Sam Harris.org Reader Forum

Where do we draw the line?

2013-03-02T23:33:10Z

I’m sorry if it will get a little long or it has been discussed already, but i am new here and it is hard to read the whole forum. I honestly have to say i failed to make people at least get suspicious with their beliefs, regardless of arguments since they live in a cyclic reasoning area which is almost impossible to break…i hope that is a flaw of mine and i will need different approaches in the future. But i write here because lately i had a few verbal encounters with people who do not believe in science but aren’t religious either…they just believe in some weird energy and those are the ones who practice meditation and other things which in my opinion are good practices in the way of the human beings brain unexplored ability to better control body functions and it’n own thoughts and feelings. Thus i do not see a need to add to that imaginary energy and/or dimensions.
I do not understand why they don’t understand that the mechanism of believing in something which has no proof is basically the source of all evil because it can lead to individual interpretations which have no logical correspondent in nature. Yes, there are cases with some practices which are completely innocent and peaceful, but those are just e few lucky endings of the same belief error which led christians to slaughter hundreds of thousands. I often wonder how could i explain to others that this faith itself is wrong in the first place since it seems to me that is such a basic logical fact.
I often thought about normality and they way it should be defined without restricting others liberty. I realize each individual perceive reality different and that should be respected as part of diversity. But in the same time we cannot leave reality in it whole to each one interpretation.Thus, i think it is imperative that we define reality. It is tricky in my opinion. Rejecting any belief system seems a normal action to take. Correcting abnormal behaviors through neuroplasty is also a must. But who can take that responsibility and even more important should we allow somebody to decide for us?
I give an example which i am part of: transsexuality. We admit that is individual choice to decide of his way to live and we also know it might be a genetic problem or a just pure psychology since we don’t exactly understand the human brain at this present. But we also know and if not, i will say now, that the percentage of transsexuality is greatly increased by the porn industry and human trafficking in the world. So, should we find a way through science to eliminate transsexuality for good and by this action eliminate bad actions which are based on it and a more important issue is how much of diversity and liberty should we constrict for greater good.
It does seem similar with spirituality, doesn’t it? But then i should not exist and here i am debating my own existence.

Moral equivalence and the myth of western omni-utility

2013-01-29T23:11:27Z

Sams book has been compared to utilitarianism. Fair to a degree but that has traditionally been defined introspectively. A consequence of this is that cross cultural analysis night leave people with a sense of incommensurability. How can the happiness of the poor equal that of the rich western populations? If the economy shrinks well go to hell! i think that brain science can help provide a universal language for people to relate to one another in. People in arabia might shun the concept to living for pleasure, but get as much of “it” as we do. People like a drink but it night be shown that cultures can stabilise without it and retain happiness. one proven in a scan not merely atterted. Perhaps consumerist materialism might actually undermine flourishing as some hindus believe, and that may not remain a subjective hypothesis but be objectified. Rich people have more nervous breakdowns etc. Or science might help people identify ways of living low incomes, for instance developing x brain area like social areas. That could in turn help greed dissipate and resources spread, or help people to save their money in difficult times. in my country the gov are looking at how policies affect not just wealth but happiness too. That is one step in the right direction. there is a common perception amongst the young that partying is the be all, and a lot of money behind it and in it. the youth want to rebel against the system and are sucked into good times or time wasting excess depending on your attitude. this is probably one of the biggest gripes of the third world and other concerned for global harmony and sustainability. It is a pretty unscientific way of caring (i at least imagine they care). although it may appear to fit the utilitarian glove in an optimal fashion. we party so hard that the utility calculus bounces back with a vengance and the sufferings of the rest become negligable. Psychologists are used in all lines of material advertising,creating the illusion that maximal utility lies only in that particular brand. if these inconvenient mythological dynamics could be deconstructed it might help sustainable development. Perhaps the religion of consumerist hedonism, with its values of luxury branding and dionesian revelry is as great a threat as any faith? I think that there issues could be raised in a politically And socially brave landscape assessment. i do not mean to glorify hunger but i think that maybe the ‘gods’ of money and pleasure do not necessarily complement one another in a linear, directly proportionate fashion. we all know that, but where is the evidence? It is written in our hearts, but the publishers are not yet ready. Go on sam do us a favour! And do others matter? Translating morality into brain states perhaps universalises our spirituality In a way that reaches the parts that other theories cannot reach.

