@nsugathadasa Not uncommon. Pinker's stance was also 'Yes' & 'No'. The reason, I guess, is because the term ''science'' is not properly defined. Everyone had great point, though.
The analogy Harris draws between ethics and medicine is false: someone who likes vomiting might not have anything to say about medicine, but so what? Singer's point is that the facts of health and flourishing don't in themselves give people a reason to want to be healthy; equally, the facts about conscious beings' welfare don't on their own give people a reason to take said welfare into consideration. The sick seek medicine because of self-interest. Ethics doesn't work that way.
I really admire Sam Harris. It’s rare to see such intellectual honesty and determination to think clearly and rationally. He’s certainly given me insight into my own beliefs and ideas.
I have watched the debate and I still don't know how science can tell us right from wrong. Pinker, Singer and Blackburn won. Harris, Krauss and Churchland lost. Please convince me otherwise.
@SoberHedgehog People like you can't be convinced otherwise. Eventually, in order to progress, we're going to just have to create a theme park for all of you to hang around in while the rest of us get on with preserving human life, liberty, and happiness in the way that requires the least expenditure of human effort. And science can and will tell us how to do that. Enjoy your theme park.
@dlbattle100 There's an easy way to convince me. First, drop the drama as you know nothing about me and therefore you don't know what "people like me" are. Second, answer Singer's arguments. Third, preserving human life, liberty and happiness is a good slogan but it's not a scientific proposition. Science is not concerned with perserving anything. If the title of the debate is "can science tell us right from wrong?", which "science" tells you that it is right to perserve these things?
@dlbattle100 There's an easy way to convince me. First, drop the drama as you know nothing about me and therefore you don't know what "people like me" are. Second, answer Singer's arguments. Third, preserving human life, liberty and happiness is a good slogan but it's not a scientific proposition. Science is not concerned with perserving anything. If the title of the debate is "can science tell us right from wrong?", which "science" tells you that it is right to perserve these things?
@SoberHedgehog I am certain that a sufficiently detailed model of humanity could show that if we don't pursue life liberty and happiness then we won't be around very long. If you're saying "what is wrong with not being around", fine, mayber you're right, go kill yourself, or like I said, enjoy your theme park.
@dlbattle100 Is it objectively true that we should value life ?
How can science answer moral dilemmas ? what is more important, life,liberty or happiness ? Can science tell us which one we ought to value more when they come into conflict ?
@Ician100 "There is a collection of majority-approved SUBJECTIVE values."
This is a great definition of morality. Morality is as whimsical as the cultures who try to pin it down. Is slavery immoral? Has it always been so? What about stoning witches or burning homosexuals. There is a conitnuum of morality that follows civilization. Even most Biblical fundamentalists today would not think it moral to kill a person for working on the Sabbath.
Patricia talked about "Academic arrogance", Simon displayed that in this video -- so far off from the point, defending his ego, absurd. I feel sorry for the students who end up with him as a teacher at good ol' reputable Cambridge.
You really don't have an idea why he was wearing that shirt, do you? If you have seen Laurence Krauss debate before, you would know; go and educate yourself.
@rashaan6 I think he was jokingly reacting to how morbid Sam's example was. I heard it as follows: "*heh heh heh*...cunt." It was good natured ribbing.
Simon commented that people like Aristotle have nothing any longer to say about ethics. But Aristotelian Aquinas tradition has something to offer today. Deontological ethics (what MacIntyre calls encylcopedia) and Nietzsche (genealogy) has been called into postmodern question. Whatever we might think of the kind of tradition of the medieval era, there is still something about a less confused (genealogy and encylopeadia) take on ethics, virtue ethics can be construed in the format of tradition
What if, say, I value my honor (whatever that might be) more than I value what science may come to call my well being? In Harris's view, one would be immoral if one attended to my interest in attaining honor instead of attending to my well being. Right?
@SrQueque Here's how Sam responds to the "Valuation Problem" --
1. Look -- it is self-evident that ultimately all values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.
Response: Well, it's not really self-evident. Sure, there are some obvious examples, but I actually care more about (autonomy, justice, honor, survival, my family, etc).
2. Well-being incorporates whatever you care about.
Response: But I'm a deontologist, Kantian Buddhist.
@SurlyCalifornia I want to ask your personal opinion about this. My comment at the top lays out Singer's and Churchland's positions on the is/ought problem. Here's what I want to ask you: What contribution do you think Harris makes to this problem? I'm aware that Harris thinks (2) is obvious. Churchland and Singer both agree with him about that. But what reason does Harris give us for thinking that the argument works without (2)?
@SurlyCalifornia (1) Is Sam saying that wellbeing = goodness because we all agree it is? That's problematic because (a) we don't all agree and (b) even if we did, it doesn't mean we should all agree. Claiming that the people who seem not to agree really agree "implicitly" is not a very convincing approach.
Somewhere in his book he says that deontologists are consequentialists just waiting to get out? What exactly does not mean? Why can't a deontologist make the same claim?
@SurlyCalifornia You are using terms that you clearly don't understand, probably parroted from Sam's book....Introducing philosophical baggage is equivalent to solipsism????? How does making an analytic, theoretical criticism of Sam Harris's thesis have anything to do with whether or not someone thinks other minds exist. Thanks for the "transcendant" laugh.
@SurlyCalifornia I'm trying to make sense of what you just said and if you even know what meta-ethics is. It might be helpful for you to ask a moral philosopher from a local university to explain meta-ethics and the is/ought gap. That would probably be a good start.
