Update and reboot: Sam Harris has responded to my blog post reacting to his TED talk. In the initial version of this response-to-the-response-to-the-response-to-the-talk, I let myself get carried away with irritation at this tweet, and thereby contributed to the distraction from substantive conversation. Bad blogger.
In any event, Sam elaborates his position in some detail, so I encourage you to have a look if you are interested, although it didn’t change my mind on any issue of consequence. There are a number of posts out there by people who know what they are talking about and surely articulate it better than I do, including Russell Blackford and Julian Sanchez (who, one must admit, has a flair for titles), and I should add Chris Schoen.
But I wanted to try to clarify my own view on two particular points, so I put them below the fold. I went on longer than I intended to (funny how that happens). The whole thing was written in a matter of minutes — have to get back to real work — so grains of salt are prescribed.
First, the role of consensus. In formal reasoning, we all recognize the difference between axioms and deductions. We start by assuming some axioms, and the laws of logic allow us to draw certain conclusions from them. It’s not helpful to argue that the axioms are “wrong” — all we are saying is that if these assumptions hold, then we can safely draw certain conclusions.
A similar (although not precisely analogous) situation holds in other areas of human reason, including both science and morality. Within a certain community of like-minded reasoners, a set of assumptions is taken for granted, from which we can draw conclusions. When we do natural science, we assume that our sense data is more or less reliable, that we are not being misled by an evil demon, that simpler theories are preferable to complicated theories when all else is equal, and so forth. Given those assumptions, we can go ahead and do science, and when we disagree — which scientists certainly do — we can usually assume that the disagreements will ultimately be overcome by appeal to phenomena in the natural world, since as like-minded reasoners we share common criteria for adjudicating disputes. Of course there might be some people who refuse to accept those assumptions, and become believers in astrology or creationism or radical epistemological skepticism or what have you. We can’t persuade those people that they’re wrong by using the standards of conventional science, because they don’t accept those standards (even when they say they do). Nevertheless, we science-lovers can get on with our lives, pleased that we have a system that works by our lights, and in particular one that is pragmatically successful at helping us deal with the world we live in.
When it comes to morality, we indeed have a very similar situation. If we all agree on a set of starting moral assumptions, then we constitute a functioning community that can set about figuring out how to pass moral judgments. And, as I emphasized in the original post, the methods and results of science can be extremely helpful in that project, which is the important and interesting thing that we all agree on, which is why it’s a shame to muddy the waters by denying the fact/value distinction or stooping to insults. But I digress.
The problem, obviously, is that we don’t all agree on the assumptions, as far as morality is concerned. Saying that everyone, or at least all right-thinking people, really want to increase human well-being seems pretty reasonable, but when you take the real world seriously it falls to pieces. And to see that, we don’t have to contrast the values of fine upstanding bourgeois Americans with those of Hitler or Jeffrey Dahmer. There are plenty of fine upstanding people — you can easily find them on the internet! — who think that human well-being is maximized by an absolute respect for individual autonomy, where people have equal access to primary goods but are given the chance to succeed or fail in life on their own. Other people think that a more collective approach is called for, and it is appropriate for some people to cede part of their personal autonomy — for example, by paying higher taxes — in the name of the greater good.
Now, we might choose to marshall arguments in favor of one or another of these viewpoints. But those arguments would not reduce to simple facts about the world that we could in principle point to; they would be appeals to the underlying moral sentiments of the individuals, which may very well end up being radically incompatible. Let’s say that killing a seventy-year-old person (against their will) and transplanting their heart into the body of a twenty-year old patient might add more years to the young person’s life than the older person might be expected to have left. Despite the fact that a naive utility-counting would argue in favor of the operation, most people (not all) would judge that not to be moral. But what if a deadly virus threatened to wipe out all of humanity, and (somehow) the cure required killing an unwilling victim? Most people (not all) would argue that we should reluctantly take that step. (Think of how many people are in favor of involuntary conscription.) Does anyone think that empirical research, in neuroscience or anywhere else, is going to produce a quantitative answer to the question of exactly how much harm would need to be averted to justify sacrificing someone’s life? “I have scientifically proven that if we can save the life of 1,634 people, it’s morally right to sacrifice this one victim; but if it’s only 1,633, we shouldn’t do it.”
