Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape - 2010 Texas Book Festival - Part 1-5

[JennaSmith987]

LOL - Harris created a HYPOTHETICAL universe and then transformed it into a REAL universe with a continuum of better or worse; translated magically into right and wrong.

Watch him again and you will see what has gone wrong. TOTAL TRASH.

[truckcompany]

@JennaSmith987

I'm surprised you got at least 9:00mins into this. Usually people who don't understand Sam Harris just aren't educated about his views. So I guess that means you are just too stupid to understand him.

[WolfEyesatNight]

@truckcompany

if I may,

what is best, all Islam woman using a burka or US women told day after day what they should they wear, so then to maintain an unhealthy emotional life with their partners?

if you call someone stupid, you're being divisive, conflicting, insecure, therefore violent.

what do you listen to, that is if you are, to what this man says?

you need to be saved.

[truckcompany]

@WolfEyesatNight

"US women told day after day what they should they wear"

...what? women are told what to wear? That's news to me????

"you're being divisive" - true

"conflicting" - true

"insecure" - what?

"therefore violent." this is a very weird statement.. I'm being violent? do you know what violence is?

[WolfEyesatNight]

@truckcompany

I'm surprised you disagree, women and men in our society are told what to do and how to think daily.

You, are just one example, women when following fashion are told to stay immature, so therefore most relationships with men fail, in fact it's expected of them to fail,

women are so insecure that will tattoo their body to conform to expectations.

a man who is divisive is conflicting, therefore insecure and so violent,

you need to be saved.

k: ).

[truckcompany]

@WolfEyesatNight

What's ironic is your God doesn't just tell you to, but commands you to submit and bow down to his knees and kiss his feet without question, just by faith and faith alone. (2 Cor 5:7)

If you don't, he won't stop the torment of Satan and the lake of fire from torturing your body for every breath from when you die to eternity. (The Satan and hell fire your God created)

I don't agree with your point, but even if I did, it's nothing compared to your God.

[WolfEyesatNight]

@truckcompany I praise that you keep an open mind, since arguments are are only speculations, not with intelligence that has fail humankind and has brought more pain and sorrow, but it is, by understanding that we can really be free. You are misreading the bible, because you been instructed to. Don't you and all of us walk by faith ( illusion) in all we do? what holds your ground in reality, your name, pain? what is certain for you? now look 2 Corinthians 4:18 k: )

[truckcompany]

@WolfEyesatNight

"You are misreading the bible"

Do you realize how predictable this response is? I feel sorry for your kids.

[charlesvan13]

@WolfEyesatNight

Women aren't told what to wear in the US any more than men are.

[McLarenF1God]

@JennaSmith987 Religion and its followers still a have all of their work ahead of them in terms of morality. Religious morals come from an era when raping women and or burning people alive for practicing junk science (alchemy) was socially acceptable. Today, you wouldn't think twice about that action even though it says right there in your bible that it's okay. God didn't adapt to moral changes in society. A highly evolved primate species did.

[ZachRose88]

I love Harris, his ideas are very cogent and clear, yet simple enough for anyone to digest.

[levinroy]

So -- we could be wrong about ants having inner lives that are not as rich as our own. Lets suppose for a second that we are wrong (its a possibility). In that case, it can be justified to kill a human in order to save the life of an innocent ant he is about to step on?

I think the issue with us caring more for primates than we do for insects does not have to do with the fact that they have richer inner lives but rather that they appear more like us than do insects.

[oneznzeroz]

I'm surprised Texas let him enter their State, I thought it was overrun with ignorant rednecks. I guess there is intelligent life there.

[charlesvan13]

@oneznzeroz

How could a state ban someone from entering?

It's obviously illegal to arrest someone for such a reason.

[oneznzeroz]

@charlesvan13

I was being facetious

[andreasdrg]

Now Sam is a prophet I could get behind.

[OrthodoxDarwinist]

Sam Harris is one of the biggest hypocrites around.

According to him, terrorism is bad (but if Zionist Jews do it it's OK).

[charlesvan13]

@OrthodoxDarwinist

I doubt he ever said that terrorism perpetrated by zionist Jews is ok.

[OrthodoxDarwinist]

@charlesvan13

He says openly in his essays he supports what Israel is doing militarily (aka ethnic cleansing).

Sam Harris is a Jewish-Zionist ethnic supremacist.

[LucisFerre1]

This is Ayn Rand's Objectivism--lite, although Harris himself might be appalled by the idea.

[rt36crazyfists]

Who is the person he talks about that is on the President's council of bioethics?

[dcx1287]

@rt36crazyfists Nita A. Farahany J.D. Ph.D. Yes, even PhDs can be delusional and irrational on certain issues.

