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Moral confusion in the name of 'science'

by Sam Harris, Project Reason

Last month, I had the privilege of speaking at the 2010 TED conference for exactly 18 minutes. The short format of these talks is a brilliant innovation and surely the reason for their potent half-life on the Internet. However, 18 minutes is not a lot of time in which to present a detailed argument. My intent was to begin a conversation about how we can understand morality in universal, scientific terms. Many people who loved my talk, misunderstood what I was saying, and loved it for the wrong reasons; and many of my critics were right to think that I had said something extremely controversial. I was not suggesting that science can give us an evolutionary or neurobiological account of what people do in the name of “morality.” Nor was I merely saying that science can help us get what we want out of life. Both of these would have been quite banal claims to make (unless one happens to doubt the truth of evolution or the mind’s dependency on the brain). Rather I was suggesting that science can, in principle, help us understand what we should do and should want—and, perforce, what other people should do and want in order to live the best lives possible. My claim is that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics, and such answers may one day fall within reach of the maturing sciences of mind. As the response to my TED talk indicates, it is taboo for a scientist to think such things, much less say them public.

Most educated, secular people (and this includes most scientists, academics, and journalists) seem to believe that there is no such thing as moral truth—only moral preference, moral opinion, and emotional reactions that we mistake for genuine knowledge of right and wrong, or good and evil. While I make the case for a universal conception of morality in much greater depth in my forthcoming book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values , I’d like to address the most common criticisms I’ve received thus far in response to my remarks at TED.

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1. Comment #474147 by dfledermaus on March 29, 2010 at 9:29 pm

I hear morality is to be the subject of Sam Harris's next book. I suspect we're getting a preview of the controversy that will spring up over it.

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2. Comment #474150 by Eelis on March 29, 2010 at 9:38 pm

This kind of utter drivel is really making me lose faith in Sam.

His insistance on "transcendent experiences" and the like already had me worried, and now this.. It's too much!

Fortunately, nobody seems to be taking him seriously.

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3. Comment #474157 by r u i on March 29, 2010 at 10:14 pm

You made no point there Eelis. Do you wish to make one?

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4. Comment #474160 by ateu luso on March 29, 2010 at 10:24 pm

Unrelated to this piece, I have to say that I tend to agree with Eelis on Sam's transcendental experiences.
I know this is greatly simplified, but if you take some psychotropic substance, you will experience some weird shit BECAUSE of the drug you've just taken! Hallucinations, perceptual and cognitive distortions and the like might occur, no big surprise there! I find it difficult to then try and relate this to some heightened sensory experience... Heightened in reference to what? Why heightened in the first place?

Anyhow, it's late now, I'll read this piece of Sam's tomorrow with a clear head. I really enjoy reading/hearing most of what he has to say, I just had to get this off my chest.

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5. Comment #474161 by Cartomancer on March 29, 2010 at 10:25 pm

I must say I find Sam's case rather compelling. Admittedly I have tended to think about morality in a similar way myself hitherto, so perhaps I am biased. Perhaps naievely I have also assumed that most people probably also view morality like this, and the quantity of criticism Sam is receiving for such apparently commonsensical points genuinely surprises me.

I have always thought of morality as simply "the sets of rules we come up with in order to live in societies", and it seems obvious that certain sets of rules will work much better than certain others, creating different societies with different possibilities, opportunities and restrictions. Reality only works in one way, and the consequences of the way it works will determine the import and efficacy of whatever rule-sets one comes up with.

To be honest I am skeptical as to how much of an impact Sam's work in this area will have on our actual moral development. What he is providing is an over-arching explanation of our moral contemplations, not a detailed plan for their reform, or even concrete pointers for their future direction. He is attempting to clarify and focus how we talk about the way we derive our morals, but he is not really suggesting any radical changes in the derivation itself. If Sam is correct that all moral intuitions stem initially from a concern with wellbeing (and I find it very hard to see how they could not) then pretty much the entirety of moral philosophy up to this point has ALREADY been working within the parameters he describes. We are already, by and large, trying to work out what brings maximal wellbeing to human individuals and human societies, however divergent our current notions of what that wellbeing consists in are. Similarly, ascetics, self-mortifiers, flagellants and others who devote their lives to pain do not do so because they think it will ultimately make them miserable and unfulfilled.

It seems to me that the vast majority of cultural differences regarding morality are just window-dressing that conceals the same set of basic needs, desires and circumstances. There are no human cultures which truly value death over life, or their own suffering over their own contentment. Many cultures claim to do so, but in reality they simply have skewed and inaccurate views of what life, death, suffering and contentment consist in. Taliban suicide bombers, for instance, consider that death is not really death, and the suffering of martyrdom will lead to greater contentment in the afterlife. The values are the same, the desires are the same, the neurophysiological architecture is the same, it's merely the understanding of the nature of reality that is insufficient.