At bottom, the issue is this: there exist real moral questions that no amount of empirical research alone will help us solve. If you think that it’s immoral to eat meat, and I think it’s perfectly okay, neither one of us is making a mistake, in the sense that Fred Hoyle was making a mistake when he believed that conditions in the universe have been essentially unchanging over time. We’re just starting from different premises.
The crucial point is that the difference between sets of incompatible moral assumptions is not analogous to the difference between believing in the Big Bang vs. believing in the Steady State model; but it is analogous to believing in science vs. being a radical epistemological skeptic who claims not to trust their sense data. In the cosmological-models case, we trust that we agree on the underlying norms of science and together we form a functioning community; in the epistemological case, we don’t agree on the underlying assumptions, and we have to hope to agree to disagree and work out social structures that let us live together in peace. None of which means that those of us who do share common moral assumptions shouldn’t set about the hard work of articulating those assumptions and figuring out how to maximize their realization, a project of which science is undoubtedly going to be an important part. Which is what we should be talking about all along.
The second point I wanted to mention was the justification we might have for passing moral judgments over others. Not to be uncharitable, but it seems that the biggest motivation most people have for insisting that morals can be grounded in facts is that they want it to be true — because if it’s not true, how can we say the Taliban are bad people?
That’s easy: the same way I can say radical epistemological skepticism is wrong. Even if there is no metaphysically certain grounding from which I can rationally argue with a hard-core skeptic or a Taliban supporter, nothing stops me from using the fundamental assumptions that I do accept, and acting accordingly. There is a weird sort of backwards-logic that gets deployed at this juncture: “if you don’t believe that morals are objectively true, you can’t condemn the morality of the Taliban.” Why not? Watch me: “the morality of the Taliban is loathsome and should be resisted.” See? I did it!
The only difference is that I can only present logical reasons to support that conclusion to other members of my morality community who proceed from similar assumptions. For people who don’t, I can’t prove that the Taliban is immoral. But so what? What exactly is the advantage of being in possession of a rigorous empirical argument that the Taliban is immoral? Does anyone think they will be persuaded? How we actually act in the world in the face of things we perceive to be immoral seems to depend in absolutely no way on whether I pretend that morality is grounded in facts about Nature. (Of course there exist people who will argue that the Taliban should be left alone because we shouldn’t pass our parochial Western judgment on their way of life — and I disagree with those people, because we clearly do not share underlying moral assumptions.)
Needless to say, it doesn’t matter what the advantage of a hypothetical objective morality would be — even if the world would be a better place if morals were objective, that doesn’t make it true. That’s the most disappointing part of the whole discussion, to see people purportedly devoted to reason try to concoct arguments in favor of a state of affairs because they want it to be true, rather than because it is.
Robert, you’re being either extremely lazy or dishonest. I will quote this one more time:
“Even if there is no metaphysically certain grounding from which I can rationally argue with a hard-core skeptic or a Taliban supporter, nothing stops me from using the fundamental assumptions that I do accept, and acting accordingly. There is a weird sort of backwards-logic that gets deployed at this juncture: “if you don’t believe that morals are objectively true, you can’t condemn the morality of the Taliban.” Why not? Watch me: “the morality of the Taliban is loathsome and should be resisted.” See? I did it!”
By the way, here’s a famous example of this form of reasoning in practice, from Charles James Napier, British commander-in-chief in India:
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
Thanks all for the clarification, ‘unbecoming of’ is indeed an easier way to write that line, but though your sentence is grammatically sound, I am afraid it is still rather strange. There was no martyr complex in display here – Sean made a decent, straightforward post about science and what it can and cannot say. Harris referred to the article as ‘stupidity’, and wrote a response (entitled ‘Moral Confusion..’, mind you), so riddled with misconceptions about what Harris likes to call ‘science’, that I dare not attempt a full response to it here. Yet Sean continues to write, not minding the silly condescending remarks of Harris, who I am now convinced is largely clueless.