@SurlyCalifornia But can we empirically determine that happiness and pain are identical to goodness and badness? What empirical argument does Harris make for the view that happiness is identical to goodness?
A great, enlightening debate. For me, Harris really was able to clarify and strengthen his position when debating with intelligent people, compared to when he's having to go over the same points again and again debating against a pro-religion view. Thanks for uploading, it's stuff like this that makes youtube a genuinely important part of culture
(2) If you're continually vomiting, you should see a doctor.
(C) Therefore, you should see the doctor.
Singer says: You need to include (2) for the argument to work.
Churchland says: You don't need to include (2) for the argument to work.
Harris: We should accept (2).
The is/ought problem is to figure out whether or not that argument (and others like it) works without (2). If Harris has nothing to add here, then he has *not* solved the is/ought problem.
Than you very much for uploading the entire discussion. I think Sam Harris is vindicated. Science can tell us right from wrong, if indeed we want to travel down this road. Religion is an ancient relic that must be jettisoned. It holds humanity back from evolving into a more civilized state of being.
@cutis1000 The debate here isn't science vs. religion. It's (A) whether there is a gap between FACTS and VALUES, (B) whether science ALONE can *determine* human values, and (C) whether we can just disregard meta-ethics entirely. Nobody on this panel is advocating religion over science; watch the Blackburn video.
@SESConferenceExpo I just don't understand why you felt compelled to add that bit about religion then (we agree). As to whether or not science can determine human values, you are going to need to address the issues Blackburn raises in his 10 minute or so talk. You need to address the apparent fact-value gap, how we ought to prioritize our needs vs. the needs of others, etc.. The fact that science could tell me why I'm wired to be a sex addict doesn't automatically mean that I ought to be one.
@cutis1000 I do admire your candor about religion, for I share many of the same sentiments.
However, I do think that everyone should NOTE Cutis' comment. This debate did not include a single religious panelist and yet Cutis finds it necessary and relevant to comment on the danger of religion.
What this says to me is that these "new atheists" think that ditching religion is the final frontier. Yet it isn't. Go further, read philosophy, and you'll see that Harris comes off as a charlatan here.
@TheBestInterest Harris is no charlatan. He's asking you to consider the best available evidence to draw conclusions that are based on FACT, not superstition. The "new atheists" are, ironically, not new at all. Go read some Bertrand Russell. He's as "new" now as the die he died some 40+ years ago. The "new atheists" is a term coined by media to, in many ways, deride the free thinkers of today. You should think more and pray less!
@ZombieLincoln666 We are all ignorant of what we don't know. Science doesn't proclaim to know everything. That's the point. Humanity evolves and as we continue to evolve so does our understanding of science and what science can tell us.
Interesting bit of talking past each other on induction and deduction, from professionals who are primarily inductivists (scientists) and tose who are primarily deductivists (philosophers)
@philipcrouch I agree that this is an accurate description of a lot of what went on at this event. It is a shame that these debates must be moderated on such a strict schedule in terms of time, as it limits the participants' chances of actually responding to one another rather than talking past each other.
@philipcrouch agreed for the most part. BUT...much of philosophy is dealing with both. Many, like Kant, try to create hybrid philosophies which try and fuse the two. Others, like Hume, completely disregard much of induction in favor of looking at many philosophical issues entirely inductively.
@ryanp123456 At the moment, I spend 20% of my income on items of personal need and necessity, save 70% for the advancement of my future children, devote 5% to help friends and acquaintances, and donate 5% to general charity. Without meta-ethics, you aren't capable of generating a falsifiable test that determines how I ought to distribute my earned income. It's equivalent to not having an operational definition. Maybe re-watch the Blackburn video....
@panther451 Well there are definitely many bad ideas for your earned income, like a crack binge, or setting the cash on fire and cooking some marshmallows over it. Just because it will probably never be possible to use science to derive one best answer in a complicated problem is no reason for it not to get a clearer picture of the consequences by studying effects of various factors involved in the complex system, the results of which can then be used to help guide policy.
@ScottBrown666 Yes, I agree! But that's not the point being debated here. Sam seems to be advocating the position that you can just disregard meta-ethics entirely -- that science (alone) can determine human values. I'm responding to that position alone. Nobody here (even Blackburn) questions that science helps us understand the world.
@panther451 Meta-ethics is a needlessly confusing way of talking about morality. Sam's method of simply talking about the well being of conscious creatures is clear and concise. Science is the only thing that can conceivably guide us morally. Meta-ethics was an attempt at finding a scientific way of talking about ethics, but now we have a better method thanks to Sam Harris.
@ryanp123456 You are still skirting around the problems that Blackburn raises. Science alone can't tell us how to prioritize our own needs against those of our family, friends, and strangers. Sure, science can tell us that monkeys, dogs, and cats have brains. Maybe sharks have emotions and are capable of feeling pain. But that doesn't necessitate that sharks merit moral consideration. Again, this goes back to the issue of sociobiology; facts inform values, not dictate them.
@panther451 I agree. We seem to have only miscommunicated on one thing the only thing I meant to talk about was the actual suffering of conscious creators. Meta-ethics is very important tool for helping average people make decisions. The only thing I am advocating is the having of a realistic, scientifically minded discussion about how to reduce the very real suffering in this world, I can't understand an opposition to this position so I know we must have gotten our wires crossed.