I also find it somewhat bizarre to say that the border between science and the rest of rationality is necessarily fuzzy. As far as I am concerned there isn't a dividing line at all, however fuzzy - science and rationality are pretty much synonyms. I find it very difficult to think of an example of science that is not rational, or an example of rationality that is not scientific. The distinction is, to my mind, an unhelpful and superfluous one.

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6. Comment #474163 by Steve Zara on March 29, 2010 at 10:30 pm

I think Sam is putting forward useful moral strategies, but is making a bit of a mess of it. For example:

"She: What makes you think that science will ever be able to say that forcing women to wear burqas is wrong?

Me: Because I think that right and wrong are a matter of increasing or decreasing wellbeing—and it is obvious that forcing half the population to live in cloth bags, and beating or killing them if they refuse, is not a good strategy for maximizing human wellbeing."

That's not an answer to the question!

I think I have a reasonable idea of what Sam is saying, but I'm not sure about the way he is expressing things.

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7. Comment #474165 by AngelsForAtheists on March 29, 2010 at 10:32 pm

What Sam is Doing is trying to show that religiously oriented morality should no longer be respected. But that there are in fact some objective truths about human well being. So far he is showing what things are and should not be but is leaving an open discussion on the subjectivity of the human spirit. Any attack on religion is a noble effort. And anyone who criticizes transcendental experiences have never had one. Like a virgin saying "oh but sex isn't that great..."

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8. Comment #474166 by prolibertas on March 29, 2010 at 10:37 pm

"All truth passes through 3 stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident". -Arthur Schopenhaur

Personally I think Sam's campaign is going to end up being a perfect example of this.

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9. Comment #474168 by Nunbeliever on March 29, 2010 at 10:49 pm

I have to read this piece again tomorrow with fresh eyes. One moment I tend to agree with Harris, the next one I tend not to, the third one I agree, and so on...

EDIT: I think this passage answers much of the criticism I have encountered so far.

It is also worth noticing that Carroll has set the epistemological bar higher for morality than he has for any other branch of science. He asks, “Who decides what is a successful life?” Well, who decides what is coherent argument? Who decides what constitutes empirical evidence? Who decides when our memories can be trusted? The answer is, “we do.” And if you are not satisfied with this answer, you have just wiped out all of science, mathematics, history, journalism, and every other human effort to make sense of reality.

Because, even if science ultimately can't decide whether well-being or misery is to be preferred science can't actually ultimately define why a logical statement is in fact logical or coherent either. These are axioms every rational person is required to accept if he or she wants to be taken seriously. These are the rules of reasons they teach in universities all over the world and all rational people learn to take for granted. I mean, in order to proove that 2 plus 2 = 4 is true there are certain rules we just have to accept. For example that the prime numner 2 always has a specific and constant value in any given equation. Otherwise 2 plus 2 = 4 is a meaningless expression. In the end we either get into an infinite regression or accept these axioms as inherently true.

Or in other words we all accept that there are certain axioms regarding rational thinking in general. Perhaps ín much the same way we can consider well-being as the foundation of morality as an axiom?

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10. Comment #474169 by Steve Zara on March 29, 2010 at 10:49 pm

Carto-

"If Sam is correct that all moral intuitions stem initially from a concern with wellbeing (and I find it very hard to see how they could not) "

I think the problem is whose wellbeing is under consideration, and this is always controversial. I believe that in some tribal societies it is (or was) normal for adolescent men to gain adulthood by some kind of victory in battle: the wellbeing of other tribes simply didn't matter. Currently in the USA there is a libertarian movement that considers the wellbeing of others in society to be a personal matter, and no-one else's concern. We still have in existence some irrational ideas of nationality, where wellbeing matters in inverse proportion to geographical distance.

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11. Comment #474172 by Spinoza on March 29, 2010 at 10:57 pm

By 'good' I mean that which I know to be useful to me.

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12. Comment #474175 by bethe123 on March 29, 2010 at 11:02 pm

Such a long article provides a rather large attack surface...very brave, Sam.

Anyway, to address a core Sam claim:

In fact, I believe that we can know, through reason alone, that consciousness is the only intelligible domain of value.

No Sam.
I personally think all life is sacred, even one celled animals, which I suppose have no consciousness. I think all life is the domain of value, not just consciousness... Incidentally, my "moral axiom" does not obviously elevate AI (i.e. computers) to be included in moral questions, whereas Sam's does if you believe machines can achieve consciousness, so the distinction is non-trivial, and some I suppose might be inclined to believe any system that did allow a MACHINE to be morally relevant to be sadly mistaken, no matter how well Sam has convinced himself he has a proof.
I do not insist anybody else to subscribe to this belief that life is in some sense sacred or special nor do I claim it can be proved. It is however distinct from Sam’s axiom. Sam did claim uniqueness by the use of the word “ONLY” and that is clearly not true.

