[MD] The Moral Landscape

[Ian Glendinning]

It turns up in the UK as the Oct 5th highlights package on C4OD.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart/4od#3126165
Ian

On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 3:31 PM, Ian Glendinning
<ian.glendinning at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks Marsha,
>
> Unforts I was in US earlier in the week (in Philly), but being back in
> the UK now, I can't see the TV feed for the Daily Show. (Need to track
> down the UK channel 4 highlights I guess.)
>
> Ian
>
> On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 3:27 PM, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Steve, Ian,
>>
>> Rumor has it that Sam Harris was on the Oct 4th Daily Show,
>> which can be watched on the computer at:
>>
>> http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/mon-october-4-2010-sam-harris
>>
>> The interview is too disruptive to more than a hint of the books contents, but
>> it's interesting.
>>
>>
>> Marsha
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 7, 2010, at 8:38 AM, Steven Peterson wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I suppose anyone interested in the national conversation about morals
>>> such as all MOQers will want to read Harris's book which has just been
>>> released.
>>>
>>> http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286454755&sr=8-1
>>>
>>> I look forward to discussing it with you.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Steve
>>>
>>>
>>> Harris:
>>> "The people of Albania have a venerable tradition of vendetta called
>>> “Kanun”: If a man commits a murder, his victim’s family can kill any
>>> one of his male relatives in reprisal. If a boy has the misfortune of
>>> being the son or brother of a murderer, he must spend his days and
>>> nights in hiding, forgoing a proper education, adequate health care,
>>> and the pleasures of a normal life. Untold numbers of Albanian men and
>>> boys live as prisoners of their homes even now. Can we say that the
>>> Albanians are morally wrong to have structured their society in this
>>> way? Is their tradition of blood feud a form of evil? Are their values
>>> inferior to our own?
>>>
>>> Most people imagine that science cannot pose, much less answer,
>>> questions of this sort. How could we ever say, as a matter of
>>> scientific fact, that one way of life is better, or more moral, than
>>> another? Whose definition of “better” or “moral” would we use?
>>> Scientists generally believe that answers to questions of human value
>>> will fall perpetually beyond our reach—not because human subjectivity
>>> is too difficult to study, or the brain too complex, but because there
>>> is no intellectual justification for speaking about right and wrong,
>>> or good and evil, in universal terms. While many scientists now study
>>> the evolution of morality, as well as its underlying neurobiology, the
>>> purpose of their research is merely to describe how human beings think
>>> and behave. No one expects science to tell us how we should think and
>>> behave. Controversies about human values are controversies about which
>>> science officially has no opinion.
>>>
>>> This has made science appear divorced, in principle, from the most
>>> important questions of human life. While most educated people will
>>> concede that the scientific method has delivered centuries of fresh
>>> embarrassment to religion on matters of fact, it is now an article of
>>> almost unquestioned certainty, both inside and outside scientific
>>> circles, that science has nothing to say about what constitutes a good
>>> life. Religious thinkers in all faiths, and on both ends of the
>>> political spectrum, are united on precisely this point: The defense
>>> one most often hears for belief in God is not that there is compelling
>>> evidence for His existence, but that faith in Him is the only reliable
>>> source of meaning and moral guidance. Mutually incompatible religious
>>> traditions now take refuge behind the same non sequitur.
>>>
>>> As I argue in my new book, The Moral Landscape, questions about
>>> values—about meaning, morality, and life’s larger purpose—are really
>>> questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Throughout the
>>> book I make reference to a hypothetical space that I call “the moral
>>> landscape”—a space of real and potential outcomes whose peaks
>>> correspond to the heights of potential well-being and whose valleys
>>> represent the deepest possible suffering. Different ways of thinking
>>> and behaving—different cultural practices, ethical codes, modes of
>>> government, etc.—will translate into movements across this landscape
>>> and, therefore, into different degrees of human flourishing. I’m not
>>> suggesting that we will necessarily discover one right answer to every
>>> moral question, or a single best way for human beings to live. Some
>>> questions may admit of many answers, each more or less equivalent.
>>> However, the existence of multiple peaks on the moral landscape does
>>> not make them any less real or worthy of discovery. Nor would it make
>>> the difference between being on a peak and being stuck deep in a
>>> valley any less clear or consequential..."
>>> ...
>>> read on at http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-02/sam-harris-on-the-moral-landscape/?cid=hp:mainpromo7
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>>
>>
>>
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