• In total there are 0 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 0 guests (based on users active over the past 60 minutes)
    Most users ever online was 789 on Tue Mar 19, 2024 5:08 am

Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

#92: Jan. - Feb. 2011 (Non-Fiction)
User avatar
Chris OConnor

1A - OWNER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 17019
Joined: Sun May 05, 2002 2:43 pm
21
Location: Florida
Has thanked: 3511 times
Been thanked: 1309 times
Gender:
Contact:
United States of America

Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6499
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2719 times
Been thanked: 2662 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

The main agenda in The Moral Landscape is the political weakness of science as a moral force. Harris zeroes in on what to some may seem an obscure point of logic, the fact-value distinction, as the philosophical source of this weakness. For traditional positive science, scientific work is about providing accurate descriptions of reality. The enlightenment philosopher David Hume, who remains a main inspiration for Anglo-American analytical philosophy, observed that logically, a description of reality cannot directly imply an argument about how we should respond to that description, that an ‘is’ never implies an ‘ought’. Our response to situations, our sense of what we ought to do, Hume says does not come just from the evidence, but from our inner values, the norms of conduct that inform our moral sentiments. Moral norms, the basis of normative ethics, are thereby seen as having a distinct source from descriptive observations.

Harris brilliantly observes that this logical argument by Hume has devolved into the modern myth that science has no right to comment on morality. He argues that the categorical distinction drawn between fact and value as respectively descriptive and normative is logically invalid. Followers of Hume such as the empiricist philosophers Bertrand Russell, George Moore and Karl Popper have been wildly influential in getting scientists to see their work as purely descriptive and never normative. Harris points out against this tradition that relation to reality is the only thing that can make morality sound, so values should be based on facts.

How simple is this argument? My view is that Harris has an important and valid moral argument that values should be based on facts, but his logical presentation has some gaps. His main theme is that well-being is good, and that maximising well-being should be the aim of morality. This term well-being means roughly the same as flourishing. The trouble I have with this argument is that Harris wants to say it is a fact that well-being is good, like it is a fact that atmospheric CO2 concentration is increasing. This is the type of argument that Hume calls a category mistake, because all our moral sentiments are just expressions of value, not fact.

To deal with Hume’s logic, and especially with its degraded social impact in the idea that science has no contact with morality, we can either accept or reject it. Harris takes the rejection path, arguing valiantly that Hume commits a logical error. Harris feels it is so obvious that abundant happiness is better than abundant misery that the value we place on well-being amounts to a fact, something only a psychopath could dispute.

The trouble is that even this persuasive argument does not dispense with Hume’s logic regarding the source of moral sentiments. Like in geometry, we still need some moral axioms, fundamental assumptions that themselves are not based on observation. The claim that flourishing is good is the prime example of such a moral axiom. Harris owes an unconscious debt to the empiricist tradition in his effort to deny the fact-value tradition with his argument that some values are so important that they are facts. His resistance to the argument that morality can have a source other than observation is based on the distinguished view that anything not based on observation is metaphysical, and therefore suspect. Harris seems to find repugnant the idea that his cherishing of well-being could be a statement of metaphysics, because a deep sentiment within modern science is that metaphysics is intrinsically wrong.

This gets back to the nub of the problem: by rejecting metaphysics, science is nihilistic. Values requires axioms, and axioms are not derivable from observation. By accepting a source for ideas other than pure description, philosophy enters the metaphysical terrain that Kant called the synthetic a priori, or necessary truth. Anglo-American tradition has associated this continental idealist theory with totalitarianism, and has preferred to erect the logical barrier between facts and values, seen in extreme form in Gould’s crazy ‘separate magisteria’ argument. The problem is that the opposition to necessary truth is not sustainable, as values are needed to live by. To say ‘our only value is accurate description’ just does not cut it as a political reality; science has to show how accurate description provides the basis of an ethical philosophy.
User avatar
DWill

1H - GOLD CONTRIBUTOR
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6966
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:05 am
16
Location: Luray, Virginia
Has thanked: 2262 times
Been thanked: 2470 times

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

It seems that in place of an axiom for moral truth, Harris has the facts of neuroscience, which mean that within certain limits, we know which brain states are congruent with human flourishing. As conscious creatures, we have more desirable brain states under some conditions vs. others, so we should maximize the optimal conditions.

For Harris, this physical understanding means that philosophy is voided. He's not alone among contemporary thinkers in believing this.

Harris also identifies science itself as value-based, in the sense that attending to empirical data isn't a necessity, but a choice.