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13. Comment #474178 by NakedCelt on March 29, 2010 at 11:09 pm

Don't quote-mine, bethe123:

In fact, I believe that we can know, through reason alone, that consciousness is the only intelligible domain of value. What’s the alternative? Imagine some genius comes forward and says, “I have found a source of value/morality that has absolutely nothing to do with the (actual or potential) experience of conscious beings.” Take a moment to think about what this claim actually means. Here’s the problem: whatever this person has found cannot, by definition, be of interest to anyone (in this life or in any other). Put this thing in a box, and what you have in that box is—again, by definition—the least interesting thing in the universe.

Hard to argue with that. It's very like the only convincing argument against solipsism I've ever found -- viz., if everything is an illusion, then there is no "reality" against which to call it an illusion, and the illusion itself is the realest thing there is.

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14. Comment #474180 by Steve Zara on March 29, 2010 at 11:13 pm

" Incidentally, my "moral axiom" does not obviously elevate AI (i.e. computers) to be included in moral questions,"

Then you are either a vitalist, or a dualist.

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15. Comment #474181 by bethe123 on March 29, 2010 at 11:13 pm

NakedCelt-- Sorry, I do not agree with it. Sam is wrong.

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16. Comment #474184 by r u i on March 29, 2010 at 11:18 pm

Sam harris is a kantian?

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17. Comment #474185 by Spinoza on March 29, 2010 at 11:25 pm

Utiliwhatianism?

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18. Comment #474191 by r u i on March 29, 2010 at 11:31 pm

8. Comment #474166 by prolibertas

"All truth passes through 3 stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident". -Arthur Schopenhaur

In science, first it is tested... then some more tests... and then it is accepted has a theory that should be open to some more testing...

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19. Comment #474194 by MondSemmel on March 29, 2010 at 11:46 pm

I think the same passage that Nunbeliever cites clinched Sam Harris' argument for me:

It is also worth noticing that Carroll has set the epistemological bar higher for morality than he has for any other branch of science. He asks, “Who decides what is a successful life?” Well, who decides what is coherent argument? Who decides what constitutes empirical evidence? Who decides when our memories can be trusted? The answer is, “we do.” And if you are not satisfied with this answer, you have just wiped out all of science, mathematics, history, journalism, and every other human effort to make sense of reality.

Or in other words: Many or even most of the arguments against there being, say, "objective morality" (which science could then study, make predictions about, etc.), have inflated expectations.
One possible rule of thumb in arguments like these should be: If anyone applies their requirements for the issue of morality to other sciences (e.g. physics, which I study), and these requirements would similarly destroy/negate these other sciences, the requirement is faulty/useless/etc. For example, there obviously is a problem with defining well-being, but so what? There are problems with defining anything and everything, from health (a great example by Sam) to time or length (oh dear, before my first lectures I wasn't really aware problems would already arise there...) or age or death or whatever you suggest.

I think many of the most common arguments against Sam's position basically demand that a scientific position on morality be devoid of axioms. If I'm true about this, these arguments are also devoid of substance.

EDIT: This is not to say that formulating useful axioms is not a major problem, but simply that it cannot by itself be an insurmountable one. A science proves its usefulness by creating theories with falsifiable predictions and so on - and while a scientific position on moral issues might possibly never reach the level of natural sciences in that regard, why shouldn't it be able to reach the level of social sciences? Many of the problems of morality are also encountered by fields like economics (getting good data, interpreting data, lack of experiments, etc.) which, as far as I know, is accepted as a proper science...

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20. Comment #474199 by lvpl78 on March 30, 2010 at 12:01 am

He asks, “Who decides what is a successful life?” Well, who decides what is coherent argument? Who decides what constitutes empirical evidence?

I find this a difficult argument to support. In principle, there could be differing opinions on what QUALIFIES as empirical evidence, but the abstract notion of what empirical evidence actually IS is fairly(!) fixed. A "successful life" isn't really defined as anything. It's like trying to prove that one painting is better than another. The corollary is that whilst you and I might have differing opinions on who is a better tennis player between A and B, the winning of a tennis tournament is a more rigidly defined objective evaluation than which player we prefer. It's a matter of opinion who your favourite player is. It's not a matter of opinion whether or not Federer won Wimbledon last year.

The answer to all of this is evolution. For all intents and purposes, morality is evolution in this sense.

I remember reading Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, which does ask some pretty profound questions. What is quality? What is good? What is bad? What does it mean for something to be good?

Then I read the Selfish Gene. Ultimately what is *good* is just whatever ensures the survival of certain information. To us, that means the survival of genes.

The reason we act morally or otherwise is entirely a consequence of the fact the information being preserved and copied over geological time is the same information that dictates how we act in the first place.

That's why you (probably) care more about your own child than someone else's, more about a human child than a baby earthworm etc etc.

Outside the domain of evolution all of this is utterly meaningless. Maybe that's what Sam is getting at when he says

The deepest problem is that it strikes me as patently mistaken about the nature of reality and about what we can reasonably mean by words like “good,” “bad,” “right,” and “wrong.” In fact, I believe that we can know, through reason alone, that consciousness is the only intelligible domain of value."

