[MD] Harris and Steve

[Matt Kundert]

Sam Harris's FACT #8: One cannot reasonably ask, “But 
why is the worst possible misery for everyone bad?”—for if 
the worst possible misery for everyone isn’t bad, the word 
“bad” has no meaning. (This would be like asking, “But why 
is a perfect circle round?” The question can be posed, but 
it expresses only confusion, not an intelligible basis for 
skeptical doubt.) Likewise, one cannot ask, “But why ought 
we avoid the worst possible misery for everyone?”—for if 
the term “ought” has any application at all, it is in urging 
us away from the worst possible misery for everyone.

Steve wrote:
In your reasoning you have appealed to the fact in #8 that 
we "ought to avoid the worst possible misery." The fact 
that this particular "ought" is unquestionable or questioning 
it is unintelligible is to say that it is no more controversial 
than any fact about the way the world is we can think of. 
However, the presence of this appeal to an "ought" means 
that you have not successfully bridged the gap. What the 
unintelligibility of the denial of this "ought" means is that 
the jump over the is/ought gap that is needed is nothing 
for anyone to fear.

If someone is willing to express doubt in your premise that 
we ought to avoid the worst possible misery, then they 
would need not accept whatever conclusions you would 
draw from combining this "ought"-premises with other 
"is"-premises.

Sam Harris replied:
I'm hoping that some formulation of my Fact #8 makes it 
clear that one cannot actually bite this particular bullet. It 
seems to me more than merely perverse to deny that the 
worst possible suffering for everyone (including oneself) 
ought to be avoided. I don't think one can actually have a 
valid concept of "ought" is allows one to deny this (just as 
one cannot have a valid concept of "round" which would 
withhold this attribute from a "perfect circle").

Matt:
Very acute comments on both of your parts.

I think you're right, Steve, about that person willing to 
express doubt. You are asking about the "perverse" 
person--how do you argumentatively defeat him with a 
knockdown answer?  Harris ups the ante with "well, that 
dude don't have a 'valid concept of "ought,"'" but what the 
hell does the Nazi care?  What if he's a sadist, or Robert 
Nozick's "immoral man" who, when it's pointed out that he 
can't both say he uses "ought" correctly and behave 
immorally, shrugs and replies, "Ya' know, given the choice, 
I'll give up consistency"?

What if...?

"What if we don't use these hypothetical constructs" is 
what Sam Harris is going to want to say.  But the 
hypothetical people aren't even the really tough part.  It's 
the real ones.

Two things strike me about the interchange:

1) Harris is basically taking Rorty's route of saying that a 
"fact" is shorthand for "the way we do things around here," 
that "facts" are always relative to a community agreeing 
they are facts, and in the case of Fact #8--should the 
immoral man or Nietzsche or Savanarola, in a fit of "our 
worst misery brings us closer to God," choose to deny 
it--what it shows is that we cannot consider them a part 
of our moral community (which can tend to have dire 
consequences, like in choosing sides for war).  I'm not sure 
Harris wants to agree with this (it looks like he's struggling 
to free himself of it, but for Wittgensteinians, to use a 
"concept" correctly is to know how to use a word, which is 
to be a particular kind of form of life). But the appeal to 
hypothetical constructs is useful just this far--it shows 
the importance of identifying with a community.  There is, 
as you say Steve, nothing to fear about the is/ought gap, 
except the fear of being ostracized by a community, 
whether moral or mathematical.

2) "The worst possible misery for everyone is bad" strikes 
me as an extraordinarily malleable phrase.  For instance, my 
Savanarola character, who's a stand-in for a believer in 
Hell.  "Hell, my friend, is the worst possible misery, so we 
ought to attend to our relationship with Christ."  Principles 
are good shorthand, but we can in good conscience and 
faith interpret them differently according to one's own 
experience of life.  Principles what Michael Walzer called a 
"thin description of morality," and the things that do most 
of the heavy lifting in moral decisions are thicker 
descriptions, not "cruelty is bad," but "what happened to 
the Jews in Germany was horrible" and "I would kill the 
person who sexually abused my child."

Matt
 		 	   		  
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