What people value

2013-01-27T16:56:36Z

What would have been good is a deeper analysis of evaluation of worth and importance. For instance compare pet scans of a subject comparing between and evaluating vivaldi vs road work noise. Then use a similar programme for comparisons involving moral choice. My hunch is morals may be nothing special except they may evoke deeper feeling. that might undermine an illusion that the “true system” is anything other than a functional set of evaluations and related beliefs and dispositions. functional in the sense that vivaldi is functional to listen to rather than something awesome and perhaps alienated from the rest of our culture (sacred, fetishised and numenous) as revealed on mount whatever. Arter all we have rules modulating noise pollution just as we do theft and perjury. Rules regulating the value of being imho.

Why was potlatching considered a bad thing?

2013-01-26T22:00:33Z

A friend and I were reading ‘The moral Landscape” and we came across a long list of immoral things, at least what some people considered immoral. Potlatching was on the list with some horrible things, things to which I saw no connection at all. Potlatching is singing, sharing, eating, taking time off. I suppose that violated somones work ethic?

transcriptomes

2013-01-25T14:52:27Z

The neurological wortrk I know of Sam’s is to do with belief and disbelif. I know of a study that says that certain mental health medicine affects transcriptomes. Perhaps alongside brain scans the science of morality will also have a genetic and epigenetic aspect to it?

Why a Science of Morality could be barking up the wrong tree

2012-12-16T18:07:14Z

Hi Guys

I’m not only new but a Briish atheist.

I am now going to put to you an email that I sent to Sam Harris but obviously he is unable to answer all his emails.

See What you think and please bare with me

By the way Russell and Stephen and Tookey are fellow atheists who have engaged in the debate.

Dear Sam

I am just a British Atheist and a nobody from the point of view of people you are used to dealing with. I very much appreciate what you have done in the struggle against theism but I have however seen both yourself and Richard Dawkins on You Tube experience difficulty on the subject of morality especially with William Lane-Craig. I think this is one of the most vital questions for atheism and is one of our real weaknesses. I have not read your book `The Moral Landscape’ yet but I have read your summary on your website. I have just started an internet discussion in Britain on this subject and I would very much like your comments.

I will try and put the problem simply

1 The theist grounds morality in the existence of God as the supreme arbiter
2 You attempt to ground morality in the universe and the suffering or not of sentient beings.
3 I would ground morality in the Human Race and our nature and evolution.

This may sound simple but the implications are huge and getting in wrong in my view may cause atheists to be `barking up the wrong tree’ or looking in the wrong place. What follows is an edited version of my thoughts and I really hope you will bare with me on the length.

What is Atheist Morality?

Before we discuss this, it may be prudent to look at the conventional model of what has historically been the foundation of human ethics and morality - that is Theist largely Christian morality in this country (UK). This is based on a very solidly simple proposition. It appears that its solid simplicity is the reason why the atheist narrative has run into such difficulties confronting it. That is that God created the universe and mankind and ever since Adam and Eve man has been incapable of determining what is right or wrong, good or evil without divine guidance in the form of revelations. More than this, not only is God the embodiment of ultimate goodness but he has a counterpart in the form of a lesser deity named Satan who is the embodiment of ultimate evil. God is not alone.

Of course mankind being child-like or sheep like (whichever one prefers) is inherently incapable of an independent path and therefore must necessarily be influenced by Satan - to the dark side, if you will, or to God to the light. Therefore we can infer that for the theist both goodness and evil come from outside the human condition and has existed long before we were even placed upon this earth. This is what William Lane-Craig the theist ideolgue calls `objective morality’. By Objective he means independent of the human race - in fact as independent from us as the mountains the sun and the stars. Given world history over the last two millennia, at first glace it may appear that this narrative has some evidential merit most recently incarnated by Hitler, Stalin, two world wars and a list too long to cite just in the last century alone, and things aren’t looking much better in this one.

