
What are values purposed toward? If they are purposed toward ‘the good life’, I don’t understand how there are not right and wrong things to value.
If it were found that as the level of compassion goes up in a society (all other things being equal), the people of the society experience a greater amount of, or depth of “well-being” would that not tell us that we ought to value compassion?
But what if some people’s values are purposed towards things like “duty” and “honour” and “respect” — how does science tell them that they are wrong?
See I think it is a mistake to think that such values don’t reduce to a concern for well-being in the end. A longer conversation of course…
But even if some peoples values didn’t we might be perfectly justified in dismissing them on the basis of them being indefensible. Like we do with Scientific Creationists.
This is just circular — why are they “indefensible”? Because they do not promote human well-being? How does science get us out of this loop?
Actually, I said I think those values boil down to a concern for well-being. But if you’re going to contrast them, what sense would they make if they didn’t relate to well-being? They would be valuing something that has no consequence for the experience of anyone. Does that make sense to you?
Yes, they might be indefensible in that they don’t make any sense. What’s science got to do with it?
Why do “respect”, “honour”, and “duty” make any less sense than “well-being”?
Science can arbitrate variations in medical practice as better or worse since the criterion for good medical practice is to achieve particular outcomes. But those outcomes are not set by science, but rather by our *valuing* the outcomes.
Values aren’t purposed toward anything, they are what set our purposes, for instance the purpose of achieving a good life as defined by our values.
If we agree about what counts as well-being and the good life, and we find compassion leads to it, then we’ll agree that we should become more compassionate. But science can’t compel agreement about what counts as optimum well-being, since it only *describes* the alternatives as set by biology and culture.
Consensus on human flourishing, for instance that it should include universal human rights whatever one’s status, is a matter of appealing to values that already exist in human hearts and minds. Becoming more scientific in our worldview can help in this project by undercutting allegiance to regressive social arrangements coming out of faith and other non-scientific claims about reality. But science itself simply isn’t in a position to tell us that universal human rights is what we should value most.
First I want to deal with what you say about what values are purposed toward. I agree that values can set our purposes. But when you say that values aren’t purposed toward anything, that just doesn’t compute. They seem obviously purposed toward ‘the good life’. Would you then say that parents who value a good education for their children don’t have a desire for well-being for their children and themselves behind such a value?
“…But those outcomes are not set by science, but rather by our *valuing* the outcomes.”
I’m not sure that’s true. I think many outcomes are set by science, whether we value them or not. Take obesity. To be in the range of healthy weight you currently must have a BMI of <25, I believe. A lot of people would seem not to value that outcome, but they are objectively less healthy for not meeting it. What value is involved in reaching that criterion beyond the "value" of wanting to stay alive and be generally free from pain? It seems an extremely trivial sense in which our "values" determine the outcome standards.
Science prescribes all the time. I am studying nutrition as we speak and I can assure you that coming to some conclusion about what ‘good nutrition’ is is one of its core preoccupations. It isn’t easy, ‘mistakes have been made’ but it can be done and the basis for doing it is a definition of good health. Generally that is decided by a combination of longevity and ability as apposed to disability. Can you do all the things a human being needs to do? Get dressed, cook dinner, hold down a job etc. It’s really not that hard to decide on what contitutes well-being, the US constition made a stab at it too as I recall.
Regrettably, there are competing conceptions of well-being very much opposed to liberal democratic values which seek to marginalize women, minorities, and other out-groups. Science doesn’t have any resources by which to prove these conceptions are mistaken. But they *are* deeply mistaken from the perspective of liberal democratic values, which gain support by virtue of giving more people more rights. Science doesn’t prescribe or mandate any of this.
Science only prescribes once you have goals, and then it prescribes *how* to go about achieving them, not what goals you should want.
Sure you can. There has been much evidence gathered showing that empowering women improves societal well-being, for instance. Any “conception of well-being” that argues differently will have to dispute those data.
You’ve begged the question of what counts as well-being, which is what Harris is saying can be decided by science. The Taliban’s conception of well-being, human flourishing and a moral society doesn’t involve empowering women. How does science show they are wrong about that?
By looking at several metrics that correlate with better individual and societal outcomes, such as birthrate, childbirth mortality, educational attainment,life expectancy, gross domestic product, average income…any number of health-related and economic measures that have always been used to evaluate the well-being of societies.
But the Taliban don’t particularly care about any of those things, and science can’t provide an argument that they should. The argument that the outcomes you cite are better than keeping women subjugated can only come from the perspective of having the values that you and I already share.
You sure have a habit of leaving women out of the “we” and “they” you describe. Do you think the women living under the Taliban who die in childbirth, who “marry” as children, who develop fistulas through childbirth and are ostracized for them, who are shunned (or worse) for having been raped, or are maimed or killed through “honor” retribution, who can be severely beaten for wearing the wrong kind of shoes under their burkas–do you think they are all hunky dory with the status quo?