Harris doesn't make political statements, but it seems that his view of morality as confined to what is good for individual brains leads to libertarianism.
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6499
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2719 times
Been thanked: 2662 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

DWill wrote:It seems that in place of an axiom for moral truth, Harris has the facts of neuroscience, which mean that within certain limits, we know which brain states are congruent with human flourishing. As conscious creatures, we have more desirable brain states under some conditions vs. others, so we should maximize the optimal conditions. For Harris, this physical understanding means that philosophy is voided. He's not alone among contemporary thinkers in believing this. Harris also identifies science itself as value-based, in the sense that attending to empirical data isn't a necessity, but a choice. Harris doesn't make political statements, but it seems that his view of morality as confined to what is good for individual brains leads to libertarianism.
The problem is the epistemic status of the statement 'flourishing is good'. Harris argues it is a fact, while mainstream science says it is an expression of sentiment, and cannot be called a fact because it is not an objective description of something real. Kant was alive to this problem of the seemingly absurd consequences of rigorous logic. Hume had argued on similar lines that we do not know if the sun will rise tomorrow, or if there is a necessary connection between cause and effect, or if our moral sentiments are objective. Kant held that to express certainty about these type of questions requires what he called the transcendental imagination, seeing causation, time and space as necessary truths. He recognised that this necessity is logical rather than empirical, so did not try to broaden the domain of the factual in the way that Harris does.

If we say a claim if factual, we implicitly say it is absolutely and objectively true. By definition a fact cannot be partly true because then it is no longer a fact. Analytically, we can say all facts are objectively and absolutely true. Can we say that about the statement 'human flourishing is good'? While we may want to say yes, there is the nagging issue that it is true for us, but 'it suits us to believe it' is not the same as 'it is objectively true'.
User avatar
DWill

1H - GOLD CONTRIBUTOR
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6966
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2008 8:05 am
16
Location: Luray, Virginia
Has thanked: 2262 times
Been thanked: 2470 times

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

Thanks, Robert. Maybe we can sort out what it is Harris is trying to do. Is he trying to say that the only reality we can possibly talk about is that governed by our brains, so that if we want to speak practically (as Harris seems very interested in doing), we have all the moral guidance we need in knowing roughly which brain states are equivalent to flourishing? That flourishing is subjective seems not to be an obstacle for us given how we're set up. Again I think SH simply doesn't care about whether philosophers think his ideas measure up. Given SH's primarily social concerns, he's only looking for utility. There isn't any need for iron-clad philosophy. Besides utilitarianism, I don't see a philosophical orientation in Harris.
User avatar
Dexter

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
I dumpster dive for books!
Posts: 1787
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:14 pm
13
Has thanked: 144 times
Been thanked: 712 times
United States of America

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

Robert Tulip wrote: The problem is the epistemic status of the statement 'flourishing is good'. Harris argues it is a fact, while mainstream science says it is an expression of sentiment, and cannot be called a fact because it is not an objective description of something real. ...
In case you didn't read it, check out footnote 21 on p. 203. I don't think Harris is arguing this statement is a fact, but instead a (very) reasonable assumption. I think he makes a good argument here.

For me, a more difficult problem is that a definition of well-being is necessarily fuzzy. He acknowledges this, but I think he overestimates the potential for progress on objective answers to "hard cases" as opposed to easy ones, like say honor killings.
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6499
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2719 times
Been thanked: 2662 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

Dexter wrote:check out footnote 21 on p. 203. I don't think Harris is arguing this statement is a fact, but instead a (very) reasonable assumption. I think he makes a good argument here.

For me, a more difficult problem is that a definition of well-being is necessarily fuzzy. He acknowledges this, but I think he overestimates the potential for progress on objective answers to "hard cases" as opposed to easy ones, like say honor killings.
Thanks Dexter, I have now read the book to the end of the main text, but have not yet read the additional feast of discussion in the 43 pages of notes. This note that you mention continues the problem DWill raised of how Harris sees his motive as more practical than theoretical. The trouble is, Harris argues there is a rigorous basis to ground values in facts and that in morality sound practical advice should be based on coherent theoretical foundations.

Harris says "no framework of knowledge can withstand utter skepticism, for none is perfectly self-justifying." (p204) But his whole book is all about providing a framework of knowledge that withstands skepticism by the self-justifying argument that flourishing is good. I just think there is an element of cultural confusion in the argument of The Moral Landscape, with some unexamined elements of logical positivismretained that are worth making explicit. Harris would do well to allow his inner Kant to flourish more, expanding on the nod towards the categorical imperative on page 81 by exploring the need for self-justifying arguments. For example Kant says space and time are real because they are the necessary conditions of experience. Harris easily withstands those who might be skeptical about such obvious universal truths by calling them imbeciles (p204), hinting at the need for universal axioms.