Take this for instance:
‘It is also worth noticing that Carroll has set the epistemological bar higher for morality than .. any other branch of science. He asks, “Who decides what is a successful life?” Well, who decides what is coherent argument?’
Logicians everywhere must be sitting around staring at each other, mouths agape. The coherence of an argument, when precisely stated, can be mathematically established by a little thing called ‘resolution’. Sophomores in comp sci can write theorem provers for this reason. A successful life, or the morality of eating meat (to borrow from Sean) cannot be decided upon in the same way until you have axioms to base your arguments on, and science does not acknowledge the language of, let alone provide axioms in, these topics. The emotions moving Harris to call Sean stupid, and write all these words, did not happen because natural law insists that is the right thing to do. They are instead, the product of the myriad chaotic forces that constitute his life, and his character, and his understanding of the world. He could have been a million other things.
Somewhere above, Troy asks an important question: “If science can add to that discussion, why would we fear it?” The answer is that we must fear absolute authority when it comes from humankind. When people claim something like this, they are resorting to the authority of science, beautiful, objective science, as ground on which this moral landscape will be drawn. Assuming you can prove (as Sam Harris so badly wants) that something is absolutely right or wrong, then anyone who assails you, whatever your conclusion, is wrong, or at best insane.
That would be a calamity in the hands of a man. Sam Harris has apparently advocated things like torture. It’s a good thing he’s completely wrong, or we’d be in a sad situation.
He’s using the face-veiled women of Afghanistan as cover art. Yes the Taliban were oppressive barbarians, and the women may indeed hate that veil so very much, but brief them on this man and put him at their reach: those ladies would tear him apart.
Timo, though that is action it would be inaction in relation to changing the status quo.
“If we don’t get our morality from religion, we must get it from rational discussion, and science is just a more structured and rigorous version of this.”
This is a false dichotomy, and one that plays right into the fundamentalist mind set. For one thing science is not just a more structured and rigorous version of rational discussion, it needs to be empirical. And you can never come to pure value judgement from mere empiricism.
@update: Again, a mark of your respectfulness in debate Sean. I do not know what part of his condescending reply warranted this change, he truly does not deserve it.. never mind.
In any case, there is no argument from ‘science’ made so far by Harris. The only time science was mentioned as understood by those of us who practice it in some capacity, is when he specifically stated how he is not using it to come up with anything, because, he realizes, this is impossible by definition.
“So my claim that consciousness is the basis of values does not appear to me to be an arbitrary starting point.”
There you go. Not science – consciousness. Basically, this is utilitarian morality as taught in philosophy 101 classes since time out of mind, but with a healthy dose of the word ‘science’ thrown in, and maybe a splash of humanism here and there when the arguments get difficult.
Contrast all this arrogance, this strange desire to make unassailable laws, with the attitude taken by (brace yourself here) religious scholars in the most meticulous of theologies. Have you ever heard of Malik ibn Anas? He is known as the Imam; the leader.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malik_ibn_Anas
He was prolific, yet despite all the tomes of jurisprudence he wrote, his favorite words when asked were: “I do not know”.
At times, folks would travel for weeks to ask him. He did not want to say anything about right and wrong. It is a very serious matter, and he did not want to be held to account for what he told people to do. They would sometimes say, frustrated with him: “So and so has asked me to ask you, what should I tell them?”
The answer was: “Go back to them, and tell them that Malik is telling you that he does not know”.
What bizarre times we live in.