Of course not, but the point is that the male-dominated Taliban conception of a moral society makes women, minorities and non-believers second-class citizens. Nothing that *science* says can prove them wrong about that.
You’re appealing, quite properly, to our *values* in opposing the Taliban, not science. And those values, obviously, give women a central role in deciding how they should be treated, so I’m not leaving them out, http://www.naturalism.org/normativity.htm
Tom,
Harris deals with this specifically in his reply to his critics, both in terms of persuasion as well as this “different values” argument. What about his argument do you not find persuasive?
Tyro, I don’t find it persuasive since Harris has yet to demonstrate how *science* validates one conception of human flourishing or well-being or morality over another. I take it that was the aim of his book, given the subtitle – “how science can determine human values.”
Science explains, describes and predicts, it doesn’t prescribe what we should want. But of course once we have our shoulds in place, science is a great tool to realize them, and it’s at that point it becomes prescriptive: it prescribes the best means towards our ends.
Tom,
In your comments, I think you raised two points: how to distinguish between one version of well-being from another; and how to persuade people of this conclusion.
For the former, Harris says repeatedly in his book and in the HuffPo article quoted that morality is a landscape and has many peaks. Indeed, he goes to some length to show why there are peaks and gives examples using the health analogy.
For the latter persuasion argument, he discusses this directly in his reply to critics.
When you say that Harris hasn’t made these arguments it’s simply incorrect as he has made them. Several times. If you aren’t persuaded then please explain why but to just insist that he hasn’t put forward an argument is just wrong, especially when there are clear links in the blog post. And if you haven’t read his book it’s absurd for you to then say what arguments he has or has not made!
Tyro,
The question Harris claims science can decide isn’t between rather similar peaks of well-being as judged by us Western liberals, all of which are more or less good by our lights, but between very different conceptions of human flourishing, well-being and just social arrangements, for instance between ours and the Taliban’s. Having read his book and the Huffpost reply, I don’t see him cite *science* in his arguments that ours is better, rather he appeals to *human experience*: “If we each could sample all possible states of human experience, and were endowed with perfect memories so that we could sort our preferences, I think we would converge on similar judgments of what is good, what is better, and what is best.” And: “…the extremes of human experience throw ample light: are the Taliban wrong about morality? Yes. *Really* wrong? Yes.” He immediately goes on to say: “Can we say so from the perspective of science? Yes.” But I don’t see where he’s shown this. Instead, he only talks about how science can *understand* morality and the mind, which is not the same thing as science prescribing what’s right.
In fact he admits that values have to be presupposed, *not* derived from science, for instance when he says “Our ‘oughts’ are built right into the foundations. We need not apologize for pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps in this way.” This undercuts his whole project, seems to me. But if you can point me to where he shows how science determines human values and moral norms – how we should treat one another, what society ought to look like, what we should deem most important in life – please do. Otherwise it seems to me he hasn’t delivered on what he claims to have proved.
Btw, I very much recommend Harris’s debunking of contra-causal free will in the book, something that hardly anyone else in the atheist community has taken on. I hope others will follow suit since the challenge to the “little god” of free will has very important progressive implications, see http://www.naturalism.org/roundup.htm#Harris
Brilliantly put, as usual. But I want to pick at one thing:
Normative questions only get answered by appeal to values themselves
I think this is exactly what Harris does. A major premise of his book is that there is less moral controversy than we would like to believe. And his introduction concedes that these intuitive-level values (e.g. for not being tortured) have to make sense to you or else you won’t understand the rest of his book.
Almost everyone agrees torturing innocents and killing babies is wrong, but of course it isn’t science that determines that, it’s our globally shared human nature.
Harris argues that science can adjudicate the contest of values between us and the Taliban, so I don’t think he’s denying the existence of significant moral controversy. But he doesn’t show how science – a descriptive, explanatory discipline – can take sides in the contest. And that’s the aim of his book: to explain how science can forge a consensus in the face of deep disagreements about what counts as human flourishing in a morally good society. Science just ain’t in that business.
Some of these ideas may have been expressed by others in the past, but I think Harris has expressed them better and more straightforward than anyone. It’s been said of his writing many times before, and this response from him is a great example of it. He’s cutting right to the heart of the matter with the sharpest knife and no anesthetic for the religious that cling to morality as the last gap god lives in.
How so? If he grants that there is no scientific basis to value well-being, how is that an objective challenge to the religious?
If you really think Harris has expressed them better and more straightforwardly than anyone, you would benefit from reading some more.
This from someone who probably hasn’t read TML as she thinks the emotion of empathy is incompatible with Harris’ notion of well-being.