@ryanp123456 I think that's exactly the problem. Blackburn and Singer both want science to play a part in how we approach moral problems. But Harris goes further and says that values reduce to scientific facts and that the is/ought problem is a pseudo-problem. But Harris doesn't seem to understand that his position takes a lot more work than what he's put into it.
@jst1g I think Harris might actually be aware that it is a lot of work, which is why he writes off meta-ethics as "boring". He's argued that one of the problems with morality is that the only people certain of right & wrong are religious demagogues, and he feels a need to at least posit a theory whereby science could be certain of right & wrong. He views uncertainty about morality (e.g. extreme moral relativism) as a potential weakness of modern secularism and needs to distance himself from it.
@jst1g More evidence for the last point -- Sam did a similar thing recently when he spoke at an atheist convention. He argued that we ought not to call ourselves atheists because it is a metaphysically bankrupt term AND that politically/rhetorically it could be dismissed easily. This was again an attempt by him to distance himself from the crowd; humorously, he later admitted in the Q&A that he didn't know the best strategy to advance secular humanism. But it's on his mind.
@jst1g That's a good question -- I'm assuming that he means atheism asserts nothing about metaphysics -- it is merely an absence of theism. I suppose he is trying to say that it is like calling yourself a non-stamp collector rather than a foosball player (sort of defining yourself of hobbies/behaviors in which you do not participate rather than ones in which you do). Under this view, terms like "rationalist" and "secular humanist" are presumably superior -- though he wouldn't concede this point.
@panther451 I see. He means it's a negative position. It tells you what there isn't instead of what there is. That seems like a reasonable point to make. But a negative position might be the best available. Non-stamp collectors need not have anything in common in addition to not collecting stamps, so it's not clear that atheists should have anything more in common than not believing that at least one god exists.
Anyway, I see why he'd call the term "metaphysically bankrupt" now.
@ryanp123456 You are advocating a practical conversation about employing science somehow to better the human (animal) condition. Everyone on the panel agrees that we ought to have that (practical) conversation. Philosophers like myself get all worked up about theoretical grievances -- like Sam's untenable effort to reduce scientific facts to values. I suspect you misinterpreted the theoretical attack as a practical/pragmatic one, which is easy to do.
@panther451 "You are advocating a practical conversation about employing science somehow to better the human (animal) condition." Not somehow, what I am advocating is that we have this conversation in the context of the well being of conscious creators.
The only thing values could possibly arise from is facts about this universe. All Sam is doing is pointing out that this subject is firmly within the purview of science.
@panther451 What I am advocating is having a practical conversation about reducing the real suffering in this world. The only intelligible space to have this conversation in is within Sam's framework for well being.
Scientific facts all reduce to values like respecting evidence. This doesn't present a problem. Evidence is worth valuing.
The science of morality presumes a respect for well being. No problem. Well being is worth valuing.
The science of medicine presumes the value of life. etc.
@ryanp123456 It's not the *ONLY* intelligible space for a practical conversation about reducing suffering in the world.
Kant's categorical imperative is intelligible. So is Hume's sentimentalism. So is Aristotle's virtue ethics and the Rawlsian Theory of Justice. So is Peter Singer's preference utilitarianism, and Blackburn's quasi-realism.
@panther451 Those arguments are intelligible, I admit that, but they are unimportant to morality as I understand it.
So I stand by my statement. The only intelligible space to have a discussion about morality is within Sam's framework of well being. If it has nothing to do with well being it has nothing to do with morality. If those positions DO have something important to say about well being than they can be incorporated into Sam's framework of well being.
It's a pity that Harris has not bothered to educate himself in metaethics. He has a strong following from US atheists and as a hard atheist myself I think he's gonna sucker in a lot of the other atheists and convince them that discovering moral facts is like discovering scientific facts. This will play into the hands of the religious ignoramuses who what to claim that only faith in god can allow you to discover moral facts.
In this sense he's doing a slight disservice to secular morality.
Churchland should know better! Science as formally practiced whether in the lab or in the armchair tries its BEST to get as close to deduction as possible so as to preserve the truth of the premises of an argument. If we had the time and patience to deduce truths about the world then we would. She can't argue against the is/ought fallacy by saying that we dont really care about it. That's not the point. If we care about truth (as scientists presumably do) then we MUST care about the is/ought.
Clearly Harris doesn't realize how important metaethics is to this debate. This debate IS a metaethics debate. And it's unfortunate that this discussion focused more on promoting the role of literature/fiction in ethics (perhaps an agenda as Kraus's advertisement suggests). If fiction had primacy in helping us understand ethics, then moral philosophers would be doing creative writing instead. As Pinker said, philosopher's thought experiments are more precise and rigorous.
@itchynights yeah and they spent less than a quarter of that time on the IS/OUGHT debate... which just so happens to be the POINT of the ENTIRE DISCUSSION!!!
@MikieBBB2007 Now that I've asked you to do some reading? How does throwing your hands up at a body of literature and refusing to consider even introductory material because it's "boring" in line with the ideal of rationality that Harris strives for? I think I'd pose the same question to Sam.
When you're sick and uncertain about what you have, do you then make the same argument? "Work it out for yourself, doctors won't discover the answers for you."
If Simon means that you must go to the "scientists" (a group of men with white coats) for all the answers about how you to live, clearly this IS a straw-man.
And my earlier point is that if you're against positivism in this case, in my view you're basically making the "god of the gaps" argument - only in this case for morality.
