[MD] A Science of Morals

[Steven Peterson]

Hi DMB,


On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 1:28 PM, david buchanan <dmbuchanan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I love Sam Harris. It's been a few days since I listened to his talk but one overall impression remains. His main point, I think, is that we should stop pretending that morality is not subject to intellectual scrutiny, that morality is a kind of intelligence. I think he was making a case against cultural relativism. We should stop pretending that it's impossible to make judgements about the quality of another culture's morals. Of course, we're talking about Sam Harris so he's also saying we should stop pretending that morality is defined by the bigoted and hateful things that Churchians so often say. As Harris pointed out, worry about gay marriage causes more concern than genocide and mass starvation. What kind of retarded morality does it take to prioritize things that way?
> He's not suggesting that we're going to learn the natural laws of morality from brain surgeons or rocket scientists. I think the idea is just that morality is a reality about which we can and do have knowledge. Like Pirsig, he's saying that we should stop pretending morality is limited to church morals and religious traditions. I think he's right and we need to get smart about being good.


Steve:
Actually he IS saying that science may someday be able to tell us what
we morally ought to do--not through rocket science or brain surgery
but through neuroscience it seems. I'm not sure what I think about
that idea, and I'm not sure how he hopes to do that, but I'm very much
looking forward to reading the book when it comes out.

Harris on his TED talk:
"My intent was to begin a conversation about how we can understand
morality in universal, scientific terms. Many people who loved my
talk, misunderstood what I was saying, and loved it for the wrong
reasons; and many of my critics were right to think that I had said
something extremely controversial. I was not suggesting that science
can give us an evolutionary or neurobiological account of what people
do in the name of “morality.” Nor was I merely saying that science can
help us get what we want out of life. Both of these would have been
quite banal claims to make (unless one happens to doubt the truth of
evolution or the mind’s dependency on the brain). Rather I was
suggesting that science can, in principle, help us understand what we
should do and should want—and, perforce, what other people should do
and want in order to live the best lives possible. My claim is that
there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, just as there
are right and wrong answers to questions of physics, and such answers
may one day fall within reach of the maturing sciences of mind."

Best,
Steve