So that is what they say, but what do we say? Where do we begin to find an alternative grounding? As grounded it has to be. Our difficulty is not that we don’t know that our morality is better than theirs but the question is why? It has to be based on something more than our individual thoughts and opinions because Stalin and Pol Pot also had individual thoughts and opinions. We can argue as does Russell20 that ` However I will take issue with the Stalin and Mao link with atheism and atheists in general. As what seperates us from them is that they were communists first and only de-facto atheists second.’ However the theist could also argue in line with Stephen’s observation that `Firstly, there have been many religious dictators guilty of mass murder and human rights violations. Hitler a catholic, as was Franco and Pinochet, the latter two may not have murdered as many but they still ran a state by fear and torture’ In other words, the fact that they were theists could also be a secondary matter as they were first and foremost fascists. We cannot get away with saying that we are free thinkers and nice human beings because there are good atheists and bad atheists.

There have been attempts by none theists over the years to answer this question, Utilitarianism, Humanism, Marxism which have all found their points of departure from the human being whether that be human thought or human action whether collective or individual. For all the qualities and insights of these ideologies they have all failed to escape the shackles of the subjectivity in the individual or the objectivity of the collective.

Another angle to this, as we are atheists is to recognise the centrality of science in this question and I think Darwinian evolution by natural selection must play a crucial role in this puzzle along side human thought and action. To start from basics we can ask what is the purpose of any species that has ever evolved on the earth? Given we are one. To reduce the answer to its essence we can say the purpose of any species is its survival, reproduction and wellbeing. This applies to any living thing from bacteria onwards and there is no reason why this should not apply to us, just because we can be separated from the rest of the animal world by our super-intelligence and super-capabilities. So how do all these things fit together?

As I have said in previous posts there is such a thing as good and evil, right and wrong but these concepts find their origin within our species and exist nowhere else but within our species. This will remain the case until super-intelligent life is found elsewhere in the universe. We as atheists should know this because we know that good and evil exists but we also know that man created god not the other way around. We also know that there are now good or evil animnals and this does not apply to nature or the universe as such. I would contend that whatever actions (taken by humans) aid our primeval instincts of survival, replication and wellbeing for all humans are good and moral and those that are detrimental to these instincts are evil and immoral - this applies both on a societal/global and an individual level. All that has been said in the debate `morality atheism’s weakness’ fits into this narrative one way or the other. I think that this is so absolutely true that almost all humans understand this to the extent that when we do evil deeds we know that we have done evil and have made a conscious choice to do so.

Tookey2k stated that `Morality can NEVER be an absolute commodity. What is good today could very well be bad tomorrow’ Absolutely correct. Morality of course depends on our stage of historical development and the contemporary challenges we are faced with as a species. The issue of global warming is a good example of a situation that was not an issue two hundred years ago but is very much an issue today in terms of our survival replication and wellbeing for the future. I would say that those who purposefully ignore it or fight against the control of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere are acting in an immoral way.

There are many more examples of this, nuclear weapons world poverty, human rights etc but the correct moral answer to these issues must be viewed via the prism of our prospects for survival, reproduction and wellbeing as a species as a whole.

Although I am of the view that morality is not static we should also bare in mind the fact that are some absolutes that humanity has `uncovered’ through our history and development. I would categorise these absolutes in the same way that science has demonstrated absolute truths such as the earth orbits the sun and not the other way around - or that evolution is a fact and creationism is a fiction.

Many of the things that we take for granted today have in fact been `uncovered’ by way of struggle and reason. Slavery for example is wrong today as it has always been wrong (even in ancient Rome). Racism is wrong but this moral understanding was only uncovered in the 20th Century (through struggle) although it has always been wrong. Homophobia is wrong but the battle still rages on this front (especially with the theists) but need I say, it has always been wrong. Likewise the equality of women which still rages in many parts of the theist world - I could go on.

Stephen says `We can learn our morality by life experience and as man is basically a social animal we have a natural sense of community and justice. Therefore we should come up with our own moral obligations that are better than those of an organisation that has preset ideals dating back to the bronze age.’

Stephen is of course correct that our underlying morality dates from the dawn of our species on the African Savannah that in order to survive it was not advantageous to harm our collective in any way. that children should be protected and nurtured, (as they should be taught to think today) that we should cooperate in hunts and gathering food and acquiring shelter, that we

Science can answer moral questions…or maybe not

2012-12-05T04:50:34Z

On this topic I’ve just viewed Sam Harris’ Ted talk ‘Science can answer moral questions’, which seems to lay out a 20-minute version of his basic argument. If I’ve understood it right, I’d say the persuasiveness of his argumentation doesn’t entirely overcome a fundamental weakness.

