Sam Harris' 'The Moral Landscape'

I think Con misunderstands my statement regarding the two premises outlined in round one. I realize there is still work ahead of me, but claimed that the rest will flow logically. If these two stand, and I’d argue that they have, then we’re well on our way. First: Russell Blackford poses a very similar challenge that Con has, drawing on the idea of the Is – Ought distinction from Hume. Harris stands ready to defend. “Again, the same can be said about medicine, or science as a whole. As I point out in my book, science in based on values that must be presupposed -- like the desire to understand the universe, a respect for evidence and logical coherence, etc. One who doesn't share these values cannot do science. But nor can he attack the presuppositions of science in a way that anyone should find compelling. Scientists need not apologize for presupposing the value of evidence, nor does this presupposition render science unscientific. In my book, I argue that the value of well-being -- specifically the value of avoiding the worst possible misery for everyone -- is on the same footing.” [2] Thomas Nagel provides this additional support to Harris’ thesis: “Even if this is an exaggeration, Harris has identified a real problem, rooted in the idea that facts are objective and values are subjective. Harris rejects this facile opposition in the only way it can be rejected -- by pointing to evaluative truths so obvious that they need no defense. For example, a world in which everyone was maximally miserable would be worse than a world in which everyone was happy, and it would be wrong to try to move us toward the first world and away from the second. This is not true by definition, but it is obvious, just as it is obvious that elephants are larger than mice. If someone denied the truth of either of those propositions, we would have no reason to take him seriously... The true culprit behind contemporary professions of moral skepticism is the confused belief that the ground of moral truth must be found in something other than moral values. One can pose this type of question about any kind of truth. What makes it true that 2 + 2 = 4? What makes it true that hens lay eggs? Some things are just true; nothing else makes them true. Moral skepticism is caused by the currently fashionable but unargued assumption that only certain kinds of things, such as physical facts, can be "just true" and that value judgments such as "happiness is better than misery" are not among them. And that assumption in turn leads to the conclusion that a value judgment could be true only if it were made true by something like a physical fact. That, of course, is nonsense.” [2] The idea that we ought to respect evidence is ontologically built into the value system of the project of science itself. “First, do no harm” is woven into the very fabric of medical intuition. Similarly, that it is “morally correct” to attempt movement towards what he calls “the-best-possible-world-for-everyone” and away from “the worst-possible-world-for-everyone” is similarly a self-evident ontological truth that must be either accepted or rejected by its own merit, without evidence. There is no equivocation, and no difference between this and other disciplines, even mathematics, which require the same kinds of leaps. Even if we were to modify the calculus of what constitutes “well-being” by extending the timeline to account for the existence of an afterlife, this does not change the underlying truth that “morality” by any meaningful definition of the word can only be expressed in terms describing our intentions toward the mental state of conscious creatures, which hypothetically to a theist could either be blessed with happiness in heaven or cursed with misery in hell. If any wordplay is afoot, it is Craig who is guilty by re-defining “good” as “whatever God tells us it is”. This attitude can lead to psychopathic outcomes, as it justifies all manner of violence, murder, and needless cruelty by completely decoupling morality from the impact it has on the happiness or misery of conscious creatures such as humans. Craig cannot offer the sound moral foundation that he pretends to. If you doubt the absurdity of the Divine Command Theory, let me know and we can explore that next round. Second: The Craig attack against premise 2 is simply misrepresenting Harris’ position, as Craig often does. Here is Harris' actual quote: It is also conceivable that a science of human flourishing could be possible, and yet people could be made equally happy by very different “moral” impulses. Perhaps there is no connection between being good and feeling good—and, therefore, no connection between moral behavior (as generally conceived) and subjective well-being. In this case, rapists, liars, and thieves would experience the same depth of happiness as the saints. This scenario stands the greatest chance of being true, while still seeming quite far-fetched. Neuroimaging work already suggests what has long been obvious through introspection: human cooperation is rewarding.12 However, if evil turned out to be as reliable a path to happiness as goodness is, my argument about the moral landscape would still stand, as would the likely utility of neuroscience for investigating it. It would no longer be an especially “moral” landscape; rather it would be a continuum of wellbeing, upon which saints and sinners would occupy equivalent peaks. [3] As I hope readers will notice, Harris is not arguing that rapists, liars, and thieves actually do experience the same depth of happiness as saints, but rather is pointing out that if this could be proven to be the case through neuroscience, it would be one way of falsifying his view. Craig and Con are basically just agreeing with Harris on this, and then pretending that Harris has admitted something which he has not! Advancing the Case Having defended both premises from Con’s attack, Harris will do us the honor of taking his case to the next stage. Once we conceive of “the worst possible misery for everyone,” then we can talk about taking incremental steps toward this abyss: What could it mean for life on earth to get worse for all human beings simultaneously? Notice that this need have nothing to do with people enforcing their culturally conditioned moral precepts. Perhaps a neurotoxic dust could fall to earth from space and make everyone extremely uncomfortable. All we need imagine is a scenario in which everyone loses a little, or a lot, without there being compensatory gains (i.e., no one learns any important lessons, no one profits from others’ losses, etc.). It seems uncontroversial to say that a change that leaves everyone worse off, by any rational standard, can be reasonably called “bad,” if this word is to have any meaning at all. We simply must stand somewhere. I am arguing that, in the moral sphere, it is safe to begin with the premise that it is good to avoid behaving in such a way as to produce the worst possible misery for everyone. I am not claiming that most of us personally care about the experience of all conscious beings; I am saying that a universe in which all conscious beings suffer the worst possible misery is worse than a universe in which they experience well-being. This is all we need to speak about “moral truth” in the context of science. Once we admit that the extremes of absolute misery and absolute flourishing—whatever these states amount to for each particular being in the end—are different and dependent on facts about the universe, then we have admitted that there are right and wrong answers to questions of morality. 22[4] References 2) http://www.huffingtonpost.com... 3) Page 125 http://skepdic.ru... 4) Pages 31-32 http://skepdic.ru...