Do you have a link for a post where Ophelia has said that? I’ve been wondering what the heart of her objections are, but obviously have trouble keeping up. I guess I should go to B&W and search…
What? Where does that come from?
And I have read the book, as a matter of fact; I reviewed it for the next issue of The Philosophers’ Magazine. (I have a policy of reading books before reviewing them.)
link
Good grief, Mr B – all I said was “not really” and that that was one of the problems I have with the book. You take that to translate to my thinking “the emotion of empathy is incompatible with Harris’ notion of well-being”? It doesn’t!
And you need to withdraw the accusation that I haven’t read the book. You’re a rude bugger.
The fact that you said “not really” in response to that comment by Diane G. seemed to imply that you did. It made good sense in the context of that comment thread. My suggestion that you had not read the book was born of that (apparently) mistaken belief.
Well, I guess I took the same meaning as Nick B. did from your comment, Ophelia.
Is your review available online?
Oh well that’s all right then! You disliked something I said so you felt quite justified in announcing that I probably hadn’t read the book; now I understand.
As I said, you’re a rude bugger.
Diane, no, not yet; the issue isn’t out yet.
It’s not that I disliked something you said, it’s that what I understood you to be saying was not compatible at all with having read Sam Harris. But maybe I was a little rude. So, I’m sorry.
Ok, thanks.
Well, I searched for Sam Harris and empathy at B&W, and got just one post. This one.
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2010/its-a-contingent-fact-that-we-care/
It’s from last April, and I hadn’t read the book when I wrote it, but then I didn’t say I had – I said I hadn’t. I was commenting on an article Sam had posted in advance of publication.
The post is all about empathy, but it doesn’t say that “the emotion of empathy is incompatible with Harris’ notion of well-being.” That’s not the point at all. Here’s the last thing I said on the subject:
That’s not at all the same as “the emotion of empathy is incompatible with Harris’ notion of well-being.”
So; I have in fact read the book, and I didn’t say what you claim I think. A retraction would be in order, and possibly even an apology.
Thanks, Ophelia.
Aha. I just knew it. I quote from Sam Harris’ Huffpo article:
“Several years have passed, and… …I support the outright murder of hundreds of millions of innocent people.”
What a giveaway.
*dodges rotten things*, *runs* etc.
I was so enjoying a lecture by Chris Hedges yesterday, too. I think I know (friend of friend) who was getting him around Bosnia and arranging interviews. I know for sure here pretty soon. Knowing that Hedges can’t help but spread lies about Harris is disheartening.
The analogy to health might look compelling on first glance, if you’re not looking very closely. Harris objects to:
“1. There is no scientific basis to say that we should value health, our own or anyone else’s.”
Indeed, there is no scientific basis for making a moral judgment about whether or not somebody shouled value their own health, or anyone else’s. Of course we do, often, value our health, and so we do, often, value the advice of medical doctors. But science does not provide any basis for that concern. So (1) seems true enough. Why does Harris reject it?
He also laughs at:
“2. Hence, if someone does not care about health, or cares only about his own and not about the health of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science.”
That seems to follow from (1), so, again, why does Harris reject it?
Actually, like Harris, I also reject
“3. Even if we did agree to grant “health” primacy in any discussion of medicine, it is difficult or impossible to define it with rigor. It is, therefore, impossible to measure health scientifically. Thus, there can be no science of medicine.”
However, I don’t reject it for the reason Harris does. I reject it because we do have a scientifically rigorous definition of “health”: it is the proper functioning of bodily organs. If your heart is functioning properly, it is a healthy heart. Same for your lungs, your skin, and so on. Of course, what is “proper” is subject to debate, and there is room for much scientific development in our understanding of the functionality of our organs. But we have little trouble developing working scientific definitions of “proper functionality” for our various organs, and no matter how much those definitions change, we will not have changed our understanding of “health.” So, (3) is false.
Harris wants to reject (3) on the grounds that we don’t need a working scientific definition of “health” at all, but that is just absurd. Of course we need a scientifically respectable working definition of “health”–if we didn’t have one, the field of medicine would be a joke.
So why are people impressed by the analogy to health? How can there be any doubt that Harris’ arguments are dead in the water?
I don’t understand you. Harris doesn’t reject (1) and (2). Where did you get that idea? What he does is point out that if those objections aren’t a problem for medicine then they shouldn’t be for a science of well-being. You haven’t answered that at all. Here’s your chance.
And while I think the definition you give for “health” is a good one, I think you go too far in saying that a working definition of ‘health’ is necessary and that without it medicine would be a joke. How far back in history does your definition go? Go back to the earliest “medical” practices. Was there a “scientifically respectable” working definition of ‘health’? It simply isn’t logical to say that without such a definition there is nothing to study.
Here’s my chance? Thank you for such a condescending invitation to discourse.