I don't think the message needs to be quite as obfusticated as it is in Sam's piece. All you have to do is ask why do livings things TRY and survive? Why is death bad? The answer is because organisms that don't see death as bad, or don't TRY and survive, didn't pass on those characteristics.

That's why AI doesn't act with inherent morality - it isn't self replicating. The whole notion of good/bad/quality etc etc means precisely nothing if not phrased in terms of self replicating entities in a population with variation and heredity.

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21. Comment #474200 by dochmbi on March 30, 2010 at 12:09 am

So bethe123, if I were to transfer all the information in my brain to a synthetic brain in such a way that I would remain the same person, would you revoke my human rights because I am no longer a living being, therefore not valued?

Would love to hear you elaborate what the essential distinction between machine and animal is in your opinion.

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22. Comment #474201 by Scandinavian07 on March 30, 2010 at 12:15 am

Let's hope Ayn Rand has not influenced his writings.

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23. Comment #474203 by bethe123 on March 30, 2010 at 12:18 am

dochmbi-- you are begging the question. I will not go so far as Sam as to suggest that makes you an idiot, however.

Star Trek --"What Are Little Girls Made Of" deals with your question. I will not spoil the plot. You will have to watch it if you want the answer. These are old questions.

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24. Comment #474204 by MondSemmel on March 30, 2010 at 12:20 am

The answer to all of this is evolution. For all intents and purposes, morality is evolution in this sense.

I don't think this argument really works well. Yes, our intuitions about morality, about what is good and what is bad, come from evolution (in the sense that our brains are evolved organs). But that, in itself, is no reason to follow them. Just as our intuitions about physics are sometimes horribly wrong, so too are some of our intuitions about morality - the best example is probably that it can be argued that humans have an inherent level of xenophobia (i.e. in-group/out-group behaviour) due to evolution - treating your in-group better and your out-group worse is advantageous for the self-replication of the corresponding genes, so this trait is passed on.
But what does this tell us? If our evolved intuitions are somewhat racist/superstitious/whatever, that shouldn't have any bearing on how we should behave, i.e. on morality.

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25. Comment #474205 by Bonzai on March 30, 2010 at 12:22 am

dochmbi

So bethe123, if I were to transfer all the information in my brain to a synthetic brain in such a way that I would remain the same person,

Interesting thought, but is it even theoretically possible?

Most of us here would agree that a disembodied consciousness like a soul floating out there is impossible. But is consciousness, or rather more specifically, "personhood" possible in an disembodied brain which is deprived of all sensual inputs from the body? The body also influences the mind in other ways, for example, hormones imbalance can change your personality drastically even though the hormones are not properly related to brain functions.

I think a consciousness in a synthetic brain, even if possible, would be very limited and perhaps very weird. It most certainly wouldn't be you.

Edited for clarification "You" are not just a snapshot of your brain state, but it is also the way you experience and interact with your environment. This is ongoing and is deeply tied to your body as a whole.

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26. Comment #474208 by lvpl78 on March 30, 2010 at 12:32 am

MondSemmel

our intuitions about morality, about what is good and what is bad, come from evolution but that, in itself, is no reason to follow them.

I totally agree on this, but perhaps I didn't articulate my point well enough. We may have behaviours that are defined by our evolution, that when viewed coldly and rationally we deem to be "immoral". Nevertheless, our basis for deeming them "immoral" will ALSO be defined by our evolution. I'm not just saying that how we behave is determined by our evolution, I'm saying that how we think we SHOULD behave is also determined by our evolution. The two may often be in conflict but that is just because our behaviours are layered, multi-faceted and complex. We don't always act "morally", and each of us has a slightly different view on what is moral.

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27. Comment #474209 by NakedCelt on March 30, 2010 at 12:36 am

Comment #474181 by bethe123:

NakedCelt-- Sorry, I do not agree with it. Sam is wrong.

On what grounds? Remember,

Imagine some genius comes forward and says, “I have found a source of value/morality that has absolutely nothing to do with the (actual or potential) experience of conscious beings.”... whatever this person has found cannot, by definition, be of interest to anyone (in this life or in any other).

That's Sam's argument. If he is wrong, then either
(a) something that has no actual or potential effects on the experience of conscious beings is nevertheless of interest to someone -- "someone" here meaning "some conscious being"; or
(b) a proposition that has, in principle, no possible application, can nevertheless meaningfully be called a moral proposition.
Which of these positions are you asserting?

Comment #474203 by bethe123:

dochmbi-- you are begging the question.

No, bethe123, you are begging the question. Dochmbi posed a hypothetical to you; if you consider it impossible in principle, you must argue your case (and be damned to spoilers for some Star Trek episode).

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28. Comment #474211 by bethe123 on March 30, 2010 at 12:43 am

NakedCelt--
To show a proof is wrong, it is sufficient to provide a counterexample. My moral axiom does that.

As Bonzai seems to have intuited -- "I would remain the same person" is an assumption, and it begs the question. Sorry, the Star Trek episode is available free online, but I will not reveal the plot and it does deal with this issue.