@Xeridanus
Here is the full paragraph:
“And here is where the real controversy begins: for many people strongly objected to my claim that values (and hence morality) relate to facts about the wellbeing of conscious creatures. My critics seem to think that consciousness and its states hold no special place where values are concerned, or that any state of consciousness stands the same chance of being valued as any other. While maximizing the wellbeing of conscious creatures may be what I value, other people are perfectly free to define their values differently, and there will be no rational or scientific basis to argue with them. Thus, by starting my talk with the assertion that values depend upon actual or potential changes in consciousness, and that some changes are better than others, I merely assumed what I set out to prove. This is what philosophers call “begging the question.” I am, therefore, an idiot. And given that my notion of objective values must be a mere product of my own personal and cultural biases, and these led me to disparage traditional religious values from the stage at TED, I am also a bigot. While these charges are often leveled separately, they are actually connected.”
I admit I didn’t read that passage. However, it remains true that I am correctly characterizing Harris, and you aren’t. Your “quote” of Harris is simply Harris paraphrasing what his critics were saying about him. He was not claiming that he himself assumed what he set out to prove.
I think Sean and Sam Harris may agree more than they realize, but are hung up over the usage of “objective morality”. Throughout Harris’s argument, there seem to be two distinct claims about morality:
(1) There exist objective moral truths (“objective” meaning “existing independently of human invention”). Thus it is factually correct to claim that “X is (objectively) morally right” for some behavior X.
(2) We can use science to determine what set of behaviors and/or precepts maximizes human well-being, where “well-being” refers to some empirical metric. (For example, imagine that 100 years in the future, neuroscience has progressed to the point that we can recognize exactly what patterns of brain activity correspond with varying degrees of happiness. Not only that, but machines have been invented that can directly measure the level of a person’s happiness. (Yes, this is contrived and unrealistic, but humor me, please.) Researchers could then sample the happiness of the adherents of different moral systems, and so determine which moral system maximizes happiness.) Thus it is factually correct to claim that “X maximizes Y” for some behavior X and some metric of human well-being Y.
Note that (2) makes no appeal to objective moral truth, but does appeal to objective scientific truth (at least, to the extent that objective truths can be known scientifically). Also note that (2) can be true while (1) is false.
Harris argues for (2). He then conflates (2) with (1) — or, at least, seems to be saying that we might as well use (2) to determine what the truths in (1) are. And this is where I think his message gets muddled. I don’t think he’s wrong, I just think he doesn’t communicate very clearly. From my perspective it seems that Harris DOESN’T actually believe (1) is true, at least not in the way that Sean assumed. Harris seems to think that the concept of what I and, I think, Sean would call “objective” morality is useless (Harris calls it “transcendental”). He then applies the label “objective” to the morality determined by (2), NOT because (2) necessarily leads us to (1), but because he thinks (2) is the most useful way to construct moral systems.
I think this usage of “objective morality” is confusing. (In fact, I think the phrase is nonsensical. IMO moral truths are necessarily subjective. And subjective does NOT imply arbitrary.) If Harris had not made claims about (1) and stuck with talking about how (2) would be good to look into and if it worked wouldn’t it be great to base our morality on it, I think few people would have found his TED talk controversial. The real issues would be HOW exactly we use science to measure human well-being (in the absence of an accurate and practical happiness-meter). Which, frankly, is what I expected when I started watching his TED talk. Instead, we’re caught up in fruitless arguments about what is objective morality really.
Timo wrote:
By the way, here’s a famous example of this form of reasoning in practice, from Charles James Napier, British commander-in-chief in India:
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
If the affect of such beliefs / customs as in your example on ‘well-being’ (not a very well defined term but it is a perfectly good starting point for a discussion) could be determined do you think it would be worthwhile? Keep in mind (not that you wouldn’t) that your example is very similar to beliefs people hold today and that it would also apply to much more subtle cases. It might be possible to achieve a higher consensus with the knowledge gained from this research in the same way that some people today that have read the studies on nutritional health have taken to eating healthier. There will always be those that will eat big macs but there will be those that will listen… hopefully with skepticism but that is true for everything until the evidence is undeniable.
Sean said: The only difference is that I can only present logical reasons to support that conclusion to other members of my morality community who proceed from similar assumptions.
A slight but I think important correction. You can persuade people who disagree with you on certain moral points by appealing to other values they might have, and it isn’t necessary for you to share those values either.