I don’t doubt that you don’t understand me. I don’t think you have understood Harris’ critics, either, if you think that all Harris needs to do is to show that (1) and (2) do not pose a problem for a science of well-being. You see, the problems Harris is trying to address here are the Value and Persuasion problems, and these are not problems about the viability of a science of well-being. These objections have nothing to do with whether or not there could be a science of well-being, or whether or not we should have one. These objections are about whether or not a science of well-being would be morally binding–whether or not any scientific conclusions about well-being are in any sense conclusions about Right and Wrong.
Perhaps Harris does accept (1) and (2). That means that he accepts (1a) and (2a):
(1a) There is no scientific basis to say that we should value well-being, our own or anyone else’s.
(2a) Hence, if someone does not care about well-being, or cares only about his own and not about the well-being of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science.
If Harris accepts these points, then he should also accept that science cannot tell us what is right and wrong. Science cannot tell us what we should value. So Harris’ main argument–that the fact/value distinction is wrong, and that scientific conclusions are moral truths–is not something Harris actually endorses. He does not suppose that we can have a scientific morality. He only supposes that we can have a science of well-being. Is that it?
What Harris actually says, in response to (1), is this: “Is it unscientific to value health and seek to maximize it within the context of medicine? No.”
He seems to think that (1) suggests that it is unscientific to value health, and this is a position he categorically rejects. So it looks like he rejects (1), but only because he has misunderstood it. (1) does not say it is unscientific to value well-being. It only says that that our values concerning health are not determined by science. Similarly, science does not provided a basis for our values concerning well-being. This is the objection, and Harris has not met it. He has not even demonstrated an ability to recognize it.
“If Harris accepts these points, then he should also accept that science cannot tell us what is right and wrong. Science cannot tell us what we should value.”
If questions of right and wrong are questions about the well-being of conscious creatures then how could science not tell us right from wrong? This is of course granting that a concern for well-being (or a desire to stay alive and be relatively free of pain) is not a scientific discovery.
“Similarly, science does not provided a basis for our values concerning well-being. This is the objection, and Harris has not met it. He has not even demonstrated an ability to recognize it.”
Of course he has recognized it and met it. Did you read his response? His main point seems to be that “ought” being built in to the foundation of a normative science of morality shouldn’t be a problem if it isn’t for medicine or science generally. What do you say to that? Of course science can determine human values once you have a concern for the well-being of yourself and others.
If questions of right and wrong are questions about the well-being of conscious creatures then how could science not tell us right from wrong?
Science cannot tell us which conscious creatures we should worry about, or which aspects of their well-being we should value (and to what degree).
Also, as you might recall, I don’t think all questions of right and wrong are questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Harris’ claim on this point seems to rest on his argument for a worst-case scenario. I don’t buy that argument.
There is a significant difference between asking “who is likely to suffer from this action, and to what extent?” and “is this the right thing to do?” Those questions just don’t look similar to me. Of course, sometimes the answer to the former question is all we need to answer the second question. But that does not make them equivalent.
His main point seems to be that “ought” being built in to the foundation of a normative science of morality shouldn’t be a problem if it isn’t for medicine or science generally.
So then he accepts Hume’s point that you cannot get an “ought” from an “is” unless you first assume some other “ought.” (I.e., he accepts the fact/value distinction.) And he accepts the point that science cannot tell us what we should value without appealing to what we already value. So science cannot provide a basis for morality. It can only provide information which we can use to direct our moral decision-making processes. Is that it?
His main point seems to be that “ought” being built in to the foundation of a normative science of morality shouldn’t be a problem if it isn’t for medicine or science generally. What do you say to that?
I say that medicine and science do not make morally binding prescriptions. They make rationally binding prescrptions, but that is not the same thing. Harris wants to claim that we can have a scientific morality–that is, he wants scientific conclusions to be morally binding. But the science of well-being (whatever that is) can be no more morally binding than any other science.
As for (3) . . .
I’m not saying that, without a definition of “health,” there would be nothing to study. That would indeed be absurd. No, I’m not supposing that we can only study that which we have rigorously defined. Rather, I’m saying that our current science of medicine would have to be considered a joke if we were to believe that the word “health” was not defined in a scientifically rigorous manner. It does not matter how far back this definition goes, though I think it goes back quite far. (And, by the way, I can’t take credit for the definition. I got it from an online medical dictionary. I presume it is one with which all Western medical practitioners should be familiar.)
The point is that “well-being” has currency in common language. Nobody is supposing that it refers to something which lies outside the boundaries of scientific discovery. What we are suggesting, however, is that it is not used to refer to anything in particular; that it has many uses, and that it would be a mistake to suppose that we could decide on one definition and thereby say something about how everybody uses the term.
Of course we can establish some sort of science of well-being. Nobody seems to be challenging that point. Indeed, if we just take “well-being” to mean “health” or “emotional health,” or something like that, then it’s pretty clear we’ve already got a science of well-being well in development.