[rt36crazyfists]

Texas Book Festival?  That's an oxymoron!

[mimesis6mime]

I think every man and woman in the US should wear a Burqua for one day a year, In August. Just to prove that we're still tough. tougher than you.

[PeterBrainTV]

Damn, I should have been there. That would have been awesome!

[2Jax]

The point is that a lot of people do place pleasing god above maximising human well-being. They usually justify this by saying life is short, heaven and hell are forever. The only way to get around this is to persuade them that believing we should treat things that we can't possibly know as something we do know is foolish. So it boils down to persuasion. I think people believe in heaven and hell mainly because they are scared of the unknown. This is where the argument lies IMO.

[sam51092]

@2Jax Oh you did write another comment. Ok then. Just look at why people say pleasing god is important. It's because by pleasing god they believe they'll gain his reward and/or avoid his punishment. Well-being is still the primary concern. It's unavoidable. The only problem is their beliefs are implausible, and here I agree we need to persuade people to not pretend to know what they don't, otherwise our moral decisions will be out of sync with reality, and this has consequences to... well-being.

[2Jax]

@sam51092 Ok, but the well-being that this god-pleasing person is looking for isn't likely to be ALL human well-being. It's likely to revolve around the well-being of their family and friends and anyone else can burn in hell.

When sam is talking about well-being it's not about the personal well-being of people you like, is it? They are two different things and it boils down to trying to persuade this person to think of all of humanity as their extended family (or something). Persuasion again

[sam51092]

@2Jax Yes we try to persuade those with implausible beliefs and narrowly defined moral circles. Are such people any more of a problem to a science of morality than creationists are to a science of biology? If we've granted that well-being is the primary concern then we can look at how such peoples' beliefs about reality, and their beliefs about how narrow their moral circle should be, are unfounded and therefore illegitimate within a science of morality.

[2Jax]

@sam51092 Don't get me wrong. I only think the labelling of morality as simply as a single goal (which it clearly isn't as I have said that human well-being can be at conflict with the survival of the human race) is a mistake. I think there can be a science about human well-being, and also about what the thought of the human race going extinct does to our minds, and also this science can include how thiest goals works on the human mind. We can label this as a science of morality. That's fine

[sam51092]

@2Jax That reminds me of something I've wondered before: what if we just talked about a science of well-being and stopped using the label 'morality' altogether? Then people might not get so angsty and we could just get on with what's important. The only problem is it's probably a moot point because people would instantly recognize it for what it is: an attempt at science of morality. I think we might as well call a spade a spade. Good convo.

[2Jax]

@sam51092 Yes I have thought that one of the biggest problems with morality is the word itself. It can be use to lend "goodness" (for want of a better word) to horrific acts. And objective has also had this problem. It is sometimes use to mean "definite" and subjective means "kind of". I've also come across people that say that science of the mind can't be objective because their definition of objective is something like: That which would exist without any conscious beings living in the universe

[StBarthelemy1572]

Matt Dillahunty BUSTED at 3:45.

[WhiteLakeDan]

Stop making sense, Harris! Thousands will lose their religion with this kind of talk!

[2Jax]

(cont) to account for specfic 'oughts' and 'ought nots'. But these objective goals are uItimately subjectively chosen so don't jump to the conclusion that I think morality is objective. I can explain this further if you are interested but I've rambled on far too much for now.

Maybe morality is really when our innate genetic inclines meet our conscious mind so maybe it's when the objective meets the subjective.

NOTE: Some people don't like the way I use the words objective/subjective.

[2Jax]

Please don't think I'm some kind of Harris hater or anything like that. The guy is one of my heros and the main reason I'm interested in this subject. But I still think he's made a mistake but it's really not a verey big one. I think the definition of morality is something like: How an individual thinks people ought to interact with each others (other beings). Then within this definition individuals have objective moral goals to account for the 'oughts'. NOTE: objective moral goals are needed...

[2Jax]

(cont from very...) easy.

But what I'm really interested in is the conflict when two moral goals are "competing" for priority. This happens alot and can be characterised by the term 'choosing lesser of two evils'.

This is also why I think sam has made a mistake: He has defined morality as something like: maximising human well-being, when this isn't a useful definition (IMO, but it is a moral goal) as is fails to take into account when multipul moral goals are (or seem) mutually exclusive.

[2Jax]

(cont)... Is it ever morally right to prioritise the needs of the many over the needs of the indiviual? I think the answer is: very often. NOTE: That I didn't say 'always' as there are many examples of when this is not the case.

So, if there is a choice between an individual suffering for as long as possible before they die or many people suffering for as long as possible before they die, I think the choice is very...

Like so many people on here you saw an argument and made it absolutist.

