Sam Harris' 'The Moral Landscape'

Ave.In his opening round, Pro gives us two premises. He asserts that these two premises alone are all he has to defend in order to win the debate. I think there is much more that has to be defended than this. The first premise and the second premise, on their own, do not support a conclusion which affirms Harris' ontology. For one, you have to defend the statement that the well-being of conscious creatures is the basis of morality. You also have to find a way to connect is statements with ought statements. Pro will have to do much more than defend the two premises he stated.Dr. Harris has given us no reason to make a moral distinction between the 'good life' and the 'bad life'. Yes, it is true that the two lives are different in the context of who is feeling more pleasure. We are not given any reasons to associate misery with moral good/evil or pleasure with moral good/wrong.The is-ought distinction is extremely harmful to Sam Harris’ moral ontology. The is-ought distinction is a meta-ethical problem articulated by Scottish philosopher David Hume. It states there is a difference between descriptive statements (what is) and normative statements (what ought to be). Science may tell us what is harmful to the well-being of conscious creatures, but this does not mean we ought to act any differently. It is a descriptive statement, not a normative one. [1]Sam Harris has used three different arguments against the is-ought distinction. The first argument is that facts about maximizing well-being relate to states of the brain. This is true, but this does not give us any reason to think that we have a moral obligation to maximize well-being. Dr . Harris also points out that objective knowledge has values built into it, like respect for evidence and logical consistency. This argument commits the fallacy of equivocation. Sam Harris is using a definition of ‘’value’’ that is different from the meaning of the word ‘’value’’ when we talk about ‘’moral value’’. Finally, Dr. Harris argues that facts and beliefs about values come from the same place in the brain, so there is no gap between them. This argument fails because the origin of a thought in neuroscientific terms has nothing to do with the meta-ethical content of the thought.The second problem is that occupying a peak of well-being is not equivalent to moral good. Dr. Harris admits that evil people can be just as happy as good people.[2] William Lane Craig has demonstrated that this fact destroys Harris' ontology. "This implies that we can conceive of a possible world in which the continuum of human well-being is not a moral landscape. The peaks of well-being could be occupied by evil people. But this entails that in the actual world the continuum of well-being and the moral landscape are not identical either. For identity is a necessary relation. There is no possible world in which some entity A is not identical to A. So if there is any possible world in which A is not identical to B, it follows that A is not in fact identical to B. Since it's possible that human well-being and moral goodness are not identical, it follows necessarily that human well-being and moral goodness are not the same, as Harris has asserted. By granting that it's possible that the continuum of well-being is not identical to the moral landscape, Harris has rendered his view logically incoherent.’’ [3]This is a powerful argument which demonstrates that Harris's ontology is not a moral landscape, but is just a continuum of well-being. The failure of Dr. Craig's argument would still not demonstrate that peaks on the moral landscape are equivalent to moral good. Pro has to give us reasons to believe that they are equal. If no sound reasons can be given, then Harris' ontology is still nothing but a continuum of well-being.Dr. Harris has argued that we should define good as 'that which supports the well-being of conscious creatures'. [4] Asking 'Why is it good to support the well-being of conscious creatures' is then like asking 'Why is supporting the well-being of conscious creatures supporting the well-being of conscious creatures?'. This is a word game rather than an actual philosophical reason to equate moral good with well-being. You can't affirm that to be true on the basis of a tautology. It's an extremely weak argument that doesn't prove anything, because it begs the question that you can define good in such a way, which is the whole controversy in the first place.The case against 'The Moral Landscape' can be summarized as this: Science can tell us what is, but it can never tell us what ought to be. There are no good reasons to equate moral good with peaks on the moral landscape, and there are good reasons to think the contrary. In the end, Harris' ontology is just a measurement of human well-being, and has nothing to say about morality.References1: http://tinyurl.com...2: Harris, Moral Landscape, 190.3: http://tinyurl.com...4: Harris, Moral Landscape, 12.Vale.