Objective morality requires either a set of axioms that every community in the world agrees to or at the very least a definition of the desired goal of morality that every community in the world agrees on. If Sam Harris can indeed find either of those then I will stand in awe.
This however ignores the larger point, which is that there is nothing more dangerous than a man who believes he is right. Any system in the past that has attempted to impose absolute morals has ended up in war with a group of people that don’t agree with them. You are trying to create a religion, Mr. Harris and it’s absolutely disgusting.
slw: do you agree with the premise that in general it is best not to give up your queen in chess when possible? Do you agree that it is best to avoid physical altercations when possible? Do you agree that it is best not to physically abuse children? Do you think any of these can be quantified so they can be shown scientifically? Think on what people a century ago would think about when presented with what is possible today. Isn’t it possible that it is possible to quantify this?
I never heard Harris state that there is only one way to live and that people should live one way. I did hear him state that we should attempt to understand the affect of different behaviors in relation to well being and that there would likely be many different ways to live that could improve well being. Think about the percentage of people that don’t believe in evolution. Should future work on evolution be stopped just because a large percentage of people don’t believe in it? So, if people choose not to live their lives based on the findings does that mean research into how to optimize well being be stopped?
I also suspect that most scientists believe they are right in regards to their understanding of their subject matter with the understanding that there is more that they don’t understand. I don’t view them as dangerous though of course anyone could be dangerous but that would be due to other reasons.
SAM HARRIS IS A BIGOT!!!
Sam Harris is still a bigot (and if people don’t know what that means, please look it up). He wants us to believe that morality can emerge from science. He may be right, but the morality emerging from science tells us that because of our individual uniqueness, we are all equivalent to gods that are centers of our own little universes. Actions by gods can not be judged immoral, unless might makes right. So does Sam Harris have the might?
Sam Harris’ ego is the only thing that allows him to pass moral judgments on the rest of us. If he were appropriately humble (and scientific) he would realize that his position is isomorphic to the one that allowed for the conquest of the Americas by our European ancestors. So although my Viking ancestors would largely approve of his general position, and my puritan English side would agree that I am allowed to make judgments on the savagery of competing cultures, my jewish side, post-holocaust (and pre-holocaust as well, since my jewish ancestors all showed up due to old world hate-mongers like Sam Harris) would argue that Sam Harris is a complete bigot.
SAM HARRIS IS A BIGOT!!!
Robert: Yes, I agree with the premise that in general it is not a good idea to lose your queen if the following two conditions are met:
1) Losing your queen does not give you a direct advantage in the game.
2) You are trying to win.
The second condition is the critical one here. I would be most interested to know how you define “winning at life”.
Similarly, plotting the moral landscape is only useful if every actor presented on the landscape has the same goals. In case that is not the case, peaks don’t represent anything else than majority rule and discussing them as scientifically optimal solutions is extremely dangerous.
Completely off-topic, but the first 7 TeV collisions, with some beautiful events, began 10 minutes ago.
chesire cat,
your use of the caps lock is a devastating logical argument. Your judicious use of not one, not two, but three exclamation points makes your position fundamentally undeniable. But repeating your assertion twice is what makes your post a true model of rational argument. Thank you for showing us all how it’s done.
If Sam Harris wants to assert that empirical evidence can clearly lead us to deem moral stances as this whitewashed right or wrong, perhaps he should look at science first: where empirical evidence often just creates a clusterf*ck of confusion. Empirical evidence does not always lead to “Hypothesis A is correct and hypothesis B is false.” Oftentimes it leads you to hypothesis C…which incorporates both the true components of A and B.
Applying this reasoning to morality is no different, as Sean correctly asserts. Viewing a stance as wholly “right” or “wrong” is a fool’s bargain, and it’s an approach that fails before it even gets off the ground. Let’s dispense with the labels and be more realistic.
the second point is very rortian.
indeed, this need of absolute, transcendental foundation in order to commit oneself to certain values is a stupid (religious) bias.
we (western liberal democracies) have certain values, standards and, why not, beliefs… we are more coherent and more sincere when justifying our commitment to them and by no means do we believe that we can persuade everyone to share our standards of metajustification.