I am sympathetic to Harris's call to collapse the fact-value distinction (p14), and indeed this was a main theme of my MA thesis, on ethics and ontology in Heidegger. Where I think that Heidegger and the Kantian tradition provide a better method than what Harris presents is in their recognition that basing values on facts does not diminish the autonomy of the moral sphere. When Harris says (p14) "the divide between facts and values is illusory", I still feel he is relying more on rhetoric than logic.
User avatar
Dexter

1F - BRONZE CONTRIBUTOR
I dumpster dive for books!
Posts: 1787
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2010 3:14 pm
13
Has thanked: 144 times
Been thanked: 712 times
United States of America

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

Robert, you are probably more knowledgeable about philosophy than I am, and I'm not specifically addressing this to your points (as I'm not sure I completely understand your objections), but I think it's helpful to rephrase a statement such as:

-You should do X

where X could be an individual action, or passing a law, etc. in which you can see why some people might be thinking, 'on what possible scientific basis could you say that?' And I think that's where a lot of the moral relativism is coming from. Instead state it, as Harris is doing,

-If you want to maximize human flourishing (or minimize suffering), then you should do X

Which brings up the difficulty of defining those terms in a specific case, but I think it makes the assumption explicit and the logic easier to accept. To use the terminology that I am more familiar with, in this way we've turned a normative statement into a positive statement, at least in principle.
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6499
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2719 times
Been thanked: 2662 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

copy
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Fri Dec 31, 2010 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Robert Tulip

2B - MOD & SILVER
BookTalk.org Hall of Fame
Posts: 6499
Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:16 pm
18
Location: Canberra
Has thanked: 2719 times
Been thanked: 2662 times
Contact:
Australia

Re: Ch. 1: Moral Truth (The Moral Landscape)

Unread post

Dexter wrote:-If you want to maximize human flourishing, then you should do X - in this way we've turned a normative statement into a positive statement, at least in principle.
Yes, the above central argument is Harris's main critique of the fact-value dichotomy. I'm simply focusing on what you term "turned into", and asking in what does this "turning into in principle" from morals to facts consist. I agree this material is difficult, and it dredges up a lot of complex cultural agendas, so it is well worth clarifying.

Positive statements are factual descriptions of reality. Normative statements are moral arguments. The logical positivism that originated in the Vienna Circle of Carnap and Schlick in the 1930s held this distinction to be at the foundation of rigorous thought. Logical positivism came to dominate Western philosophy in the 1950s, especially through the work of Karl Popper, and remains the substructure of the mainstream scientific worldview that Harris is contesting. Logical positivism was based on the very worthy view that evidence is the highest value, that if a statement coheres with all evidence, it can be accepted as true. By contrast, non-evidentiary statements, ie moral arguments, have a lower epistemic status. Already this view contains the incoherence that facts are the highest values.

To understand the social and political implications of this worldview, per Harris, we have to understand the reasons why it was advanced. My view is that a big part of this rationale can be found in Popper's book The Poverty of Historicism, and Leo Strauss's related view that pluralism is a higher value than truth. Popper held that the original error in philosophy was committed by Plato, with his claim that ideas of the good, the true and the beautiful have an objective reality. Popper's philosophy was seared by the abuse of Plato by the Nazis, with their claim that absolute moral values reflected a racial hierarchy. 'Historicism' is defined by Popper as 'an approach to the social sciences which assumes that historical prediction is their primary aim', something he sees as the seed of totalitarianism, and in conflict with open liberalism.

Now Harris is reviewing the legacy of Popper's emphasis on the open society. If Popperian science leads to a moral relativism, with the view that science cannot comment on morality, then openness leaves people's heads so open that their brains fall out. Harris argues that scientific evidence carries moral implications. I fully agree with his conclusions, but wish to more carefully analyse the path he suggests to get there. Terms such as fact and value carry a mythic aura, a set of cultural associations that are hard to disentangle. I'm simply suggesting that Harris invalidly jumps from the claim that values should be based on facts to the conclusion that values are facts. Against this mode of thinking, Kant held there are two sources of philosophy, the starry heavens above and the moral law within. Kant did not try to say we should not distinguish between observation and recommendation, but this is the implication of Harris's actual argument.
Post Reply

Return to “The Moral Landscape - by Sam Harris”