A somewhat different thought on the first chapter:

It's too early to judge, but the analysis seems possibly too reductionist to me -- relating everything to brain states. As I'm sure Harris agrees, just because you can reduce everything to the lowest level -- movements of atoms, for example, -- doesn't mean that would provide the best or most useful explanation of something. For example, if you could reduce biological phenomena to the level of physics.

If a drug can produce brain states corresponding to all of the human flourishing and well-being that we might value, should we just sit on the couch and take it? Should we plug into the Matrix? The philosopher Robert Nozick made an argument along these lines with his "experience machine." If not, we must value something other than brain states, but the way Harris talks about neuroscience so far it sounds like that is how he thinks science will be able to say something objective, particularly about the more difficult moral questions. I suspect Harris will address this in some way later, and he has already hinted that he is not arguing for a narrow form of utilitarianism.

I'm thinking that Harris performs a valuable service for us by claiming ground that has previously belonged to the religious right. By "us," I mean the category of non-theists, whatever it is we call ourselves; perhaps atheist will have to do. From my observation, atheists end the discussion of morality once they've asserted that God or a holy book isn't necessary for us to be good people. After this point, though, they don't have much to add, usually stating, though, that science has no contribution to make. Leaving the field like this only empowers the prescriptive theists. Harris in contrast puts morality at the top of the agenda, stating that without a reorientation of our values, none of the big things we'd like to accomplish are possible.

He does a thorough job of defending his claims against almost any possible objection. He stomps hard on relativism, showing that it's valid to declare that some social practices are wrong, and not just wrong from our particular moral frame. If facts can be known about values, because the facts concern states of human consciousness, it is possible to evaluate conditions of the world (i.e, our culture) that impact these same states. Although there will be a range of values that are conducive to well-being, there are also clearly those that aren't doing that job at all. So Harris is also prescriptive, but his reason for being so is completely different from that of most religious moralists. Well-being is his bedrock; if some religious morals are evaluated on this basis, they'll fail. He answers the objection that well-being is too vague by comparing it to a subcategory of well-being, health. We don't mind that health is vague and without a known upper limit. In the same way, well-being can't be precisely defined and has no known upper limit. It's almost a virtue that well-being is hard to define, because we do need to fit into it some values that might be strange to us. I saw a reality show called "Sister Wives," about a polygamist family in Utah. I had a strong negative reaction to what I saw, but could it be that that bizarre social arrangement could also provide all members with well-being? Harris would say about this that facts can be determined, facts that can tell us whether it is harmful to well-being or not.

I wasn't sure what Harris meant by "science" in his subtitle. He explains that he means a whole range of things, from reason unaided by research to experimental data and measurement. That reassures me somewhat, because I wonder what the role of "hard" science can be in actually determining morals. I'd probably still like to insert the weasel-word "help" in the subtitle. I also get slightly uneasy about strange uses of science such as the "practice babies" project carried out in the 50s and 60s (on NPR today). The main point seems to be that well-being supplies an objective basis for determining values. Harris has a counter to the objection that this can't be so due to the subjectivity of well-being.

So far, I don't find him to be using reductionism in regard to states of the brain. Brain states are things about which facts can be known, which allows us to say that values can be based on facts relating to consciousness. The differences between those brain states are very significant, so there is never a sense in which he says a generic electro-chemical state of the brain is of any significance. But I suppose he is still open to an objection such as Dexter raised regarding artificially-induced brain states. Could those be improved without bothering about changing the conditions of the world?

Harris's idea of well-being as the key to ethics goes back to Aristotle's notion of entelechy.

Entelechy is considered to be an inherent regulating and directing force in the development and functioning of an organism, the actualization of form-giving cause...For Aristotle entelechy was effectively the "end within" -- the potential of living things to become themselves, e.g., what a seed has that makes it become a plant. ... actualization of their inbuilt spiritual code, entelechy or deep structure." http://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/pr ... esent3.php

Well-being, also understood as flourishing, involves understanding the rational evidence that indicates what something must do to achieve its full potential. Believing lies or errors holds us back from achieving our potential, so is inherently immoral. Knowing the truth is the basis for the highest morality, providing a path to transformative ethical action.