@MikieBBB2007 Harris has not established the meta-ethical premises that would lead to the conclusion that ethics is concerned with "well-being." That aside, even if we allow him this invalid move, it is not entirely clear what is well-being consists of, and it's certainly not apparent that it reduces to any sort of objective, empirically measurable fact. That is what Blackburn is skeptical of. I am not sure what you mean by positivism in your anecdotal atheism reference.
@MikieBBB2007 Blackburn would say that the doctors can give you a medical advice but not moral advice.
Simon doesn't just mean that. He means that studying human behavior will not get the answers on its own.
Do you think Sam Harris vs Simon Blackburn is science vs religion? Blackburn's an atheist and a naturalist. For what's it's worth *I'm* an atheist and a naturalist.
You're answering in the affirmative. So the "project" is already off the ground. So what's the problem?
You're being disingenuous:
(1) If you're referring to part 2 @ 2:40, Sam indeed interrupts when Simon says "I'm not saying we make anything up." But then Simon seemingly agrees with Sam, but he had plenty of time to respond. He didn't do so.
(2) Again at part 3 @ 4:20 he had plenty of time to respond. He didn't do so.
Right. Sam is clearly dominating in the Bill O'Reilly sense.
@MikieBBB2007 Your confusion about my answering to the affirmative shows that you have no idea what I'm talking about.
I think Blackburn's complaint about Sam comes at 3:00 pt. 3. I suspect Simon decided at that point Sam's not worth arguing with because Sam seems to think distinguishing relativism and expressivism is stupid.
This brings up an interesting question for us: Why argue with somebody who thinks its stupid to take the time to understand what the other person is talking about?
@jst1g It shows also that YOU have no idea what you're talking about, and the statement "it's good if it's good for humans" is circular. I already assumed you said this as an attempt to make a point - but you're only reaffirming the point Sam's making. If you can't say that moral questions relate to human well-being, then you're most likely talking nonsense. You have to assume it even if it's not precisely defined in the same way you accept "life" and "health" as the starting points of medicine.
@MikieBBB2007 If well being is defined as "what's good for humans," then I take well being to be good (because it's trivial). If well-being is defined as "super-happiness, then I take well-being to be good.
The meta-ethical question is whether or not "Is well being good?" is answerable by science. I take well being to be good, but that does not mean I think science has or can tell me so.
@jst1g Call it "meta-ethical" or whatever you will, it is a nonsensical question. If well-being isn't good, then you have destroyed the meaning of "good".
@bcn533 If "well-being" is defined as "what's good for human beings," then there's nothing informative about saying that well-being is good. If well-being is just a fancy version of happiness, then Sam needs to show that science (and not moral philosophy) tells us that well-being is good. It's not enough for it to be obvious that well-being is good, because that's appealing to an intuition and not science, which is OK for a philosopher but not for a scientist.
@jst1g A fancy version of happiness? What are you talking about? You don't know what "well-being" means? I suppose we need science to tell us that physical health is good, right?
@bcn533 *I* don't need science to tell us that well-being is good because I don't accept Sam's position. I'm fine taking well-being to be obviously good without any science. *Sam* needs science to tell us that well-being is good because he thinks values reduce to scientific facts.
@jst1g I guess I don't follow you again. If morality has a subject matter (perhaps the well-being of conscious creatures) then could there be a normative science of it? Medicine has a subject matter (physical health) and it is a science. The goal of preserving/increasing physical health doesn't need to be scientifically justified so why should the goal of preserving and increasing well-being generally? Suppose for the sake of argument that virtually all people shared the goal preserving (cont..)
@bcn533 and increasing well-being as you conceive it. Would you then say that in order to start a science of well-being, a scientific demonstration that "well-being" is "good" would be a prerequisite? If so, what makes the hypothetical scenario different from the actual scenario of medicine?
@bcn533 A scientific demonstration that well-being is good is not a prerequisite for going out and helping people. But a scientific demonstration that well-being is good is needed if Sam is right in saying that values reduce to facts.
The idea that health is good, at best, is presupposed by medicine. If it's a fact at all that health is good, medicine doesn't inform us of that fact, it's moral philosophy or something. So we can't say that values reduce to medical facts.
@jst1g I don't understand your logic. If value and morality have a subject matter (well-being?) then values reduce would reduce to facts, no? I actually find Harris' phrasing a little unclear and so I sometimes translate that as "values reduce to factual claims". For example, someone who values the practice of strict Sharia law and hence believes it is the path to the greatest forms of well-being is making a factual claim. And that claim, it seems very likely, if false. continued......
@bcn533 I think this can be helpful. When someone says values reduce to scientific facts, I take them to mean that if you can translate every value statement into a statement science either has or can tell us is true or false.
But I don't think Harris has shown that we can translate "well-being is good" into a statement that science either has or can tell us is true or false.
So Harris has not shown that values reduce to scientific facts.
@jst1g . Another person might value compassion highly and believes that if there was more compassion overall in society more people would be better off. That's another claim about the relationship between human behavior and emotion and well-being. That one, I suspect, stands at least a fair chance of being true. The point is that claims about what should be valued and what is moral are claims about the relationships between thought, intention and behavior and human well-being.
@bcn533 When Harris talks about compassion he talks about it in terms of recognizing the capacity to suffer in others and he seems to think that loving someone is wanting them to be happy. So I think he's going towards two reductionistic claims: (1) values reduce to scientific facts (2) complex evaluative notions reduce to happiness and suffering.
