Can we determine good and bad morality? Are there right and wrong answers? Sam Harris in the video here says that it should be possible to determine that some things are better or worse for human well being. It is an interesting thought and first he answers some objections:
1. It is open to revision with time. Harris says that so is medicine but that doesn't make the question vacuous.
2. There are lots of good answers. Harris says that there are lots of good foods, that doesn't stop us determining that some food is good and other substances are poisonous.
3. If you determine that something is bad then does it have to be always bad eg lying? Harris says that just because a principle works most of the time it doesn't have to be set in stone, for example it is generally good to keep your queen in chess, but sometimes losing your queen is a great move.
He then expresses frustration that only religious leaders agree that there are answers to moral questions. Furthermore, according to him they only believe it because it was given to them in a whirlwind rather than it being a thought out analysis of the causes and conditions of human and animal well being.
Now at this point I find myself quite excited. Liberal Christians rely heavily on reason to determine morality, and I think we spend much time analysing the causes and conditions of human and animal well being, and I too think it is a vastly important question that we do need to address. Harris says that not everyone's opinion on morality is equally valid, in the same way that not everyone's opinion on String Theory is equally valid.
So, Harris says that we need a universal conception of human values, and considers that because of their actions, the Taliban are not likely to offer it, and neither are cultures where if your daughter is raped you kill her to spare the shame on your family. He says that some belief systems lead to needless loss of well being, and that we must converge on answers to the most important questions in life. He also, rather spuriously, in my opinion, says that scientists will be able to map the moral landscape for us.
Harris says that empathy and compassion are what we need in our society, and I agree wholeheartedly, I may call it love, but perhaps his words are better. I don't think science can help us with this, but I do think there is a vast amount of wisdom that has collected within the religions of the world that can help us. I wonder who Harris sees as the experts in this field? Who has moral authority? It is perhaps easier to see who has authority in the field of String Theory. For me, people like Thomas Merton, Joan Chittister and Richard Rohr have moral authority, I wonder who he would choose?
10 comments:
I think that an often missed implication of the story of the Fall is that we have a moral autonomy to discern good and evil. I don't think that means we just make it up as we go along nor that we just take a vote. I still believe in absolute values but they are more higher principles like love, compassion and integrity rather than a hard and fast book of rules. The rules may indeed change over time and place but the principle values remain.
Hi Lesley,
"He also, rather spuriously, in my opinion, says that scientists will be able to map the moral landscape for us."
In the context of the moral value he is discussing, human wellbeing, science can be used, by humans, to collect data, and map out that data on some landscape that humans determine. It's exploratory. Many scientists make lots of observations before deciding which questions they want their science to answer. Harris isn't claiming it's easy or possible - he offers a few caveats to this effect.
"I don't think science can help us with this [love], but I do think there is a vast amount of wisdom that has collected within the religions of the world that can help us."
Also a lot of crap collected by religion too. The problem with religion as a means of collecting wisdoms is it's easy to run with a mistake because religion is by its nature affirming and not questioning (OK, less than fully questioning for the liberals - even Spong won't question some aspects of his theism that isn't a theism).
"I wonder who Harris sees as the experts in this field? Who has moral authority?"
Fair question. Since science has a long way to go it is reasonable to take advantage of the 'wisdom' that some religious leaders have acquired over their lives, because they really have given themselves to this issue. The mistake is to give them more credibility and authority than philosophers who are not constrained by a particular religion. The really good theists turn out to be pretty good philosophers. And many philosophers are no better than some theists. And while scientists can be philosophical too they need to make sure their philosophy is up to scratch, as much as there is a requirement for theists and philosophers to make sure their science is up to scratch. I think we're all agreed that science is at least influencing evaluation of loral issues, so science is important to morals.
That was a rather long winded (surprised?) way of saying that we need our best minds on the case, covering all the angles, whatever their starting point. Polymaths are still in high demand and short supply.
That would be an interesting Internet Top Ten list - the best polymaths.
Hi Drew Mac,
I agree we have a moral autonomy to discern good and evil, but I guess we disagree on the source of that. We probably disagree on what we mean by good and evil.
"I still believe in absolute values" - Evidence? How do you detect absolutes? When you think you've found an absolute, how do you know that there's not something 'more absolute', the 'real absolute' just out of view and that your absolute in fact isn't? There are a lot of concepts, such as absolute, infinity, omniscience, and other metaphysics stuff that we really have difficulty pinning down in meaning, and we're unable to make observations that might help. Quantum physics has some odd implications which had not the observations told us that's how it is we'd laugh off as nonsense - as many of us indeed do with God.