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29. Comment #474215 by dochmbi on March 30, 2010 at 12:49 am

How are animals and machines any different other than the materials and the way they are created? For all intents and purposes, I consider myself a machine.

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30. Comment #474216 by lvpl78 on March 30, 2010 at 12:54 am

The difference between an animal and a machine is that the animal is a product of replication, heredity and variation in the population.

Otherwise - yeah, I agree we are just machines. When someone says "would it still be you" in the case of the brain transplant scenario, my answer is yes. I am my brain. more specifically, I am the information in my brain and I am the mechanisms by which that information changes.

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31. Comment #474219 by MondSemmel on March 30, 2010 at 12:55 am

lvpl78

I'm not just saying that how we behave is determined by our evolution, I'm saying that how we think we SHOULD behave is also determined by our evolution.

Hm. While I agree that's part of the puzzle of morality, I'm still inclined to believe that at least a big chunk of all this comes from culture, not evolution per se. Of course, with the brain being an evolved organ, culture could potentially be seen as part of evolution, but I don't think anyone is making that argument (and it probably wouldn't work).
And once you incorporate culture as, at least in part, being responsible for moral decisions, we end up back at the beginning - that people have different opinions about what's moral and what's not. Detractors then argue that this (among other reasons) proves that objective morality cannot, in principle exist, etc...(and from this follows the whole issue which Sam's essay deals with).

To respond to an earlier point you made:

That's why AI doesn't act with inherent morality - it isn't self replicating. The whole notion of good/bad/quality etc etc means precisely nothing if not phrased in terms of self replicating entities in a population with variation and heredity.

I guess I argued more against this. Essentially, our ancestry and our evolution over billions of years should not by itself be allowed to determine what is good or bad. Sam's definition of morality concerning itself with the well-being of concious creatures works, for me, because this incorporates the fact that we are physical beings (which includes our evolutionary history), but well-being in modern-day life doesn't really have much to do with evolution anymore - at least not in the sense of survive-and-reproduce.
However, I don't see how morality somehow wouldn't apply to a conscious machine. That one wouldn't have evolved but have been designed by humans, but as long as it were conscious and could suffer and/or feel happiness, I don't see any reason why morality wouldn't apply to it, too. I might be thinking wrongly about this - are you saying that a static machine species with consciousness could, itself, not have notions of morality, good, bad, etc., but we humans can, even towards them?

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32. Comment #474222 by souper genyus on March 30, 2010 at 12:59 am

I most thoroughly enjoyed Sam's TED talk and understood what it was that he was saying and how controversial it is within the scientific community. However, I do think he glosses over a certain thing that must be addressed. Yes, science can be used to determine what states people prefer and how to make sure people have those preferences satisfied. BUT, and this is a big but, science cannot EVER tell us that we ought to act morally. That, ultimately, is a choice. It is, in my humble opinion, the single most important choice one faces in their life.

So, I think science and rationality can tell us what actions to take if we make the choice to be moral, but it cannot force us to make that most important choice.

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33. Comment #474223 by dochmbi on March 30, 2010 at 1:00 am

I hold this same view, Ivpl78, that I am the processes which occur in my brain. There's a name for it, Identity Theory of Mind.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/

Interesting stuff, I just found out about this, I'll have to spend some time reading.

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34. Comment #474225 by Bonzai on March 30, 2010 at 1:01 am

Let's say Sam is right.

But how does science actually inform us in our choice of moral axioms? (Once we have decided on the axioms science can probably tell us how to achieve the end if the problem is not too complex)

I think it is one thing to say that some moral sense may be hard wired, quite another to say that this realization would actually have a lot of use in helping us how to make moral decisions in practical situations.

Aside from the "is" v.s "ought" consideration, which is a rather trivial point really, there is also a question of how.

It is taken for granted by theists that morality comes from God. But without any way to actually find out what it is (given the holy books are full of contradictions and injunctions that are offensive to any common sense moral standard when interpreted literally) believers are not having any more certainty then the rest of us besides taking a few questionable dogmas as their starting points. The process by which they make actual moral decisions is probably not so different from the rest of us. Wherever their morality comes from, it most certainly is not from God, but through contradicting opinions by men who claim to speak for God.

I think we are in a similar situation here, substituting "science" for "God" wouldn't really transform the way ethicists do their jobs.

Edited for clarity

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35. Comment #474226 by AisforAtheist on March 30, 2010 at 1:04 am

I find all of the Horsemen to be fascinating, Sam included.

Still, I come at my philosophical approach to life - and society - from a perspective which seems far closer to Dawkins' view, namely that our minds arise from the presence of brain organs, which themselves are a mere necessary material component of the temporary vessels containing the DNA "copy me" instructions, we call our bodies. Obviously Sam Harris agrees with that, but for simplicity, allow me to paint Dawkins as someone who advances the "stripped-down" view and allows others, like Harris, to get into the deeper abstractions that follow from this common ground.

