Sam Harris' 'The Moral Landscape'

Ave. I want to make a preliminary note about how I’m organizing this round. Brackets with things like ‘’N1’’ in them stand for ‘’Note one’’. I created a section at the end of the debate called ‘’Notes’’ if you want to understand my reasoning behind that statement. You don’t have to read them unless you’re curious. Brackets with a single number in them correlate to the references page, as I’m sure you learned. In my opening statement, I gave two arguments against the moral landscape. These two arguments will comprise the bulk of my criticism. The first argument was the is-ought distinction. The second was argument was that moral good is not equal to the moral landscape. If these arguments, or even one of them, can stand, then the moral landscape is not a sound moral ontology. [N1] RationalWiki notes that ‘’The is-ought distinction is sometimes misconstrued to mean that facts are totally disconnected from ethical statements, or that there is no relationship at all between is and ought. As can be seen, Hume does not argue this position, but states that a factual statement (or "is") needs to be combined with an ethical principle or assumption before an ethical statement (or "ought") can be derived.’’ I think it’s important to keep this misconception in mind when reading Pro’s arguments. It seems to me that many of them make this mistake. [1] Pro quotes Sam Harris to show that is and ought can be connected. The argument is that objective knowledge presupposes values such as a respect for evidence and logical consistency. I already answered this argument in my opening statement, so the only thing I can do is repeat my criticism. This argument commits the fallacy of equivocation. [2] Sam Harris is using a definition of ‘’value’’ that is different from the meaning of the word ‘’value’’ when we talk about ‘’moral value’’. [N2] Pro says the idea that we ought to respect evidence is built into science. This is not a moral ought, however. This just means that, if you want to do science, you have to respect evidence. It does not relate to moral right and wrong at all. I agree that, once you grant the assumption ‘’moral good is about the well-being of conscious creatures’’, then it’s morally good to move everyone to the best possible world rather than the worst possible world. The assumption, however, is false. [N3] An important part of Harris’s ontology is that there is an actual distinction between the good life and the bad life. I conceded that there is definitely a difference between the way these two people feel. One is miserable, and the other one feels great pleasure. The problem is that we are not given any reasons to associate misery with moral good/evil or pleasure with moral good/wrong. Pro seems to skip over this criticism in the last round. The only thing he says that even touches this argument is a few sentences from the Thomas Nagel quote. In this quote, he asserts that the difference between the good life and the bad life is obvious. I concede that it’s obvious in the context of how each person is feeling, but we still don’t get any reasons for thinking that they’re different in a moral sense. The remainder of the quote is irrelevant because it doesn’t relate to anything I have said in this debate. Pro attacks William Lane Craig and divine command theory. I’m not going to respond to this because it’s a red herring. [3] This debate is not about the truth of divine command theory. We are not even debating theistic morality. This is strictly about Sam Harris’ moral ontology. [N4] It turns out that I slightly misquoted Harris. He didn’t explicitly state that evil people can actually be just as happy as good people. The error is mine, not Dr. Craig’s, and it’s irrelevant anyways. It doesn’t matter if evil people are not as happy as good people in the actual world. It matters if evil people could be as happy as good people in some possible world. Because, if there is some possible world where moral good is not equal to the moral landscape (peaks of well-being), then there is no possible world where moral good is equal to the moral landscape, otherwise the law of identity would be false. This premise was not disputed by Pro in the last round. We can conceive of a possible where the peaks of well-being are occupied by evil people who take pleasure in the suffering of others. This premise was not disputed by Pro in the last round. Since there is a possible world where moral good is not equivalent to the moral landscape, there is no possible world where moral good is equivalent to the moral landscape. This was not disputed by Pro in the last round. Ergo, Sam Harris’ moral landscape is not a moral landscape, but just a measurement of well-being. This is truly a knockdown argument against Harris’ ontology, and I have to admit to thinking that Pro’s response was too short and ineffective. Which premise does Pro dispute, and why? That’s what I’d like to have answered in the next round. At the very end of my opening statement, I showed that Harris was trying to equate moral good with well-being on the basis of a tautology. I didn’t see any response from Pro to this argument. [N5] The entire section called ‘’Advancing the Case’’ doesn’t need to be addressed. If I can defend the two arguments from my opening statement, then nothing from that quote will matter. References 1: http://rationalwiki.org... 2: http://rationalwiki.org... 3: http://rationalwiki.org... Notes N1: If you have an argument with true premises and valid logic which leads to the conclusion that Harris’ ontology is wrong, then the failure of your other arguments does not matter. N2: This is demonstrated by the following quote from my opening statement: “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’.’’ N3: This is by way of the fact that there is a possible world where moral good is not equal to the moral landscape. N4: This is fairly obvious. When was anything about theistic morality mentioned in R1? N5: A quote from my opening statement: ‘’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.’’ Vale.