[sam51092]

@2Jax I'd say the only way that makes sense to treat each other is on terms of maximising well-being (how else?). And when two moral goals are in conflict, yes, it's the lesser of the two evils we must suffer (what else?) If two moral goals are in conflict but neither is consequentially greater or lesser than the other, this is called a 'zero-sum' scenario and there is no answer. But by far most scenarios are not zero-sum, and so we can still make head-way in objective morality.

[2Jax]

@sam51092 I was just pointing out that sam defined morality but really he was stating a moral goal e.g. maximising human well-being, survival of the human race, pleasing god etc. The real problem is what moral goals should we have and what takes priority? I think it boils down to persuasion and I don't think defining morality as a single moral goal is right or helpful. When people aren't given a choice they tend to exercise rebellion. Give the people an easy choice.

[sam51092]

@2Jax I feel like you're making a problem out of nothing. If someone has a moral goal that isn't about well-being, what could their moral goal possibly be about? Or rather, what could it be about that could possibly matter to anyone? Some might disagree that the goal is increasing well-being, but... who cares? Someone might disagree that biology is about life or that history is about the past. How much time do we give them? How much 'choice'? Do they even deserve a response?

[liberalatheist]

What's the name of an idiot that he's talking about from 3:30?

[2Jax]

What's worse than everyone suffering the worst pain for as long as possible? How about the end of the human race. Either it is worse so sam is wrong, or it is the same so it is a viable alternative, or it is better so an answer to everyone suffering the worst pain for the longest time would be to kill everyone.

If I were stuck with the choice I would say that the survival human race is most important. Anyone feel differently or the same?

[equsnarnd]

@2Jax You're arguing for 2 things. 1. That survival at any price is preferable to death and 2. that a collectivist answer would be legitimate when it can't possibly be as it totally destroys much of what would be used to make that evaluation on the level where it is important: the individual. So though the question is correct grammatically, metaphysically it's nonsense.

[2Jax]

@equsnarnd Point 1: No, I'm not talking about the survival at any price is preferable to death. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm talking about the extinction of the whole human race. There is a big difference. The question that I'm asking is: Is it morally right to prioritise the survival of the human race above human well-being when the human race is under a very direct threat of extinction?

Point 2: No, again, stop putting words in my mouth. I suppose my point can be put in a question:

[FreeGuitarLicks]

Matt Dillahunty, hells yeah!

[justatallguy]

@89arete No, didn't read all of them, only some. I don't deny the greatness of their reasoning and conclusions. But yes, I think Sam Harris takes the good of those philosofies and removes at least a big part of the false problems they create. And more importantly addapts things to the modern society, uses good and intelligent analogies with the scientific reasoning that those from before did not have and that is available today even to the avarage citzen.

[justatallguy]

@89arete Yes we can, because he cuts the bullshit out and goes straight to the point.

[Jexka007]

I was there and I am from Texas. I couldn't wait to hear his speech. I think he is the most rational person I have ever heard in my life!

[Thisisj3ff]

@Jexka007 Thumbs up for sure, fellow Texan here, wasn't at the show in Austin but thats what youtube is for eh?

[Jexka007]

@aramian21 Yes I have! Thanks for the referral! Have you heard of Alan Watt? He is interesting and has researched Bertrand Russell, H.G. Wells, Huxley, Plato and more.

[Cainer666]

3:47 - is that Matt Dillahunty (sp?) in the crowd?

[ToListen]

@Cainer666 Yep.

[nontheistdavid]

@Cainer666 Yes. I think you are right!

[darkmiles22]

tough crowd o.0

[ThatGuyWhoSucksBoobz]

@darkmiles22 what do you expect? its texas. the buckle on the bible belt. I'm surprised people even showed up at sam's public lecture. hopefully, this means there are many atheists in texas, they're just not openly atheist.

[jancar2012]

@ThatGuyWhoSucksBoobz I'm openly atheist in Tx, and no one really gives me any problems. Your thinking of the rhinestones of the buckle like Vidor or Jasper.

[homerogrande]

Who is the scientist(woman) he is talking about at 4:52?

[homerogrande]

@homerogrande She is Nita Farahany.

[sickofgod69]

LOL!! Watch out Matt, this guy might make you an atheist!!

I scanned the Book Festival information for Harris, Hitchens and Grisham, how the heck did I miss this!!! AARRGH!!!

[MrDarkbloom]

Mr Harris is amazing.

[tomaz2007]

Hey, Matt Dillahunty's in the audience :)

[Darkaero199]

@tomaz2007 Are you surprised? It's an irreligion event in Austin after all haha

[jameshanley40]

@tomaz2007

AWESOME, does he ask a question?