In this light, two things may be said:

(1) That we are sentient, and experience such things as joy and sadness, is merely a side-effect of evolution - a fortunate one from the perspective of those few who enjoy life, or a sad tragedy from the perspective of many others.

(2) We have an opportunity to recognize ourselves as being sentient, and as beings capable of applying our faculties to influence external factors in such a manner as to influence not only our own well-being, but optionally too, that of other sentient creatures.

Needless to say, it is that 2nd point that goes to the core of any debate over morality.

To sum up, it seems to me that one need not go much further than the simpler Dawkins "stripped-down" approach to self-interpretation as a mere occupant of a DNA machine that's loaded with (and capable of spreading) "copy me" instructions. Personally, I find it works wonderfully on its own; it is both straightforward and "useful" inasmuch as it sets forth an enlightened stage from which we're better able to decide what to do with these faculties. By sheer dint of being better grounded in the material reality of our circumstance (and certainly better than a religious basis), we have a better chance of aligning our morally-related decisions with outcomes that maximize our own well-being.

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36. Comment #474227 by lvpl78 on March 30, 2010 at 1:04 am

MondSemmel

Can you think of a moral statement that is not defined by your evolution?

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37. Comment #474230 by Bonzai on March 30, 2010 at 1:04 am

bethe

I have not watched the startrek episode :)

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38. Comment #474232 by bethe123 on March 30, 2010 at 1:08 am

Bonzai -- Perhaps, but you seemed to have reached the same conclusion as Rodenberry...

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39. Comment #474248 by Cartomancer on March 30, 2010 at 1:39 am

I think the problem is whose wellbeing is under consideration, and this is always controversial. I believe that in some tribal societies it is (or was) normal for adolescent men to gain adulthood by some kind of victory in battle: the wellbeing of other tribes simply didn't matter.

This is indeed a big problem. But it's not exactly a new one to moral philosophy. In the example you give it is relatively easy to sort out - overall the wellbeing of everybody would be better served by NOT tying coming-of-age rituals to warfare, since inter-tribal warfare significantly increases the risk to everyone's health. Perhaps a certain degree of testosterone-fuelled exaltation among the successful adolescents would be taken away (which could, in itself, be considered a certain kind of wellbeing), but this can be achieved in many other, better, ways and is easily outweighed by the reduced suffering of inter-tribe peace even if no such replacement is provided.

But not all situations admit of such an obvious solution. There will always be genuine moral problems where there is no ideal course of action - which is precisely what we would expect from the ad-hoc cooperation rules of an imperfect species of evolved primates. Ultimately the well-being of all sentient beings affected by an action should be taken into account when assessing its moral impact, but the human brain is, as we all know, poorly evolved to do this. It will tend to emphasise close kin and immediate allies, and generally disregard strangers and non-humans. Working out what is moral might be simple, but getting fallible human beings to actually do it is quite another game entirely.

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40. Comment #474260 by NakedCelt on March 30, 2010 at 1:58 am

Comment #474211 by bethe123:

NakedCelt--
To show a proof is wrong, it is sufficient to provide a counterexample. My moral axiom does that.

No, it doesn't. You now have the task of convincing me that it is a moral axiom. Let's see.

I personally think all life is sacred, even one celled animals, which I suppose have no consciousness. I think all life is the domain of value, not just consciousness...

First, I would like to know what you mean by "sacred".
Secondly, you do know, don't you, that there is no such thing as a one-celled animal? Animals are by definition multicellular.
I feel I need to check this because if you substitute "organism" for "animal" that means plants and fungi are also sacred. I would then have to take it that "sacred" does not mean that one is not allowed to harm or destroy them, since to prevent an animal from harming other organisms is to starve it to death. In which case, what does "sacred" mean?
Third, I must point out that each cell in our own bodies is, itself, a single-celled organism. The fact that most of them are locked into their places in our tissues does not alter this fact. It is also a fact that all the cells on the surface of our body are dead. Is this a tragedy on a billionfold scale?
Most forms of excretion remove at least some cells, and in some -- notably ejaculation and menstruation -- that is the purpose of the excretion. Is masturbation murder? (Be aware that the Catholic Church traditionally takes that question very seriously indeed.)
You could argue that the fact that these propositions feel ridiculous does not invalidate them. But you must still face Harris' question: why, and to whom, does the holocaust of the skin-cells matter?

As Bonzai seems to have intuited -- "I would remain the same person" is an assumption, and it begs the question. Sorry, the Star Trek episode is available free online, but I will not reveal the plot and it does deal with this issue.

No, the hypothetical posed to you was "Suppose you could upload your consciousness to a machine and remain the same person". "Remaining the same person" is posited as part of the premise. If you think this is impossible in principle, you must argue it.
Dochmbi is allowed, for example, to suppose that the machine with the uploaded consciousness has its own sensors and motors, and can provide a sensorimotor environment every bit as rich as that provided by the human body. Such technology is beyond our current capability, but so is uploading consciousness to a machine. If you can posit one, you can posit the other. If you know of some reason why neither can be posited even in principle, explicate it.
Setting aside your odd assumption that a significant fraction of people care about some long-past episode of Star Trek, you surely don't need to discuss plot and character details in order to lay out the underlying logic.