@jst1g Claims about what is good for physical health would be analogous to "values" in the analogy I'm drawing.
So I guess I'm not understanding your main objection. And why did you not answer my hypothetical question?
Who claims that the proposition "health is good" is a fact? You're right that medicine doesn't inform us about that conclusion and that is not a problem for medicine. Can you spell out the difference for value/morality?
@bcn533 I think I have a question that will be helpful before I try to respond again. What's the medical analogue to "values reduce to scientific facts"?
@bcn533 I think I see. I think we fixed the meaning of "health" in a way that leaves open whether health is good, and I don't think we can fix the meaning of "good" in the same way. In fact, I think leaving open whether health is good is the very reason that fixing the meaning of health in that way is possible at all.
@bcn533 As scientists, we can identify bodily states as being healthy as a practice. However, as scientists, we leave open whether whatever we're calling "healthy" is good.
But to make the same move with values gets tricky because we can't leave open whether whatever we're calling "good" is good.
@bcn533 I think Sam is saying that we can always translate "x is good" into a statement that science can tell us is either true or false. But what about "well-being is good"?
@jst1g I think that is the "claim" (judgment, axiom, whatever) that gives the very context of morality and value and as such we don't need to spend any time trying to scientifically prove it. Just as the that basic human judgment "physical health is good" gives the very context for a science of human health and no one seems to think we need to scientifically prove the validity of that statement.
@bcn533 Excellent! Now when you say that it's basic, that means that you don't figure out that well-being is good with science, but you either assume it without justification or you justify it by means other that science.
@jst1g That's right. I don't figure out that physical health is good with science. As you point out, it's almost tautological. If "good" is to mean anything, it would be applicable to physical health. We're talking ultimately about the difference between life and death, after all. What could be more basic?
@bcn533 I don't think it's tautological because Sam is thinks identifies goodness with happiness-type states and it's not tautological that happiness-type states are good.
The problem now is that we have a value-question that science can't answer, but Sam thinks that science can answer it.
@jst1g This brings us back to square one (and two and three). If "happiness-type states" are not "good", then 'good' doesn't mean 'good'.
And Sam doesn't think science can answer it. He has made this clear in print on the web, in talks/debates, and in his book. On p. 37 of TML he is forthright that valuing "well-being is even less in need of justification than our concern for health is...". So you're just wrong to say that Harris thinks science can "answer it". It is the starting point.
@bcn533 I see. "Happiness" doesn't mean "goodness" and "suffering" doesn't mean "badness." Killing everyone painlessly and peacefully with some kind of gas minimizes suffering to zero, but it doesn't minimize badness to zero. Putting everyone in a virtual dreamworld that puts them in happiness-like states would not be as good as a world with less happiness-like states but where we're not all in a dreamworld.
@bcn533 Also, if Sam doesn't think science can answer it, then he is wrong in claiming to have solved the fact/value problem because reducing values to scientific facts requires that the question "Is well-being good?" is answerable by science.
@bcn533 Here's G.E. Moore's issue with the idea that "happiness" and "goodness" have the same meaning: The questions "Is is good that x makes people happy" and "Is it good that x is good?" seem like two totally different questions, but they should be the same question if "happiness" and "goodness" have the same meaning.
@bcn533 I'm not sure what that means, but I'll summarize my main points anyway:
(1) Sam hasn't solved the meta-ethical fact/value problem, and doesn't seem to understand what the problem is.
(2) The version of hedonism (utilitarianism, whatever) is subject to the same problems as other versions of hedonism.
I think it's worth mentioning that (1) and (2) are two different kinds of problems. One is a problem for his type of naturalistic realism, and the other is a problem for his hedonism.
@jst1g And need I remind you, you still haven't said how the situation for morality would differ from the one for health or any other branch of science (value question science can't answer).
@bcn533 We can identify certain bodily states (long life, normal blood pressure, etc.) with health while leaving open whether those states are good. Trying to identify goodness with physical states doesn't work the same way.
@jst1g Science can answer whether or not beating your wife causes her pain, and it can also answer questions about vacant brained muslims and their oppression of women
@SeeProfileForDetails (1) Identifying pain is not as straight forward as you'd think, even from a scientific perspective.
(2) Can science tell us whether folks in consensual sadomasochistic partnerships are experiencing pain? Can it tell us whether athletes are experiencing pain when they endure hard training? Science should not give us the result that sports and consensual partnerships are bad.
(3) It's obvious that a lot of painful activities are bad, but science doesn't tell us that.
@jst1g You obviously missed the point of this video entirely. (1) identifying evolutionary changes in animals is not straight forward as you think, that doesn't stop evolution scientists to do work.
@SeeProfileForDetails I'm glad you've broken this up into sections. I think it'll aid clarity. There's a distinction between doing work and reducing values to scientific facts. I'm happy to do work myself, but I don't think Sam has reduced values to scientific facts.
Here's a helpful way of putting the point: The problem of reducing values to scientific facts (which Sam think he's solved) is a problem that has nothing to do with what we should actually do.
@jst1g (2) women in islamic countries are not consensually involving themselves in oppression, they are born into the stupid religion and if they leave Islam in an Islamic country, the penalty is death. Concerning yourselves with athletes and sports instead of important issues, would be like concerning yourself with the board game monopoly, instead of curing cancer.
@SeeProfileForDetails I agree that the oppression of women is bad. I just don't think that you prove that by means of science alone.
All I'm saying is that if you try to reduce good and bad to pain and pleasure or something, then you'll have problems because (among other things) you have to call mountain climbing bad because it involves pain.