What we do challenge is the claim that this science would somehow be relevant to all of our current talk of “well-being”–that this would somehow pick out what we all mean when we talk about well-being.
So, yes, we can have a science of well-being–but if you don’t tell us what “well-being” means–if you don’t at least give us a working definition–then we can rightly object to a fundamental problem with your argument.
I’ll reply to your other post at another time.
You seem to be saying there is a diversity of meanings of the word “well-being” so great that to use the word without defining it is meaningless. I see no evidence of that.
And if all you’re saying is “that our current science of medicine would have to be considered a joke if we were to believe that the word “health” was not defined in a scientifically rigorous manner”, then I don’t see your point. It doesn’t seem a fair objection to an undeveloped branch of science.
No, I don’t think it is meaningless to use a vague term without offering an explicit definition. The problem isn’t that Harris is using the term, but how he is using it. He claims there is a concrete quantity of well-being in the universe. That claim is meaningless. It’s like claiming there is a concrete quantity of love in the universe. I just don’t see the sense in it.
Furthermore, I think it would be erroneous to assume that any scientific investigation could force us to choose one, and only one, definition of “well-being.” So, while we might eventually agree on some scientific definition of “well-being,” we would not necessarily have gotten at some fundamental process or subject matter which underlied all of our previous discourse.
If he is claiming there is a “concrete quantity of well-being in the universe” then I think I probably disagree with him. If that is how you are hearing him, then I understand your point of view better. I can see how some of what he says can be read in that way. In other places though he doesn’t seem to espouse such a notion. Still, I don’t think the objection “we don’t know what well-being is” is a very strong one.
I don’t know about scientific results necessarily forcing us to choose only one definition of “well-being” but is there any question that science will increasingly characterize “well-being” and that some notions of it will be rendered invalid?
I think you need to re-read Harris’ response if what you took away from it is his objection to the concept of ‘health’.
I think you need to re-read my post if that is how you think I’m interpreting Sam Harris.
I’m with Sam!
Google covenant morality for humanity- the presumption of humanism.
I’d prefer my previous comment about this to appear if you still have it.
I’m really glad to see Sam making this argument, because – and I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but, well, I’m going to do it anyway – it’s the same argument I’ve been making for years (that essay was first posted in 2001).
I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the argument here. Yes, it’s true that you can’t start with any catalogue of facts about the world, however comprehensive, and from it arrive at the conclusion: “We ought to value human flourishing.” But for the same reason, it’s true that you can’t start with any catalogue of facts about the world, however comprehensive, and from that arrive at the conclusion: “The scientific method is the best way to understand reality.” Does this cast doubt on the legitimacy of science as a human endeavor? Does it suggest that there are other means of knowing that are just as valid, just as workable, just as good?
No system of thought can be derived out of thin air. They all have to be based on axioms that can, in principle, be rejected. But if that’s a strike against science-based morality, it’s also a strike against science itself. Just as the psychopath can say, “Why should I care about human well-being?”, the creationist or the alchemist or the astrologer can say, “Why should I care about testability and empirical evidence?” These people are beyond talking to, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t have this conversation. We want to understand the world to the best of our ability in a rational and demonstrable way; therefore, we should use the scientific method. We want to flourish; therefore, we should empirically study what things advance human well-being and happiness and work to promote those things. There, I just stepped over the is-ought gap, and frankly, it seemed a lot more like a thin crack to me than a chasm.
Perfect. I, too (& I suspect a whole lotta others) have resolved morality this way, independently, years ago. (She said modestly.)
What you stepped over in moving from a value to a course of action isn’t the is-ought gap in question, it’s simply acting on behalf of the value. The gap in question is how to establish the rightness or goodness of one’s values using value-neutral, fact-only premises such as what science tells us about the world. This won’t work since values only arise in the context of needs, wants and other human motives.
Science can’t help since it only describes and explains different sets of values as natural phenomena; it isn’t in the business of justifying what human motives we *should* endorse. In particular, it can’t decide between different conceptions of human flourishing, which is the central point at issue: who’s right about how society should be ordered, us or the Taliban? Science is silent on that question.
You seem to think that the Taliban creates insuperable obstacles to the scientific elucidation of morality while I can hardly think of a clearer case. Despotic rule results in human misery that can be easily measured. By your reasoning are you saying science could not determine that Idi Amin, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc., etc., negatively affected the well-being of their societies?
Once you define well-being in terms of various outcomes, science can of course measure it. But science doesn’t select those outcomes, human desires as shaped by biology and culture select them. The question then becomes which is morally best? From our perspective, there’s no question that universal human rights including gay marriage is central to human flourishing. For the fundamentalist Christian, there’s no question that gay marriage is anathema. Does science tell who is correct? If so, how?