That’s the most disappointing part of the whole discussion, to see people purportedly devoted to reason try to concoct arguments in favor of a state of affairs because they want it to be true, rather than because it is.
That is precisely the danger of Sam’s argument. I love Sam Harris; he’s a brilliant guy, and he does indeed have some good arguments in this talk. But I agree with Sean here about the dangers of letting a banner of “reason” really just play into a confirmation bias-esque facade of subjectivity when it comes to empiricism.
As an example, we need look no further than science. I’m an evolutionary biologist, and I spend a goodly portion of my time reconstructing phylogenetic trees (hypotheses about the ancestry of organisms). There are multiple ways to do this, of course, but the most widely used types of data in phylogenetics are morphology and sequence (DNA, RNA, protein) data. And oftentimes, the hypotheses you end up with from using two different types of data don’t match up. At all.
This isn’t really a problem, of course, because we know enough about biology and evolution to really look at those differences (and reasons behind them) and understand why such difference exist. But the problem relevant to this discussion comes in what some of my (very intelligent and very rational) colleagues fall into: selecting one of two (or more) competing hypotheses as the “right” one simply because it matches with their preconceived notions about what is true/right. There may be equally-strong empirical evidence supportiing both hypotheses, but the breaking factor ends up being a preconceived notion that was formed without any evidence at all.
I could easily see that danger being applied to moral reasoning, i.e. if someone has a moral assertion that they want to be true, they’ll look for evidence to support it and stop there. End of story: “I’m right and you’re wrong.” In reality, of course, there may be supporting evidence for two different assertions, and the issue is far from clear cut. I think Sam is allowing for a bit too much ignorance of this inconvenient reality of empirical reasoning when he’s making his argument here, at least to that regard.
On some level this whole debate is nonsensical since the line between “moral” behavior and ordinary behavior is not well-defined; that is, one could argue that there are really no “moral” choices, just choices. So science can’t even tell us which choices are moral, much less what the correct choice is. However, I do agree with Sam Harris that there are certain behaviors that are pretty much universally regarded as a “good thing,” e.g., when a mother feels a need to protect and nurture her child (Taliban mothers too). But does this mean she “ought” to protect and nurture her child? Hume would say no and he may be correct, but that doesn’t mean there will never come a time when this behavior becomes a fairly universal assumption of what is considered good practice (if it isn’t already) because it seems to benefit both individuals and society (e.g., resulting in fewer homicidal individuals). It may also happen that in the far future the consensus on what is regarded as truly of value among different cultures and worldviews may continue to converge — all on its own without help from Sam Harris (at least to a much greater degree than today). For example, the percentage of people on the planet who think slavery is a good thing is way smaller than it was 200 years ago.
The view put forth by a few people here that Sam Harris is promoting some dangerous, rigid, dogmatic, authoritarian moral code is really pretty funny.
Once upon a time, in an intro philosophy course, I wrote an essay that made a clear distinction between the words “objective,” “universal” and “absolute.” I argued that while it may be logically possible that there are objective truths about morality, that didn’t imply that any given truth was “universal” or “absolute.” I got an A, but I didn’t pursue a degree in philosophy. In any event, does anyone buy this?
It seems that much, but not all, of the controversy over Harris’ thesis is that people think that to assert science can help us figure out what values might be “true” (eg. does a 1 week old human embrio have the same value as an adult human? — science can weigh in on whether it has a nervous system capable of subjectivity and self-value), that means he is saying science can directly dictate laws that must be universally and absolutely applied. I don’t think he is.
