[MD] The End of Faith Ethics

[Platt Holden]

Hi Steve,

> Steve:
> >> The most clear statement of where Sam Harris stands on ethics my be
> >> this:
> >> "A rational approach to ethics becomes possible once we realize that
> >> questions of right and wrong are really questions about the happiness and
> >> suffering of sentient creatures."
> 
> Platt:
> > A clear statement alright, but arrogant beyond belief -- as if he,  
> > Sam Harris,
> > knows what constitutes happiness and suffering.
> 
> Steve:
> He could be wrong about what questions of right and wrong are really  
> about, but I don't see how his statement is arrogant.
> 
> He never said that he knows what leads to happiness or suffering  
> better than anyone else. In fact, he says that we need to study that  
> scientifically instead of having a religion based ethics concerned  
> with imaginary crimes like idolatry, sodomy, and drug use which he  
> says are as imaginary as debts without creditors.

Study happiness and suffering scientifically? I have no idea what that 
means, but it has a Orwellian flavor. After all, Pirsig makes the point
repeatedly that the trouble with science is that it ethically it has 
nothing to offer. "From the perspective of a subject-object science, the 
world is a completely purposeless, valueless place. There is no point in 
anything. Nothing is right and nothing is wrong. Everything just functions, 
like machinery. There is nothing morally wrong with being lazy, nothing 
morally wrong with lying, with theft, with suicide, with murder, with 
genocide. There is nothing morally wrong because there are no morals, just 
functions." (Lila, 22)  Again, it's arrogant to think science can devise 
ethical guides.  

Regards,
Platt
.