In a phrase, Harris’ position appears to resolve to: science can address moral issues because morality is inextricably tied to human happiness and well-being, and the whole history of science shows that human well-being is amenable to scientific inquiry. In front of a sympathetic audience he’s able to imply that this fundamental premise is axiomatic; i.e., self-evident.

The problem is that it’s not an axiom, it’s an assertion. And, worse, it’s an assertion that is beyond proof.

The idea that human life should be organized around personal well-being and happiness, and that society and morality should function in the service of that, is not self-evident. In the broad sweep of human history it’s almost certainly a minority viewpoint. And the natural world provides scant evidence that such a view is so embedded in the fabric of reality as to be axiomatic.

Any number of societies have organized around radically different goals, with moralities to match. Even in the history of western civilization this is true. Christianity just a few generations ago presented a completely different view of human life, in which pleasure, happiness and even simple well-being were suspect and to be sacrificed in favor of well-being after death. Under this morality, encouraging the maximum of human happiness in this life would have been seen as putting the much greater good of the well-being of the soul in danger. Harris posits a moral continuum between well-being before and after death, but this form of morality places those two in opposition to each other.

Today we see this morality of self-abnegation resurgent in the Muslim world. In extreme forms, as anyone who reads the newspaper knows, this becomes a death cult in which personal well-being is very far down the list of moral ‘goods’, and in which the destruction of others’ personal well-being is even considered a moral ‘good’ in its own right.

Along with these and other possible examples Harris’ morality of the greatest well-being for the greatest number really has to take its place as an assertion about human life, not a certainty.

It may seem self-evident to us, brought up in a culture in which this idea has (slowly) taken hold over the last couple of centuries, but we simply have no way to prove it. One reason it seems so obvious is that it’s so closely associated with science, and science has so obviously revolutionized human life. And, in doing that, it has shown that the universe we live in is amenable to rational inquiry in a way our ancestors never suspected. So it all seems to hang together: the universe clearly favors the scientific method and everything science seems to be telling us points to Harris’ morality as ‘correct’. Given what we know through science, what are the chances that the universe is the creation of a vengeful, demented deity who spent his time pitting desert tribes against each other, only spoke to a few lice-infested brigands (forgetting entirely to mention other continents or their inhabitants, bacteria, electricity, and a host of other useful facts), and then went peevishly silent, awaiting - but why wait? - the last day? Probably pretty low, but the problem from a philosophical point of view is that we can’t be sure. There’s absolutely no way to assign a zero probability to such a view of reality. It might - god help us - be right!

The implications are more than philosophical. As Sam Harris himself points out, in a world without empty spaces between cultures, these alternate assertions about human life become increasingly mutually exclusive and inimical. How can we accept that a plane ride away women are forced to walk around in bags, as Harris mentions explicitly? The reverse is also true: self-abnegation becomes impossible when your neighbor’s wife feels free to enjoy a summer afternoon by the pool clad only in a bikini. As we all get pushed ever closer together our alternate views of human life inexorably strive to deprive each other of oxygen and claim the whole of human existence for themselves.

Personally, I believe Harris is right. It’s just that there’s still an act of faith involved. Harris hasn’t eliminated that even though his claim to science makes it seem so. And so the problem of multi-culturalism is still before us.

You’re so judgmental !!!