@jst1g If you aren't going to prove opression of women via, science, what are you going to prove it with? christianity bible claims? if it says in the bible somewhere that treating women is bad, you're going to use that as the proof? where are you going to get your moral values? from the clouds? the rain? the sunshine?
@SeeProfileForDetails Philosophy was killed by science? Why do so many scientists operate with a naive version of Karl Popper's philosophy of science in mind? Does that mean scientists think philosophers have something informative to say about methodology?
What's causation? What's a law of nature? What's a scientific theory? To what end should we use science?
Are you telling me that science has answered these questions? I'm not even sure that science *can* answer these questions.
@jst1g (3) it's obvious that science can tell us that activities are bad. Math can tell us that 1 apple plus 1 apple equals 2 apples. Even math can be used to say that 2 apples is better than no apples. Therefore 2 pains is worse than no pain. Obviously a skiier going down a hill would much appreciate it, if science proved that a helmut would protect the skiier from smashing his brain (physics, engineering of helmut, etc.). You're just playing word tag here and screwing around with semantics
@SeeProfileForDetails (a) There's no mathematical proof that 2 apples are better than none. Talking about how many apples it's better to have is not doing math.
(b) Suppose we have a gas that can kill everybody peacefully and painlessly. If we use it to kill everybody, have we made the world a better place because we reduced pain to zero?
(c) Nobody's denying that science can **help** us make decisions. Sam is making the stronger claim that science is the **only** thing we need.
@jst1g There is a proof that 2 apples are better than one if you have proof that 2 children would have otherwise died of starvation. If you think that science isn't the only thing we need, then you are making an argument that God is what we need. Therefore you are an idiot. There is nothing else other than science, everything is based on science including your computer that you use.
@SeeProfileForDetails (1) You said that you can prove that 2 apples are better than none with mathematics. The claim "Those kids could have starved to death" is not a mathematical claim. (2) It's not either science or God. Blackburn, for example, is an atheist and he agrees with me that you can't do it all with science. (3) Personal attacks aren't arguments and they're not scientific.
@jst1g Yes it is a mathematical claim. In math if I have a formal problem that is outlined:
"Students, please solve the following mathematical problem. Two children will die and need the following amount of calories to urvive. The amount is 200..... Prove with math that 200 calories will be satisified with X amount of apples."
You can indeed use Science and Math to solve energy equations. You, missed the entire point of this video. You cannot fully prove evolution either. So what?
@SeeProfileForDetails You told me that mathematics can prove that two apples are better than none. This formal problem doesn't prove that 2 apples are better than none. This problem merely shows that mathematics is helpful when it comes to this sort of stuff.
So what? Sam Harris believes that all you need is science. I deny that all you need is science. That is why I'm criticizing the claim that all you need is science.
@jst1g I proved mathematically that 2 apples satisfied the calorie intake and therefore saved the life of the person. What you are arguing is a complete straw man. You are claiming that you do not need just science. What do you need, then? God? Anti-Science? If not science, it must be something non scientific, therefore logically you are arguing for AntiScience. Therefore I've formally proven you're a moron.
@SeeProfileForDetails You said you could prove 2 apples better than none with mathematics, I've pointed out that you can't, but now you're slowly adding things that you didn't say before. Which is fine, but we should keep track.
Your second point requires the extra premise: A person either engages in nothing but science or they're engaging in a moronic, stupid, possibly religiously motivated activity. I don't accept that premise. Many rational behaviors are not scientific.
@jst1g I want to let you know it is not clear what you mean in your first possible definition of "well-being", which you give as "what's good for human beings". It's confusing because "well-being" clearly refers to experience but the definition reads as something like "the things which cause well-being". Like when we say "drinking milk is good for children" or "getting in trouble can be good for a person". "Well-being" obviously can't be defined as the things which promote it.
@bcn533 Right. I'm just saying that you could have a trivial definition of well-being like "What's genuinely good for human beings" which is not informative or you could have a non-trivial definition like "higher happiness" ("higher happiness" is the way Sam sometimes characterizes well-being) which is problematic because (1) Science doesn't tell us that higher happiness is good and (2) I didn't mention this before, but hedonism has a lot of problems.
@jst1g I'm not following you. I don't know what you mean by the first possible meaning of "well-being" you gave (as I explained in another comment to you). Secondly, you say that "higher happiness" is the way Harris characterizes "well-being". Can you provide citations? I really don't even know what the phrase "higher happiness" means, but I'm next to certain Harris has never used that phrase. You imply that his notion of well-being is hedonistic. Again, on what basis do you say that?
@bcn533 Sam uses the phrase "higher happiness" in The End of Faith pgs 283-284 footnote 24. He also says there are right and wrong answers to moral questions because there are more and less effective ways to seek happiness and avoid misery in his Moral Landscape Q and A at his website.
The first possible definition is trivial and uninformative because it's just saying that what's good is good.
@jst1g It is ironic that you cite that footnote. In it, you see that he isn't forwarding some shallow hedonistic happiness but actually a well-being that encompasses 'happiness' at its deepest and most profound. Your argument is that because he sometimes uses the word "happiness" that he's advancing hedonism. Well, that's an argument that is easily dismissed. Again, you could not have been honestly listening to/reading him if you think that.
@bcn533 It's a fancy version of happiness. He thinks that to treat others ethically is to act out of concern for their happiness and suffering. That's on 186 of The End of Faith.