It seems to me that whether or not everyone agrees about a given value, or whether or not we can determine with absolute certainty that a given value is correct, is independent of whether or not it is actually true. It is either objectively true that morality should founded on considerations of utility, or it is objectively false. I don’t know which one it is, I only have a belief, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an objective truth to the matter. My belief is right or wrong. If there is a God whose will trumps human utility, then the utilitarian is wrong. Even if everyone on earth was a utilitarian and nobody believed in God. If there is no God, and subjective consciousness is the only realm of moral concern, then to value God’s will over human utility is wrong, even if everyone believes in God and agrees on God’s will.
This leaves me frustrated with a lot of the furor over his talk and rebuttals. The word “objective” is too loaded. There are probably good points to be made on both sides without getting too tripped up over the “objectivity” issue.
FWIW
I’ll be responding to Sam Harris over the next few days. I think he misses the point of my psychopath example, and I suppose I’ll have to explain why at some stage. But what most dismays me is the attitude that he has taken in publicly referring to Sean’s original post as “stupidity”. That is not a good way to treat a valuable ally who has written a civil and thoughtful comment about your work – especially after you’ve sought feedback. And then there is at least one person out there in the blogosphere who has characterised Sean’s mild and thoughtful criticism as a vicious attack (really, mate, that’s just lunacy).
I do believe that there is much of merit in what Harris said in the original talk, as I said on my blog at the time, but there is also much that is confusing at best. I could probably translate his position into language that I agree with, but I don’t agree with it as worded and I don’t think I am being “stupid” in being thrown by some of the metaethical comments he made early on in the talk. (I doubt that Harris would accept my translation, but I can’t read his mind – so who knows?.)
My own attitude is that he asked for constructive feedback, and he’s been getting it. Some of the points being made against the talk are powerful, but he could probably take them on board while keeping the main political message (although it’s probably too late to revise his forthcoming book in the light of the comments). Some of the problem might be that there are different sense of “value”, “objectivity”, and so on, in play, in which case we can seek to clarify them.
Really, this is how intellectual progress is made. In my case, I’m sharpening up some of my preexisting ideas about metaethics, perhaps revising some, and certainly deepening and extending some. I have not been convinced that morality is objective in the sense that’s usually meant in these discussions, but I’ve always maintained that it is non-arbitrary (these are *not* the same thing, at least as I understand them). I’m now trying to get that distinction clearer and to work out whether it would be possible to put what I see as meritorious in the TED talk into my words and concepts without losing too much of the rhetorical force. I’d like to be able to convey something of the same thing but without the metaethical aspects that I disagree with or find confusing.
Again, this is an opportunity to make progress. There’s a time and place for acrimony, but this is not it, and I saw nothing acrimonious in what Sean originally wrote.
“But does this mean she “ought” to protect and nurture her child? Hume would say no and he may be correct.”
The only reason this sentence isn’t laughed out of the room is that the word “ought” has no definition. The moment you actually define the parameters of the word “ought” is the moment this sort of logic competely falls apart.
It’s like saying, we know that when you take 2 apples and add 1 more, you end up with 3 apples. But does 2 + 1 ought to equal three? Of course not!
It’s hilariously non-sensical, but pervasively accepted.
It seems like people might be conflating two things. One is that there are no hard lines that separate different kinds of human knowledge. The other is that its not pragmatically useful categorize human knowledge. I think that Sam Harris is going from the first claim to the second. I think it is very useful to distinguish what we know about the moral status of murder and what we know about the big bang. Its impossible to say exactly what makes these two areas of knowledge different, but things are a lot clearer to people if we speak as though they are. I will say that one advantage to maintaining the pragmatic distinction is that it breaks down cultural barriers. Utilitarian and Kantian philosophers can both believe in the big bang without any difficulties. The same is true for the effectiveness of medical treatments. Also I suspect that setting our moral commitments to the side helps us to do better science. I don’t think there is any real danger of moral relativism from recognizing the value of these distinctions.
@Lug:
“Researchers could then sample the happiness of the adherents of different moral systems, and so determine which moral system maximizes happiness.”
This still is assuming that the overall sum of happiness is the objective. There are other reasonable objectives, like maximizing minimum happiness, or maximizing median happiness, etc. Science can not help us decide which of these objectives is correct.