2012-11-24T00:26:08Z

> Nothing can corrupt and disintegrate a culture or a man’s character as thoroughly as does the precept of moral agnosticism, the idea that one must never pass moral judgment on others, that one must be morally tolerant of anything, that the good consists of never distinguishing good from evil.
>
> It is obvious who profits and who loses by such a precept. It is not justice or equal treatment that you grant to men when you abstain equally from praising men’s virtues and from condemning men’s vices. When your impartial attitude declares, in effect, that neither the good nor the evil may expect anything from you—whom do you betray and whom do you encourage?
>
> But to pronounce moral judgment is an enormous responsibility. To be a judge, one must possess an unimpeachable character; one need not be omniscient or infallible, and it is not an issue of errors of knowledge; one needs an un-breached integrity, that is, the absence of any indulgence in conscious, willful evil. Just as a judge in a court of law may err, when the evidence is inconclusive, but may not evade the evidence available, nor accept bribes, nor allow any personal feeling, emotion, desire or fear to obstruct his mind’s judgment of the facts of reality—so every rational person must maintain an equally strict and solemn integrity in the courtroom within his own mind, where the responsibility is more awesome than in a public tribunal, because he, the judge, is the only one to know when he has been impeached.
>
> It is their fear of this responsibility that prompts most people to adopt an attitude of indiscriminate moral neutrality. It is the fear best expressed in the precept: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” But that precept, in fact, is an abdication of moral responsibility: it is a moral blank check one gives to others in exchange for a moral blank check one expects for oneself.
>
> There is no escape from the fact that men have to make choices; so long as men have to make choices, there is no escape from moral values; so long as moral values are at stake, no moral neutrality is possible. To abstain from condemning a torturer, is to become an accessory to the torture and murder of his victims.
>
> The moral principle to adopt in this issue, is: “Judge, and be prepared to be judged. ”
>
> The opposite of moral neutrality is not a blind, arbitrary, self-righteous condemnation of any idea, action or person that does not fit one’s mood, one’s memorized slogans or one’s snap judgment of the moment. Indiscriminate tolerance and indiscriminate condemnation are not two opposites: they are two variants of the same evasion. To declare that “everybody is white” or “everybody is black” or “everybody is neither white nor black, but gray,” is not a moral judgment, but an escape from the responsibility of moral judgment.
>
> To judge means: to evaluate a given concrete by reference to an abstract principle or standard. It is not an easy task; it is not a task that can be performed automatically by one’s feelings, “instincts” or hunches. It is a task that requires the most precise, the most exacting, the most ruthlessly objective and rational process of thought. It is fairly easy to grasp abstract moral principles; it can be very difficult to apply them to a given situation, particularly when it involves the moral character of another person. When one pronounces moral judgment, whether in praise or in blame, one must be prepared to answer “Why?” and to prove one’s case—to oneself and to any rational inquirer.
>
> The policy of always pronouncing moral judgment does not mean that one must regard oneself as a missionary charged with the responsibility of “saving everyone’s soul”—nor that one must give unsolicited moral appraisals to all those one meets. It means: (a) that one must know clearly, in full, verbally identified form, one’s own moral evaluation of every person, issue and event with which one deals, and act accordingly; (b) that one must make one’s moral evaluation known to others, when it is rationally appropriate to do so.
>
> This last means that one need not launch into unprovoked moral denunciations or debates, but that one must speak up in situations where silence can objectively be taken to mean agreement with or sanction of evil. When one deals with irrational persons, where argument is futile, a mere “I don’t agree with you” is sufficient to negate any implication of moral sanction. When one deals with better people, a full statement of one’s views may be morally required. But in no case and in no situation may one permit one’s own values to be attacked or denounced, and keep silent.
>
> Moral values are the motive power of a man’s actions. By pronouncing moral judgment, one protects the clarity of one’s own perception and the rationality of the course one chooses to pursue. It makes a difference whether one thinks that one is dealing with human errors of knowledge or with human evil.
>
> Observe how many people evade, rationalize and drive their minds into a state of blind stupor, in dread of discovering that those they deal with—their “loved ones” or friends or business associates or political rulers—are not merely mistaken, but evil. Observe that this dread leads them to sanction, to help and to spread the very evil whose existence they fear to acknowledge.
>
> If people did not indulge in such abject evasions as the claim that some contemptible liar “means well”—that a mooching bum “can’t help it”—that a juvenile delinquent “needs love”—that a criminal “doesn’t know any better”—that a power-seeking politician is moved by patriotic concern for “the public good”—that communists are merely “agrarian reformers”—the history of the past few decades, or centuries, would have been different.
>
> Ask yourself why totalitarian dictatorships find it necessary to pour money and effort into propaganda for their own helpless, chained, gagged slaves, who have no means of protest or defense. The answer is that even the humblest peasant or the lowest savage would rise in blind rebellion, were he to realize that he is being immolated, not to some incomprehensible “noble purpose,” but to plain, naked human evil.
>
> Observe also that moral neutrality necessitates a progressive sympathy for vice and a progressive antagonism to virtue. A man who struggles not to acknowledge that evil is evil, finds it increasingly dangerous to acknowledge that the good is the good. To him, a person of virtue is a threat that can topple all of his evasions—particularly when an issue of justice is involved, which demands that he take sides. It is then that such formulas as “Nobody is ever fully right or fully wrong” and “Who am I to judge?” take their lethal effect. The man who begins by saying: “There is some good in the worst of us,” goes on to say: “There is some bad in the best of us”—then: “There’s got to be some bad in the best of us”—and then: “It’s the best of us who make life difficult—why don’t they keep silent?—who are they to judge?”
>
> And then, on some gray, middle-aged morning, such a man realizes suddenly that he has betrayed all the values he had loved in his distant spring, and wonders how it happened, and slams his mind shut to the answer, by telling himself hastily that the fear he had felt in his worst, most shameful moments was right and that values have no chance in this world.
>
> An irrational society is a society of moral cowards—of men paralyzed by the loss of moral standards, principles and goals. But since men have to act, so long as they live, such a society is ready to be taken over by anyone willing to set its direction. The initiative can come from only two types of men: either from the man who is willing to assume the responsibility of asserting rational values—or from the thug who is not troubled by questions of responsibility.
>
> No matter how hard the struggle, there is only one choice that a rational man can make in the face of such an alternative.