Climate science is one field in which this idea of basing values on facts provides a compelling basis for an authentic morality. If we ignore evidence about global warming, we effectively say it is okay by us if humanity goes extinct. Against this attitude of making up whatever we want to believe, Harris calls for a focus on evidence as the source of wellbeing. The path to flourishing is objective, in Aristotle's sense of entelechy it is finding the inherent inner purpose that will enable achievement of potential. Although as Harris notes there can be uncertainty about the best path, we often have certainty about the suboptimal paths, for example that happiness is better than misery, or in climate science that harmony with nature is better than falsely imagining we can ignore nature.

This framework of evidentiary morality provides a basis to rehabilitate some Biblical ideas. Especially, themes such as love and forgiveness indicate a need for rational critique of instinctive moral reactions such as revenge and blind loyalty. The study of the Bible has been corrupted by blind doctrine, so much that many people cannot imagine it contains an evidentiary vision, but we can actually take parables like the wheat and tares as a basis for a coherent scientific ethic.

The only part I could disagree with, Robert, is that the most compelling reason to act to mitigate climate change is to avoid human extinction. I think we're likely to survive long, long after we've committed larger crimes against the world and its species. Our adaptability is our biggest asset, but also in a way our liability because we can live with and even think we're happy with what little of the natural world we might have left. It goes without saying that human suffering will indeed increase hugely if we sit on our hands.

DWill wrote:The only part I could disagree with, Robert, is that the most compelling reason to act to mitigate climate change is to avoid human extinction.

The implications of global warming are the big reason why the relation between facts and values as presented by Harris is the most urgent question in morality.

Basing our values on facts is the only reliable way to make the world a better place, and address the large scale global threats we face.

James Hansen, head of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, is an expert on Venus. His study of the atmosphere of Venus led him to observe that if humans successfully move enough carbon from the crust of earth into the atmosphere to burn all oil, coal and shale oil, we will create a runaway Venus syndrome, putting planetary temperature above the boiling point of water. A runaway greenhouse effect would make earth uninhabitable, causing human extinction. This is possible. It is not a joke, and it is not a secondary problem. It is the primary fact of our time.

Despite this factual observation, the pace of CO2 emissions is increasing, not decreasing. People do not base their values on the facts of observation of our planet, but on imaginary ideas and dumb instincts. This is the ground of Harris's observation that fundamentalism in religion is an emergency problem, because of its scale and danger, and its evil capacity to distract people from real ethical problems such as climate change in favor of supernatural beliefs such as the Christ myth.

Yet Harris is wrong in his wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater by abolishing religion, the goal he hints at. He fails to see the rational meaning behind the stupid veneer of faith. The gospels have immense power to transform human life for the better through a vision of love. If we read the gospels through an atheist lens, we can still glean superb ethical content, including a counter-cultural recognition that the mentality of blind faith should be condemned in favor of analytical reason.

...it is incorrect to speak of an assumption as either true or false, since there is no way of proving it to be either (If there were, it would no longer be an assumption). It is better to consider assumptions as either useful or useless, depending on whether deductions made from them corresponded to reality. ... On the other hand, it seems obvious that assumptions are the weak points in any argument, as they have to be accepted on faith in a philosophy of science that prides itself on its rationalism. Since we must start somewhere, we must have assumptions, but at least let us have as few assumptions as possible.
-Isaac Asimov

In regards to why we should accept Harris' definition of morality, I think this qoute sums up Chapter 1 pretty well. Equating morality to well-being is not scientifically factual or false, but it is a starting point that seems to correspond with reality and allows us to use reason and logic to make moral decisions. I don't understand how this is fundamentally different then Utilitarianism though. Would anyone care to clarify? Admittedly, I am not an expert on the subject. Also, based on the first chapter, I find the subtitle of the book very misleading. I also find a lot of Harris' arguments to be vague, circular, and often times based on metaphors alone. So far I agree with his conclusion though.

DrWhizgig wrote: In regards to why we should accept Harris' definition of morality, I think this qoute sums up Chapter 1 pretty well. Equating morality to well-being is not scientifically factual or false, but it is a starting point that seems to correspond with reality and allows us to use reason and logic to make moral decisions. I don't understand how this is fundamentally different then Utilitarianism though. Would anyone care to clarify? Admittedly, I am not an expert on the subject. Also, based on the first chapter, I find the subtitle of the book very misleading. I also find a lot of Harris' arguments to be vague, circular, and often times based on metaphors alone. So far I agree with his conclusion though.