With respect to the Value Problem, The Moral Landscape is an important step in what is probably the right direction – or nearly so – there is still a long way to go.
The persuasion problem is nothing more than a consequence of the value problem. Separating the two probably improved the rhetorical structure of Harris’ book, but it is not really a separate problem.
The Measurement Problem is in the process of being solved – the science of estimating human well-being, in nearly every conceivable parameter, is improving, and is providing better and better answers. In many important areas, progress is quite rapid.
The analogy with health is accurate, clear, and important – in part because health is a key facet of human well-being, and perhaps the best understood facet of human well-being.
“Sam is really good at clarifying his ideas by making analogies with situations familiar to all of us.”
Perhaps Harris’s analogies appear clear at first glance, but that’s because they’re too simplistic. The real issues are just not that simple. Harris ignores vital considerations that, when understood and taken into account, undermine his arguments.
In this case, Harris sets up propositions analogous to the ones he’s trying to refute, and invites us to reject the new propositions. But even if the new propositions are false, it doesn’t follow that the original ones were. Harris’s argument by analogy assumes that health is appropriately analogous to well-being, and medicine to morality. Harris gives us no good reason to accept that they are analogous, so unless we have other reasons for thinking them so, we have no reason to accept his conclusion.
In fact I agree (based on other considerations) that well-being is appropriately analogous to health, though there’s a considerable difference of degree. Both concepts are somewhat vague, but well-being is much vaguer than health.
What I don’t accept (and Harris gives me no reason to) is that medicine is appropriately analogous to morality. I won’t give my reasons here. (Basically, I’m an error theorist, like Blackford, though I would put things rather differently than he does.) My point is that Harris has not made a valid argument.
Moreover, we should not accept the falsity of all Harris’s revised propositions (let alone the original ones). Take this one:
“2. Hence, if someone does not care about health, or cares only about his own and not about the health of others, there is no way to argue that he is wrong from the point of view of science.”
In what sense is this person wrong? He isn’t factually wrong (as far as we know), because we haven’t been told any of his beliefs. All we’re told is what he cares about. But cares are attitudes, not beliefs. We might say that someone who doesn’t care about his own health is not likely to achieve certain goals that he has, such as living a long life. But that doesn’t make him wrong about any facts.
These are just a couple of the many errors Harris makes in this article. It would take me hours to list them all.
Great discussions here. I’m riveted.
I have a question on The Moral Landscape, which I would like to hear your thoughts on…
Let’s say Harris is right and science in coming years can determine “well being” on the level of the brain. Even if this the case, it seems to me,
these measurements of “well being” may not lead to the prescriptive morality he proposes.
This is where his analogy to health breaks down. Human psychology is certainly not as static as Harris assumes. Even at the level of the brain, people may be different depending on their environment, and hence their morality (in pursuit of well being) may take a wildly different form.
I think, for example, of studies that show different adaptive strategies for monkeys living in different environments, with different levels of resources available to them. The biologist Robert Sapolsky, for one, writes about how the same species of monkeys act either aggressively, taking huge risks, or more peacefully, showing themselves to be more risk-averse, depending on whether they live in an arid landscape or in a resource-rich landscape.
When we apply this observation about monkeys to humans, doesn’t this complicate the picture of a moral landscape? Given that the members of the Taliban (to use Harris’ favorite example of an inferior moral order, a “valley” in the landscape), living as they do in the barren mountains of Afghanistan, have significantly less access to resources than those of us living in the US, shouldn’t we expect that their strategies for optimizing their well-being will be significantly different from ours?
If so, is Harris prepared to acknowledge that their morality may be almost unrecognizable to us — but still measurably leading to the achievement of a degree of well-being, even on the level of the brain? Perhaps the values of Berkeley or Sydney would be simply impossible to sustain there — in fact, they might be counterproductive to well-being? (Too much talking, disorganization, a descent into anarchy, who knows…)
Certainly their morality might be harsh and unforgiving from our perspective, but what if it is an adaptive strategy to their environment? Harris seems to assume an unchanging set of environmental inputs, and so a universally prescriptive morality. But what if his efforts for a science of morality, which I applaud, eventually show that the cultural anthropologists whom Harris despises were closer to the truth than he thinks: every culture has its own moral underpinnings, some inferior from our perspective but nevertheless surprisingly well-suited to the conditions and resources of the people inside of it.
I don’t want to sound like I am an apologist for the brutality of the Taliban. This is not to say we should be complacent about what we see as barbaric, morally abject practices (throwing acid on the faces of Afghan girls who refuse the burka, etc.). But it does give me pause at least about imposing our view from our moral peak as a complete, ready-to-use package.
Thoughts?
Actually, you do sound like an apologist for the brutality of the Taliban. You seem to recognize that it’s inherently wrong (immoral) to throw acid in the faces of girls, or brutalize women, or kill them for having been raped, but say that it might be okay as an “adaptation to their environment”?