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41. Comment #474263 by MondSemmel on March 30, 2010 at 2:02 am

lvpl78
I'm not sure these work, but let me try some:
1) Most religious statements, let's go with "Condom usage is bad because of [scriptural verse #12387103]"
I guess the moral logic would be something like "Doing what god wants is good, god doesn't like condoms, therefore condoms are bad"? In any case, while there are some theories concerning potential evolutionary causes for religion, I'm not aware of any that has sufficient evidence to be generally accepted.
2) "Gay marriage is bad." Let's go with the reason this time being homophobia, or even simpler, because "It makes me feel icky" or something like that. While that may have evolutionary roots, this knowledge doesn't really help us here, does it? Just like my xenophobia example from before, while this may be a partly evolved feeling/idea, we would argue against both by saying that racial/gender equality significantly increases happiness (among those being treated better) without substantially increasing unhappiness (among the bigots)?
3) Complex problems in general, things like "To which extent does foreign aid work (=moral), and to which extent is it detrimental (=immoral)?", serious ethical questions in bio-engineering etc., different ways of structuring an economy (e.g. distribution of wealth as an ethical problem), etc.
I guess my view is mostly one partly mentioned above - that our evolved brains are poorly equipped to deal with modern life and that we compensate for this fact with culture (like reason, science, etc.).

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42. Comment #474277 by prolibertas on March 30, 2010 at 2:46 am

Cartomancer: "Perhaps naively I have also assumed that most people probably also view morality like this, and the quantity of criticism Sam is receiving for such apparently commonsensical points genuinely surprises me".

Yes, I was particularly baffled at the horde of moral relativists that crawled out of the atheist wood-work. Every prominent atheist I've read is a moral realist, and the whole notion of criticizing religion for causing suffering depends on moral realism, so I pretty much assumed that the 'new atheists' were generally moral realists and that the idea of the 'atheist moral relativist' was confined to the postmodern nihilists and to the strawmen of religious apologists.

EDIT: Yes, I know that not all criticisms of Sam's argument came strictly from the relativists.

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43. Comment #474280 by bethe123 on March 30, 2010 at 2:47 am

NakedCelt -- Fine, lose the word 'sacred' and substitute some other adjective like 'special'. The general concept is to have a regard for life greater than inert matter. If you and Sam wish to accord a hydrogen atom the moral equivalent of an amoeba, that is your choice. I am suggesting a live amoeba rates higher than the hydrogen.
There is also the question of just how conscious does the organism have to be? Who is to say the lowly earthworm does not value its life as much as we do, if not more? Not the earthworm you say…then go a little higher in the ladder -- but just how high is anyone’s guess… so even to apply Sam’s consciousness criteria is arbitrary since consciousness probably is a continuum quality.

Incidentally, I do not prove my axiom, nor do I really have to...just as I do not have to prove the Golden Rule to intuitively know it is very likely correct. I do however have to check it against criteria of reasonableness, general knowledge, and common sense.

Which brings me to another point...moral experts. I would not want to follow a system of ethics set up by Sam because I think he is mistaken, and he probably would not agree with mine. For either of us to impose our views on the other does remind one of the evils of dogmatic religion.

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44. Comment #474285 by Dwain on March 30, 2010 at 3:11 am

The introduction and substitution of a new social concept, science morality, for the traditional concept, god morality, will appeal to a small but energetic and growing segment of the population.

The largest population segment, an entrenched, god morality group, will vehemently disagree. This also growing segment is dominant by perhaps 5 billion people at the moment.

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45. Comment #474288 by lvpl78 on March 30, 2010 at 3:13 am

MondSemmel

A valiant effort sir.

The first two are both products of religion. As Sam says in this piece, it may be impossible in PRACTICE to state the exact evolutionary reasons for religious behaviour, but in PRINCIPLE we can be confident that they are there. It might be obedience to authority, or it might be fear of dying, or both or something else. But it will in principle be explainable in those terms.

As for number 3, you may disagree over the method used in foreign aid, or you may question whether it ultimately does what is intended to make lives better for people overseas, but ultimately the goal is the same, no matter what your opinion of the method.

The goal is to stop people in other countries from suffering and/or dying. Why do you want other people to not die? Because genes that make bodies which happen to behave altruistically toward other bodies sharing a high proportion of the same genetic information (say kin or same species), will by default obtain an advantage with respect to natural selection versus those (genes) which do not. Not individuals, genes. To put it another way. genes that make parents not care for their children, or which make humans indiscriminately harm others, will tend to not still be around. Their chances of being replicated are much slimmer.

That's why you and I don't want to other people die for no good reason.

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46. Comment #474290 by NakedCelt on March 30, 2010 at 3:14 am

Comment #474280 by bethe123:

NakedCelt -- Fine, lose the word 'sacred' and substitute some other adjective like 'special'.