I think utilitarianism is a slippery enough term that it's not that useful without further explanation.

However, check out note 50 starting on p.210. Harris, paraphrasing Nozick, asks if it would be ethical for our species to be sacrificed for the unimaginably vast happiness of some superbeings, and answers "yes." The analogy being how we treat animals. As he says, the argument is not practically relevant; I'm not really sure what to make of it, but it's interesting.

Harris doesn't come right out and identify himself as a utilitarian, but since he approves of the phrase "the greatest good for the greatest number," it appears that he's firmly in that tradition. Consequentialism seems to be directly tied to utlitarianism, and he does call himself a consequentialist. I found his discussion of the difficulties of determining how best to benefit a population with whatever actions are proposed, to be a little dismaying, though it was honest of him to go into the topic. How can we really ever know what the unintended consequences will be, and how can we agree on the proportioning of benefit that would maximize well-being given the resources available? Harris likes to remind us that we shouldn't confuse no answers in practice with no answers in principle. I believe he sees problems with consequentialism to be of the first variety, but I'm not sure I can agree. It doesn't have to be true that advances in science will enable us to clarify these matters in which politics figure so highly.

He might also be assuming a political system that favors social engineering, which our brand of individualistic capitalism does not.

I was relieved, though, that Harris didn't claim that science will someday enable us to anticipate all the unintended consequences, which would mean being able to predict the future. That clearly is a case of no answers in principle, absent some extreme sci-fi scenario where everyone's thoughts are plugged into a centralized data base.

I want to defend the scientific basis of a morality that is based on well-being. That values reduce to facts about human brains is scientifically defensible. He's not talking about all conventional morals here, such as prohibitions against homosexuality, but about morals that really deserve to be called morals because they do relate the only thing we can really care about, which is the well-being of ourselves and others. Kindness is considered perhaps the central moral virtue because our brains react in a predictable way to treatment of this sort. We will describe the feeling as one of gratitude, pleasure, reassurance, or some other positive emotion. Goodness, which seems to be a more abstract kind of value, nevertheless has its origin in states of our brains that produce positive emotions about actions related to fairness or honesty. There isn't any disrespect for intellect shown here. Neuroscience has firmly established the partnership of emotion and reason, but reason is still real. As Harris writes, "Feeling may be necessary to judge the truth, but it cannot be sufficient" (127).

Can well-being as the foundation of a moral vision be criticized? Sure. I'm only making the case that it is scientifically sound.

Robert Tulip wrote:

DWill wrote:The only part I could disagree with, Robert, is that the most compelling reason to act to mitigate climate change is to avoid human extinction.

The implications of global warming are the big reason why the relation between facts and values as presented by Harris is the most urgent question in morality.

Basing our values on facts is the only reliable way to make the world a better place, and address the large scale global threats we face.

James Hansen, head of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, is an expert on Venus. His study of the atmosphere of Venus led him to observe that if humans successfully move enough carbon from the crust of earth into the atmosphere to burn all oil, coal and shale oil, we will create a runaway Venus syndrome, putting planetary temperature above the boiling point of water. A runaway greenhouse effect would make earth uninhabitable, causing human extinction. This is possible. It is not a joke, and it is not a secondary problem. It is the primary fact of our time.

Despite this factual observation, the pace of CO2 emissions is increasing, not decreasing. People do not base their values on the facts of observation of our planet, but on imaginary ideas and dumb instincts. This is the ground of Harris's observation that fundamentalism in religion is an emergency problem, because of its scale and danger, and its evil capacity to distract people from real ethical problems such as climate change in favor of supernatural beliefs such as the Christ myth.

Yet Harris is wrong in his wish to throw the baby out with the bathwater by abolishing religion, the goal he hints at. He fails to see the rational meaning behind the stupid veneer of faith. The gospels have immense power to transform human life for the better through a vision of love. If we read the gospels through an atheist lens, we can still glean superb ethical content, including a counter-cultural recognition that the mentality of blind faith should be condemned in favor of analytical reason.

Harris has said there is no reason for blind faith and the trappings of organized religion when there are other perfectly good reasons to behave ethically and morally. I agree with this. Imagine all of the money and lives that could be saved without organized religion.

Meditation should be a requisite of every major discipline, as the "the truth is lived, not taught"....