And how on earth would such acts be an adaptation?
I’m sorry but it doesn’t give me pause at all to say that those things are immoral and therefore wrong. Somebody can come up with some cockamie story of how those things are “adaptations” (and of course one can always concoct such stories), but the immorality remains. Sam would maintain, and I would agree with him, that such practices aren’t adaptive anyway.
Of course we all join you in your judgment that such acts are immoral. The question here is whether science dictates this judgment. Seems to me it isn’t, rather it’s our innate, genetically transmitted moral sense, plus the fact we’ve been brought up to believe women have equal rights – obviously not the case in societies where men kill wives and sisters for being raped.
To admit the role of culture in determining some of our deepest values isn’t to be apologists for brutality; it’s to highlight the importance of maintaining the culture that transmits those values.
And what do you find so important about maintaining a culture that transmits the value of killing women for being raped?
(Can we please be post-cultural-relativism soon?!)
Obviously nothing, but it isn’t science that tells me that equal rights for women is better than killing them for rape. Science has no opinion on the matter, since science doesn’t make moral distinctions; it explains, describes and predicts. Building a world of universal human rights is a political project of expanding the human circle, as Peter Singer describes it, not neuroscience, as Sam would have it.
Argh. Just for the record, Tom Clark is not a cultural relativist! Or a postmodernist either. I think he’s being misunderstood here. I rather think anybody who doesn’t say Sam Harris has written the best book on morality ever is being misunderstood by some.
Argh! I never thought the day would come when I’d disagree with you, Ophelia. No, Tom is probably not a cultural relativist, but that does not mean he is right. Take, for instance, his statement “the importance of maintaining the culture that transmits those values.” Why is it important? Why those values? That’s precisely what Sam Harris is trying to answer, FFS!
Besides, I fail to see how “our innate, genetically transmitted moral sense” falls beyond the reach of science.
Tom Clark: “Of course we all join you in your judgment that such acts are immoral. The question here is whether science dictates this judgment.”
That’s not the case for all of us. For some of us the question is whether any acts at all can be correctly described as “immoral”. Error theorists say they cannot, so the question of whether science specifically can determine which acts are immoral is irrelevant. Nothing can determine which acts are immoral, because none can possibly be. For something to be immoral is a logical impossibility.
I know that’s not going to be a popular view, and it seems counterintuitive. But are we committed to following reason wherever it leads, or would we rather settle for comfortable intuitions? The answers to several major philosophical questions are deeply counter-intuitive. These intuitions get in the way of rigorous thinking, and I think that’s one of the reasons why philosophy has so much difficulty making progress.
All this is not to say that I’m indifferent to the sort of abhorrent acts mentioned above. Far from it. I detest and condemn them. Moreover, at a deeper level I do feel that they’re immoral in some objective sense. But at a more intellectual level I can see that this feeling is illusory, like an optical illusion that you cannot help seeing even when you know it’s an illusion.
Harris’s thesis is that *science* can determine human values, which is why I was focusing on that question. Your points are some of the reasons that it can’t, even if that question isn’t central for you.
Jerry. Thank you for your work. I’m new to your blog. I wrote other comments below in response to some other readers but I wanted to reply to your comment more specifically.
You misunderstood my point, I think (I didn’t explain it well enough) if you think I am saying that what the Taliban does is both immoral and “okay.” I am certain that the acid, the brutality, etc. is not okay from my perspective — and I am bolstered by Harris’ book to believe that there may very well be a scientific basis for me thinking so. Certainly there is a strong emotional association for me when I consider such acts. However, I am wondering if a person living in mountainous Afghanistan may have a different moral framework — which, hard to imagine but stay with me — also has a scientific basis. In other words the map of the moral landscape could be altered by a person’s position, access to resources, etc. This is not a relativistic turn. I am saying it may be altered at the level of the brain, to use Sam’s phrase. Now you may say this is unlikely — and “cockamie”. And everything in me wants to agree with you. But that seems a little to quick to me. If it is even possible in principle, then don’t we get a proliferation of different moralities around the globe, even in our own communities? They may be true — and break the fact/value distinction down — AND be irreconcilable. What do you think?
Junit – here’s one hint. The women and girls who are subject to Taliban punishments and restrictions don’t think Taliban morality is okay.
Don’t think of “cultures” as monolithic or uniform or all in agreement. The Taliban is just the Taliban, it’s not all of the Afghan people of both sexes.