It's hedonism. He probably has something like JS Mill's view. Mill thinks you can have higher happiness and lower happiness, and Mill's a hedonist. I'm just using the term as a label, not in the derogatory "pig philosophy" sense. Hedonism has problems whether it's the "pig philosophy" version of it or not.
So you're using the term in a moral philosophical sense right? A technical sense, almost? I wish you would have said that upfront if so. In ordinary usage that word has somewhat negative connotations and it certainly is in contrast to deeper, more long-term forms of happiness/well-being.
When Harris says "well-being" he is referring to something very open-ended, like "health". He essentially means everything that we recognize to be on the.....
Science!
OscarBrasa 3 weeks ago
I saw 2 ladies in red clapping for both yes and no.
nsugathadasa 1 month ago
@nsugathadasa Not uncommon. Pinker's stance was also 'Yes' & 'No'. The reason, I guess, is because the term ''science'' is not properly defined. Everyone had great point, though.
sam91004 1 week ago in playlist The Great Debate: Can Science Tell us Right From Wrong?
love harris and pinker. thank goodness someone speaks some common sense in all this philosophical masturbation
frilansspion 2 months ago 4
@danwilliams3239
valhallajormungand 2 months ago
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ZombieLincoln666 2 months ago
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This is the scientific equivalent of the avengers.
balistik94 2 months ago
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balistik94 2 months ago
Absolutely wonderful. Thank you for uploading.
MrBadumtish 2 months ago
The analogy Harris draws between ethics and medicine is false: someone who likes vomiting might not have anything to say about medicine, but so what? Singer's point is that the facts of health and flourishing don't in themselves give people a reason to want to be healthy; equally, the facts about conscious beings' welfare don't on their own give people a reason to take said welfare into consideration. The sick seek medicine because of self-interest. Ethics doesn't work that way.
danwilliams3239 3 months ago
science > religion
Typho0n86 3 months ago
Why are there empty seats?
Buck881 4 months ago
I really admire Sam Harris. It’s rare to see such intellectual honesty and determination to think clearly and rationally. He’s certainly given me insight into my own beliefs and ideas.
xit1254 4 months ago
Oh, Blackburn, you hardcore expressivist. :)
Jinko777 4 months ago
This is and excellent debate and I hope sam harris partakes in more of them.
lenylan 4 months ago
I have watched the debate and I still don't know how science can tell us right from wrong. Pinker, Singer and Blackburn won. Harris, Krauss and Churchland lost. Please convince me otherwise.
SoberHedgehog 5 months ago
@SoberHedgehog People like you can't be convinced otherwise. Eventually, in order to progress, we're going to just have to create a theme park for all of you to hang around in while the rest of us get on with preserving human life, liberty, and happiness in the way that requires the least expenditure of human effort. And science can and will tell us how to do that. Enjoy your theme park.
dlbattle100 5 months ago
@dlbattle100 There's an easy way to convince me. First, drop the drama as you know nothing about me and therefore you don't know what "people like me" are. Second, answer Singer's arguments. Third, preserving human life, liberty and happiness is a good slogan but it's not a scientific proposition. Science is not concerned with perserving anything. If the title of the debate is "can science tell us right from wrong?", which "science" tells you that it is right to perserve these things?
SoberHedgehog 5 months ago
@dlbattle100 There's an easy way to convince me. First, drop the drama as you know nothing about me and therefore you don't know what "people like me" are. Second, answer Singer's arguments. Third, preserving human life, liberty and happiness is a good slogan but it's not a scientific proposition. Science is not concerned with perserving anything. If the title of the debate is "can science tell us right from wrong?", which "science" tells you that it is right to perserve these things?
SoberHedgehog 5 months ago
@SoberHedgehog perserve ->preserve. perserving -> preserving.
SoberHedgehog 5 months ago
@SoberHedgehog I am certain that a sufficiently detailed model of humanity could show that if we don't pursue life liberty and happiness then we won't be around very long. If you're saying "what is wrong with not being around", fine, mayber you're right, go kill yourself, or like I said, enjoy your theme park.
dlbattle100 5 months ago
@dlbattle100 Is it objectively true that we should value life ?
How can science answer moral dilemmas ? what is more important, life,liberty or happiness ? Can science tell us which one we ought to value more when they come into conflict ?
ryan84160 3 months ago
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@ryan84160 If you don't value life please just go kill yourself and leave the rest of us alone.
dlbattle100 3 months ago
@Ician100 "There is a collection of majority-approved SUBJECTIVE values."
This is a great definition of morality. Morality is as whimsical as the cultures who try to pin it down. Is slavery immoral? Has it always been so? What about stoning witches or burning homosexuals. There is a conitnuum of morality that follows civilization. Even most Biblical fundamentalists today would not think it moral to kill a person for working on the Sabbath.
Freethinksman 6 months ago
Patricia talked about "Academic arrogance", Simon displayed that in this video -- so far off from the point, defending his ego, absurd. I feel sorry for the students who end up with him as a teacher at good ol' reputable Cambridge.
spinningfan 6 months ago
Healthy Flourishing Situation meaning it was UNDECIDED at the end. I will give you the answer.
Science cannot and does not make any claims on the philosophy of science. You are asking people that wear shirts with 2+2=5?