This essay is by Ayn Rand, titled: How Does One Lead A Rational Life In An Irrational Society?

It was also included in her book The Virtue of Selfishness as Chapter 8.

The Nature of Man

2012-11-16T14:39:04Z

All evils are caused by insufficient knowledge. So all good is due to sufficient knowledge. This is the principle of optimism. This means that for every evil act, had the evildoer known that his act was evil, and that there was a good option available to him, he would have done good instead of evil. To explain this principle, I’ll consider a few hypothetical situations.

The first situation involves a parent giving her baby a bottle of formula. The baby takes a sip and puts the bottle down on his tray. Then the parent tried to coax the baby with cute eating methods involving airplane sounds. The baby kept turning his head. Then the parent got anxious and tried to force it in his mouth thinking that she’s doing it in the best interest of her baby. The baby responded by hitting the bottle, knocking it to the floor. Then the parent used more force and succeeded in getting her baby to drink the formula. Hours later, the baby died. The autopsy showed that the baby was poisoned. The police learned that the formula was tainted—not just the formula in the baby’s bottle, but also the whole batch of formula shipped by the manufacturer.

It’s important to consider who committed evil; the parent, the baby, or both. The baby knew that the formula tasted really bad, so each time that he rejected it, he was doing good. The parent knew that her baby rejected the formula, so each time that she tried to coerce her baby to drink it, she was committing evil.

Now consider a situation identical in all respects but one—the formula wasn’t tainted, so the baby didn’t die. Who acted immorally? Can the answer be different? Logically, the answer cannot be different. Morality does not depend on the actual results, but rather only the expected results. To illustrate this point, consider whether or not it is moral for a father of five young children to choose to spend all their wealth on lottery tickets. Does the moral choice depend on whether or not he wins? No, the moral choice depends on whether or not he’s expected to win.

As I’ve illustrated, every evil act is caused by insufficient knowledge. In the case of the parent who forced her baby to drink the bottle, had she known that coercing people is expected to lead to bad results, and that persuasion doesn’t have that fault, she would not have resorted to coercion. In the case of the father who spent his entire life savings on lottery tickets, had he known that his choice is expected to lead to bad results, and that he had a better way to spend the wealth, he would not have committed evil.

At some point in the future, when every human being understands this principle of optimism well, and has sufficient knowledge, all evils will be eradicated.

Criticisms? Questions?

Please help me understand the fundamentals of his argument.

2012-08-27T13:26:41Z

Hey chaps,

Quick question. Ive just finished reading ML. I went into the book ready to accept his premise but I had a few specific doubts, and I did not find them dealt with at any point. Quite likely Sam did mention them I am just too dumb to notice- if so please point it out!

Essentially, I cant accept his essential premise that it is possible to objectively have a ‘worst possible misery for everone’ and a ‘best possible well-being for everyone’.

For example, in the latter case, what if the best possible well-being, however that was defined, included a society where gay marriage was illegal, because 99% of the population draw significant happiness from this being the case?

Other issues include, how do we determine which creates more misery, a person who has X amount of unhappiness, or a person who is dead?

Please help!