No, that's what I'm asking you, because I genuinely don't know what kind of other adjective you have in mind there. I note your proposed "special" is vague and non-domain-specific.

The general concept is to have a regard for life greater than inert matter. If you and Sam wish to accord a hydrogen atom the moral equivalent of an amoeba, that is your choice. I am suggesting a live amoeba rates higher than the hydrogen.

Rates higher to whom? To whom, or what, is an amoeba special? I don't mean the amoeba that is sitting on the microscope slide, that the researcher is aware of as an individual. I mean the amoeba getting on with its life in the U-bend of the toilet, which will die alongside millions of its close kindred the next time someone pours disinfectant down it. What are the appropriate actions on the part of the cleaner with respect to the "specialness" of those amoebae?

There is also the question of just how conscious does the organism have to be? Who is to say the lowly earthworm does not value its life as much as we do, if not more? Not the earthworm you say…then go a little higher in the ladder -- but just how high is anyone’s guess… so even to apply Sam’s consciousness criteria is arbitrary since consciousness probably is a continuum quality.

Er... you did notice the part where Sam said all that already, didn't you? Where did you get the impression that Sam was proposing a single universally applicable Boolean threshold for being worthy of moral consideration?

Incidentally, I do not prove my axiom, nor do I really have to...just as I do not have to prove the Golden Rule to intuitively know it is very likely correct. I do however have to check it against criteria of reasonableness, general knowledge, and common sense.

When it comes to applying morality to your everyday life, this is exemplary. When arguing the philosophical basis of morality, it is poppycock. You have proposed your "axiom" as a challenge to another person's philosophy. You must show how it counters that philosophy. Merely noting that the two are in disagreement is not sufficient. Sam is well aware that there are people who hold ethical beliefs he doesn't.

Which brings me to another point...moral experts. I would not want to follow a system of ethics set up by Sam because I think he is mistaken, and he probably would not agree with mine. For either of us to impose our views on the other does remind one of the evils of dogmatic religion.

You are aware that Sam's "system", if such it can be called, is specifically predicated on the premise of not causing suffering, aren't you? And that therefore in such a system you would not be caused to suffer?
Doctors don't make my health decisions for me, but I listen to what they have to say when making those decisions because I know they are experts in the field of health. Why should morals be any different?
Oh, and I'm still asking this:

No, the hypothetical posed to you was "Suppose you could upload your consciousness to a machine and remain the same person". "Remaining the same person" is posited as part of the premise. If you think this is impossible in principle, you must argue it.
Dochmbi is allowed, for example, to suppose that the machine with the uploaded consciousness has its own sensors and motors, and can provide a sensorimotor environment every bit as rich as that provided by the human body. Such technology is beyond our current capability, but so is uploading consciousness to a machine. If you can posit one, you can posit the other. If you know of some reason why neither can be posited even in principle, explicate it.

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47. Comment #474296 by Mike Liebergesell on March 30, 2010 at 3:33 am

I had gotten wind of some news on the web that there are some atheists who are opposed to abortion but I don't know what their reasons are in regards to their opposition to abortion. Can anybody shed some light on this ? Thank You Mike

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48. Comment #474298 by bethe123 on March 30, 2010 at 3:40 am

NakedCelt--

Sam's elevation of minimizing suffering to a basic principle is completely arbitrary, but no more so than my elevation of life over inert matter.

Other's have commented that Sam's view on suffering may in fact be false, that some suffering is a necessary part of the human condition. I believe this to be true. Yet another instance where Sam is wrong, in my opinion.

I think all life is valuable, and more so than inert matter --the onus is on you or Sam(good luck) to show that statement is false. Until you have done so, it is a valid counterexample. If I actually cared to advance an argument, I could say something to the effect that as far as we know, our planet is the only one in the universe with life, and life is actually very, very improbable, and hence special. This in fact may be the case, we do not know.

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49. Comment #474299 by EnlitnD99 on March 30, 2010 at 3:43 am

I'm glad Sam decided to respond to a lot of the challenges - I also can't wait for his full book to be published. I hope he deals adequately with the moral case for liberty. It seems that liberty (and maybe "rights" generally) might be separate from "well-being" which is Harris's foundation for morality. It's possible that liberty and rights are "parasitic on some notion of wellbeing in the end" as he argues here about other principles. The issue is expanded a bit here: http://renaissanceroundtablegroup.blogspot.com/2010/03/science-based-morality-and-problem-of.html

Well, I've pre-ordered my book. Thanks Sam!

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50. Comment #474304 by Steve Zara on March 30, 2010 at 3:59 am

The more I read Sam's piece, the less comfortable I am with it. My feeling is that his arguments, if I understand them correctly, have a useful foundation, but the language he uses is probably misleading. For example, Perhaps he should be talking about human desires and wants, rather than values; about happiness rather than wellbeing, as his terms aren't measurable: it may be a fact that someone says they have a value, but how can that be in any way measured? The argument mat be better expressed in terms of emotional states rather than labels for opinions.

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