The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values is a 2010 book by Sam Harris, in which he promotes a science of morality and argues that many thinkers have long confused the relationship between morality, facts, and science. He aims to carve a third path between secularists who say morality is subjective (moral relativists) and religionists who say that morality is dictated by God and scripture. Harris contends that the only viable moral framework is one where "morally good" things pertain to increases in the "well-being of conscious creatures". He then argues that, problems with philosophy of science and reason in general notwithstanding, moral questions have objectively right and wrong answers grounded in empirical facts about what causes people to flourish. Challenging the traditional philosophical notion that an "ought" cannot follow from an "is" (Hume's law), Harris argues that moral questions are best pursued using not just philosophy, but …
The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values is a 2010 book by Sam Harris, in which he promotes a science of morality and argues that many thinkers have long confused the relationship between morality, facts, and science. He aims to carve a third path between secularists who say morality is subjective (moral relativists) and religionists who say that morality is dictated by God and scripture.
Harris contends that the only viable moral framework is one where "morally good" things pertain to increases in the "well-being of conscious creatures". He then argues that, problems with philosophy of science and reason in general notwithstanding, moral questions have objectively right and wrong answers grounded in empirical facts about what causes people to flourish. Challenging the traditional philosophical notion that an "ought" cannot follow from an "is" (Hume's law), Harris argues that moral questions are best pursued using not just philosophy, but the methods of science, because science can tell us which values lead to human flourishing. It is in this sense that Harris advocates that scientists begin conversations about a normative science of morality.Publication of the book followed Harris's 2009 receipt of a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles with a similarly titled thesis: The moral landscape: How science could determine human values.
Reread. The Moral Landscape is the basic instruction manual on how to approach morality through what Harris calls 'moral realism', which in its core discounts the moral relativism ingrained in our societies on every level imaginable. I would say that anyone with any sense of ethics or morality would have a hard time disagreeing with the main arguments here. We can split hairs about the nuances, as Harris has done in numerous interviews.
Reread. The Moral Landscape is the basic instruction manual on how to approach morality through what Harris calls 'moral realism', which in its core discounts the moral relativism ingrained in our societies on every level imaginable. I would say that anyone with any sense of ethics or morality would have a hard time disagreeing with the main arguments here. We can split hairs about the nuances, as Harris has done in numerous interviews.
I was quite excited about reading this book. It'd be incredibly interesting to read a compelling or at least clearly articulated explanation of how science can determine human values.
Unfortunately, the main argument Harris makes in this book is a lot weaker. Essentially, it comes down to the following:
1. Take as an axiom that everybody experiencing maximum well-being is morally better than everybody experiencing maximum suffering. (I was hoping this wouldn't be taken as an axiom but would instead be argued for, but OK, I can accept this axiom.) 2. People's well-being is a consequence by physical realities, such as the state of their brains. 3. Science can help us better predict what physical realities our actions will lead to. 4. Ergo, science can theoretically help us determine what constitutes more and less ethical behaviour (the moral landscape).
Which, sure, is convincing enough, but dodges all the actually interesting …
I was quite excited about reading this book. It'd be incredibly interesting to read a compelling or at least clearly articulated explanation of how science can determine human values.
Unfortunately, the main argument Harris makes in this book is a lot weaker. Essentially, it comes down to the following:
1. Take as an axiom that everybody experiencing maximum well-being is morally better than everybody experiencing maximum suffering. (I was hoping this wouldn't be taken as an axiom but would instead be argued for, but OK, I can accept this axiom.) 2. People's well-being is a consequence by physical realities, such as the state of their brains. 3. Science can help us better predict what physical realities our actions will lead to. 4. Ergo, science can theoretically help us determine what constitutes more and less ethical behaviour (the moral landscape).
Which, sure, is convincing enough, but dodges all the actually interesting topics, such as:
- Is all well-being (for example, that of animals) equally important? - Can the well-being of different people be compared? - Should we even act morally, and if so, why, and to what extent? - And most importantly: how do we actually bring this into practice, given that in practice there's a whole lot that science can not (yet?) tell us?
Additionally, the argument outlined above is given in the first part of the book, and I spent the rest of the book hoping he would get to the actually interesting topics. Instead, he spent most of it railing against people who had dared disagree with him in the past, arguing against articles by people I'd never even heard of (and clearly not always painting their arguments in the most charitable light), and explaining how many counter-arguments and what he's saying were actually counter arguments against a stronger point than he was making, and was therefore not applicable.
And finally, he spent a considerable number of pages arguing against religion, which I was personally not that interested in. That one's mostly on me though: I didn't know Sam Harris but was recommended him by someone, and picked this book because it was the only one of his that didn't seem to be about religion. Of course, the fact that every other book did should have been a dead giveaway.
I might be overly harsh, as I was really excited about reading a book arguing not only that moral values were knowable, but also and especially how that was the case. All in all, though, I came away disappointed.
How we can understand morality and values on a spectrum of well-being.
Combining his experience in neuroscience and philosophy, Sam highlights the importance of changing people’s ethical commitments, explaining that "Nearly every other important goal, from combating climate change, to fighting terrorism, to curing cancer, to saving the whales falls within its purview.” This is a rational, scientific framing of actions and mindsets to pave a path for effective altruism in the 21st century.
The book is meant to lay groundwork for further discussion and progress. Sam has said that this was an edit of his dissertation for a PhD in neuroscience at UCLA. The mission here is determining which patterns of thought and behavior we should collectively be aiming towards. Atheism is a central theme: Sam slams religion broadly, the Catholic church and Islam specifically, and an apologetics book brutally, saying "to read it is to witness nothing less …
How we can understand morality and values on a spectrum of well-being.
Combining his experience in neuroscience and philosophy, Sam highlights the importance of changing people’s ethical commitments, explaining that "Nearly every other important goal, from combating climate change, to fighting terrorism, to curing cancer, to saving the whales falls within its purview.” This is a rational, scientific framing of actions and mindsets to pave a path for effective altruism in the 21st century.
The book is meant to lay groundwork for further discussion and progress. Sam has said that this was an edit of his dissertation for a PhD in neuroscience at UCLA. The mission here is determining which patterns of thought and behavior we should collectively be aiming towards. Atheism is a central theme: Sam slams religion broadly, the Catholic church and Islam specifically, and an apologetics book brutally, saying "to read it is to witness nothing less than an intellectual suicide.” He was more of an edgelord back in 2010, but is essentially trying to disprove the notion that religion offers the best framework for our guiding principles, and instead to show that ethics and moral truths can, and must, stand on their own.
There isn't much of an argument found in this book. That's not to say that Harris is demonstrably wrong or uninteresting, it's just that the claim that there's something to be known about ethics is a weak proposition, that few will debate. The truly interesting parts, such as the defense of utilitarianism as a meta-ethical position, are wholly skipped by Harris. There's a lot to say on the problems of this book, but I will do so elsewhere. My verdict is that it's conceptually naive and, surprisingly enough, also primitive with regards to the interpretation of neuroimaging findings.
There isn't much of an argument found in this book. That's not to say that Harris is demonstrably wrong or uninteresting, it's just that the claim that there's something to be known about ethics is a weak proposition, that few will debate. The truly interesting parts, such as the defense of utilitarianism as a meta-ethical position, are wholly skipped by Harris. There's a lot to say on the problems of this book, but I will do so elsewhere. My verdict is that it's conceptually naive and, surprisingly enough, also primitive with regards to the interpretation of neuroimaging findings.