There's pretty good evidence that those principles come out of biological and cultural evolution.
We can just vote, on anything. The fact that most of us think love is better than hate and choose not to reverse this opinion may be down to the strength of our programming and adaptation in that respect.
My post on this.
Ron, I'm not convinced that 'evidence' matters at all here. I think that ethics, like religion, is more of an art than a science. Rationality has its place, of course, but so does intuition. It's pretty hard to prove that we should (generally) do no harm or cause pain but I'll choose to live by that as it makes sense to me. Perhaps that's too subjective - but I don't think there is another way.
It does seem to me to be 'self-evident' that certain (human) values such as equality, freedom, love, compassion, etc are worth having. That I choose to call these values absolute doesn't mean we can't discuss them. I'm a human being - everything I think or believe is provisional, surely?
You may indeed put these values down to some sort of evolutionary or cultural conditioning - as a believer I don't see that such reductionism must be accepted. After all I believe that humankind is made in the image of God (not the other way round).
In the end we are all autonomous to one degree or another and choose (with varying degrees of freedom) how to live - and we can discuss the reasons why, even if we can't actually prove a particular ethical position.
Since science has a long way to go it is reasonable to take advantage of the 'wisdom' that some religious leaders have acquired over their lives, because they really have given themselves to this issue
That is big of you, never thought you would say that. Thanks :) I think if I were a humanist I would trawl through the net in which religions have caught the moral fish and chuck out the old boots.. as you say religions have been trying to do this for a long time and there is a good chance there are some answers there.
Hi Drew Mac,
I think we're accustomed to thinking evidence doesn't matter because there hasn't been much evidence to help in the past. That's changed a lot in the last 20 years or so. There's enough to tell us that we our traditional views of the human condition, our ability to know stuff with certainty, access to knowledge at all, the interplay of the emotions and reason, the odd events in the brain that produce what were once thought of as mystical, mad, bad or possessed behaviours.
"It's pretty hard to prove that we should (generally) do no harm or cause pain but I'll choose to live by that as it makes sense to me. Perhaps that's too subjective - but I don't think there is another way." - That seems fine. And there's nothing wrong with the subjective when we haven't got anything else. But we do have something else. Many of us feel that the biological and cultural evolutionary explanations for our behaviours, desires, and moral opinions are better that the more mystical ones.
"It does seem to me to be 'self-evident'..." - It does to me too. So the next questions should be: What is it to get that self-evident feeling? What's happening in the brain when we get that? What drives the brain to feel that way?
"That I choose to call these values absolute doesn't mean we can't discuss them." - Doesn't mean they are absolute either. We can discuss two distinct issues: which of these self-evident truths we value, and where they come from. The latter might make us better informed about the former.
"After all I believe that humankind is made in the image of God" - But that in turn raises questions about why you believe that, what's driving your belief, what you add to it to get to morals, what other influences, religious or otherwise are influences, and so on.
"In the end we are all autonomous to one degree or another..." - That's a great phrase, ripe with questions in its own right: what is it to be autonomous? What is free-will?...
Hi Lesley,
It's not as magnanimous as it appears. I can't really be consistent about all I've said about our sources of knowledge and ways of evaluating then and just rule out a whole bunch of people with good ideas just because I disagree on some fundamental principles. if someone has something good to offer I'll be happy to use it.
In this context this raises an interesting question (for anyone to have a stab at) on morals. The Nazis and the Japanese in the WWII performed many barbaric experiments on various captives. Should those results be used in science?
Ron: "Many of us feel that the biological and cultural evolutionary explanations for our behaviours, desires, and moral opinions are better that the more mystical ones."
And I think they are often complementary rather than simply better. Identifying a process doesn't necessarily deny the ultimate source - like a Christian palaentologist who accepts the theory of evolution whilst still believing in God as Creator.
Of course you might recognise that a description of how the behaviours arose doesn't help too much when it comes to ethics - "you can't get an ought from an is."
Hi Ron,
To answer your moral dilemma about scientific data collected under barbaric conditions.. I think all data that is good data is admissible.. It is clearly gutting and we must never do it again, but I dislike the idea of throwing away knowledge. (Happy to be corrected on this one).
Hi Drew Mac
Just want to say I am with you in your arguments here.. happy to admit data and also feeling that whilst the data can inform us, what we do with it is subjective and ultimately morality is more art based than science based.
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