Pigliucci’s review of TML in today’s eskeptic: Pigliucci’s review of TML
My point is that, unlike health which is truly universal for humans (despite our difficulties defining it exactly, as Harris points out), “well-being,” even if we grant that it IS the basis of all morality and IS measurable by science, may be far more variable across the world based on resources than we assume. Now of course this does not in the slightest mean that I or anyone should be reluctant to make moral judgments (and I do, I would guess as strongly as you do) about what I see as brutality, rape, etc. by the Taliban or anybody else. But our discussion is about whether those judgments can be considered definitively true — an “is” and not only an “ought”, right? And if so, whether we can prescribe them knowing that we are right and they — some other person or people — are wrong.
My point is that even if we grant that my morality on these points could be determined to be an “is”, measurable by science, as Harris maintains (and I am largely convinced by him), my “is” may not be the “is” of another person! There might be incompatible “is’s”!
Sam believes that the peaks may not be radically different in his landscape. Certainly true for health; I’m wondering if it is not so true for “well-being”.
And by the way, let’s not be blind to the brutality of our own morality: probably within a mile of you and anyone reading this there are people who are cold and hungry but cannot find warmth or eat, amid plenty, because of the well-being we associate with Lockean property rights. The emotional tugs, the repulsion towards brutality and suffering, though not equivalent, can be applied to our morality as well as the Taliban’s. That’s the easy part.
Oops — I reversed Hume’s famous dictum about getting an “ought” from an “is” in my comment above. (I had it getting to an is from an ought). Writing too fast. Anyway, the fact/value distinction. So really I am thinking of the possibility of a world of multiple “oughts” which have the measurable solidity of “is’s” but are shockingly different — and pondering what this would mean to Harris’ outlook.
The only way for moral peaks to be “shockingly” different is for one of them not to be a peak at all. Because we are talking about the well-being of sentient creatures which are pretty similar in biological constitution, not alien life forms. In any case, however different two peaks might be, I don’t think Sam Harris would have a problem with that. I don’t construe his position as advocating uniformity.
Sure. Just as, engaging the health metaphor again, there are some people who choose to think smoking is not harmful. They’re wrong.
Diane G., But that’s the whole point. Smoking we know increases the risk of cancer and does damage to every human lung, regardless of whose where and why. Health is the same for every human, all the time.
But what if well-being is not so uniform in the effects of certain inputs? It’s as if sometimes smoking killed and sometimes it helped — depending on changing conditions. What if Harris’ “well-being” is eventually found to be that changeable? For example, as Dylan sings, “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Maybe the morality of someone without “nothin'” is different — on the level of the brain, in respect to well-being — than the morality of a partner at Goldman Sachs. Both are right on their terms.
Again, I’m not saying they would need to throw up their hands and be relativistic. They can still want to impose their moral outlook and feel strongly about it. But Harris maybe has broken down the fact/value distinction and yet we still have a world where the values vary from person to person, group to group…
The comment by Piero makes me think… We still tend to think, as does Sam Harris, of an unchanging, static map. What if the map of the landscape changes depending on the beholder? In fact, this would have implications for Harris’ scientific approach to morality even if the variations in measurable well-being were subtle. So let’s agree that the practices of the Taliban are horrendous regardless of resources. But what if the morality of Canadians and Americans, or ours and our next door neighbors’, are subtly different and yet both true in a measurable scientific sense? It’s not that we can see both being true at the same time; we can’t believe it; it astounds us. Yet imagine if the brain scans show it. Slight differences in geography and resources and context create different hard-wired “oughts”. It’s as if Harris has given a boost to Rorty after all, despite the dismissal he gave him in The End of Faith!
A great deal of science is about continua and frequency distributions. Rather than “astound” me, individual or cultural variation is to be expected. That doesn’t mean there aren’t clear areas at which to draw lines. I haven’t yet read Harris so I’m at a disadvantage, but does he suggest the absolutism you maintain?
I recommend the book. He does appreciate that their will always be much cultural and individual variation — hence various moral “peaks” (as well as “valleys”) in the landscape. Yet he does seem to be an absolutist in one sense: he seems to assume that the morality which science may detect will be universally recognizable. The picture he seems to suggest — and I may be wrong on this, but it’s my impression from the book — is that from the top of one peak we may gaze admiringly at the top of another. He thinks the map will be stable.
What I’m suggesting is that the map may move and ripple as we move across it, changing as our psychology and even our biology change under different circumstances.
This is actually a small criticism of Harris’ book, in a way. I’m granting most of his argument for a science-based moral realism. I’m just questioning whether it gets us anywhere towards a universal moral vantage point.
“We still tend to think, as does Sam Harris, of an unchanging, static map.”
That’s where I think you go wrong. Nowhere does Harris say the moral landscape has but one peak. The issue is, I believe, how to foster the conditions that would allow people to choose their own peaks. Some may choose music over painting, or sex over meditation, but that’s not really a problem: the problem is which kind of social structure can accomodate the most peaks without engendering conflict. Clearly, the Taliban approach is at the bottom of the scale, in the deepest crevice of the landscape.