[MD] The Moral Landscape

[Steven Peterson]

Hi Platt,

>> Steve:
>> It is part of Harris's thesis that some cultures are better and worse
>> than others where "better" and "worse" refer to the contributions of
>> sets of values to human flourishing.
>>
>
> Platt
> Glad to hear it. But you, I and Harris all seem to beg the question, "What
> constitutes human flourishing?" It seems the answer can only come after
> we have each made certain nonrational moral assumptions. That gets to
> the root of the problem don't you think?.


Steve:
Why do you think that it is nonrational to make assumptions? Part of
reasoning is making assumptions and also holding such assumptions up
to rational criticism. Some assumptions we now make about human
flourishing may turn out to be wrong. We will know only when such
assumptions conflict with other things we learn about human
flourishing.

Consider the parallel to human health.  Not having a precise
definition of what human health is does not prevent us from pursuing
it and understanding it scientifically.


>> Steve:
>> Harris has dones that. By just about any measure you can think of, it
>> is the less religious counties in the US and less religious countries
>> that are thriving.
>>
>
> Platt
> Well, that's the root of the problem. What are the measures that put
> one county or country over another on the flourishing scale? Pirsig says
> by its contribution to the evolution of life. Not only is that a moral
> assumption but mighty hard to measure.

Steve:
Some measures that are frequently considered are life expectancy,
literacy rates, poverty rates, unemployment, % of children who are
underweight, GDP per capita, number of residents seeking asylum in
other countries, infant mortality, etc.




>> Steve:
>> There you would be very wrong. His book is aimed primarily at liberal
>> intellectuals who are convinced that values talk is noncognitive
>> babble.
>>
>
> Platt
> Thanks for the correction, although it doesn't specifically address Pirsig's
> critique of intellectuals. Still I wonder: does Harris define a initial
> premise
> for a moral code? Pirsig posits advancement of evolution. Ayn Rand posits
> individual freedom. I posit expansion of consciousness. What does Harris
> posit?
> And how do we escape from invoking a nonrational moral judgment in
> establishing any initial premise?


Steve:
Harris's premise is that human well-being is a matter of conscious
experience which depends on facts about the world and facts about
ourselves--facts that we can learn about through scientific inquiry. I
don't see how this could be viewed as a nonrational premise. That
morality is a matter of increasing the well-being of sentient
creatures capable of experiencing happiness and suffering is simply a
definition of moral concern. There is nothing nonrational about making
definitions, and it is no arbitrary choice to define conscious
experience as the source of values since anything that is never
experienced could be of no concern. What other source of values--one
that is completely independent of conscious experience--could there
be?

He is content to leave well-being itself as a currently loosely
defined and continually redefined term such as physical health that we
we will better understand be better able to define with precision as
we study it. What is important is that we begin thinking of morality
as something that has to do with well-being and as something that we
can be right or wrong about. There may be multiple peaks on the moral
landscape, but there is an objective difference between moving toward
a peak or moving toward a valley.

Best,
Steve