JennaSmith987 6 months ago
@JennaSmith987
You really don't have an idea why he was wearing that shirt, do you? If you have seen Laurence Krauss debate before, you would know; go and educate yourself.
ludogogo 6 months ago
@rashaan6 i thought he was making a joke about what jfk was thinking the moment before he was shot. could be wrong.
magnusyang 7 months ago
@rashaan6 I think he was jokingly reacting to how morbid Sam's example was. I heard it as follows: "*heh heh heh*...cunt." It was good natured ribbing.
JoshwithaJ 7 months ago
Not a word from Steven Pinker until the very end : /
Nemesis000000 7 months ago
Do I hear Blackburn calling Sam Harris a cunt at 1:40.
ryanp123456 8 months ago
@ryanp123456 haha holy shit he does, he's probably talking about what JFK was thinking about when he died though.
ScottBrown666 6 months ago
Simon commented that people like Aristotle have nothing any longer to say about ethics. But Aristotelian Aquinas tradition has something to offer today. Deontological ethics (what MacIntyre calls encylcopedia) and Nietzsche (genealogy) has been called into postmodern question. Whatever we might think of the kind of tradition of the medieval era, there is still something about a less confused (genealogy and encylopeadia) take on ethics, virtue ethics can be construed in the format of tradition
imasorryentertainer 8 months ago
What if, say, I value my honor (whatever that might be) more than I value what science may come to call my well being? In Harris's view, one would be immoral if one attended to my interest in attaining honor instead of attending to my well being. Right?
SrQueque 9 months ago
@SrQueque Here's how Sam responds to the "Valuation Problem" --
1. Look -- it is self-evident that ultimately all values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.
Response: Well, it's not really self-evident. Sure, there are some obvious examples, but I actually care more about (autonomy, justice, honor, survival, my family, etc).
2. Well-being incorporates whatever you care about.
Response: But I'm a deontologist, Kantian Buddhist.
3. You are just a deluded consequentialist.
panther451 9 months ago
@SurlyCalifornia I want to ask your personal opinion about this. My comment at the top lays out Singer's and Churchland's positions on the is/ought problem. Here's what I want to ask you: What contribution do you think Harris makes to this problem? I'm aware that Harris thinks (2) is obvious. Churchland and Singer both agree with him about that. But what reason does Harris give us for thinking that the argument works without (2)?
jst1g 10 months ago
@SurlyCalifornia I'm looking for a good argument where "happiness = goodness" is the conclusion.
jst1g 10 months ago
@SurlyCalifornia (1) Is Sam saying that wellbeing = goodness because we all agree it is? That's problematic because (a) we don't all agree and (b) even if we did, it doesn't mean we should all agree. Claiming that the people who seem not to agree really agree "implicitly" is not a very convincing approach.
Somewhere in his book he says that deontologists are consequentialists just waiting to get out? What exactly does not mean? Why can't a deontologist make the same claim?
jst1g 10 months ago
@SurlyCalifornia It's not *metaphysics* ..... It's meta-ethics.
panther451 10 months ago
@SurlyCalifornia You are using terms that you clearly don't understand, probably parroted from Sam's book....Introducing philosophical baggage is equivalent to solipsism????? How does making an analytic, theoretical criticism of Sam Harris's thesis have anything to do with whether or not someone thinks other minds exist. Thanks for the "transcendant" laugh.
panther451 10 months ago
@SurlyCalifornia I'm trying to make sense of what you just said and if you even know what meta-ethics is. It might be helpful for you to ask a moral philosopher from a local university to explain meta-ethics and the is/ought gap. That would probably be a good start.
panther451 10 months ago
@SurlyCalifornia But can we empirically determine that happiness and pain are identical to goodness and badness? What empirical argument does Harris make for the view that happiness is identical to goodness?
jst1g 10 months ago
@SurlyCalifornia If you are saying, "It's simply utilitarianism," then Blackburn has won the debate. You've just introduced meta-ethics.
panther451 10 months ago
A great, enlightening debate. For me, Harris really was able to clarify and strengthen his position when debating with intelligent people, compared to when he's having to go over the same points again and again debating against a pro-religion view. Thanks for uploading, it's stuff like this that makes youtube a genuinely important part of culture
chainedtotheworld 10 months ago
Heh...4:50.... in principle..
Gnoo 10 months ago
(1) You're continually vomiting.
(2) If you're continually vomiting, you should see a doctor.
(C) Therefore, you should see the doctor.
Singer says: You need to include (2) for the argument to work.
Churchland says: You don't need to include (2) for the argument to work.
Harris: We should accept (2).
The is/ought problem is to figure out whether or not that argument (and others like it) works without (2). If Harris has nothing to add here, then he has *not* solved the is/ought problem.
jst1g 10 months ago
@jst1g Well put.
panther451 10 months ago
@jst1g By the way, Blackburn says: (2)'s not even a proposition, so you can't include it!
jst1g 10 months ago
how is it that pinker received no applause?
itchynights 11 months ago
@itchynights Because he is considerably mild-mannered and doesn't draw crowds for book signings like Sam Harris.
panther451 10 months ago
Bad Lighting.
JennaSmith987 11 months ago
Roger Bingham is such a biggety bitch.
dmcgraye 11 months ago
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amazing! ive downloaded this at downloadmusic .im and many other more albums too :)
glenniesamoyoa26 1 year ago
Than you very much for uploading the entire discussion. I think Sam Harris is vindicated. Science can tell us right from wrong, if indeed we want to travel down this road. Religion is an ancient relic that must be jettisoned. It holds humanity back from evolving into a more civilized state of being.
cutis1000 1 year ago 29
@cutis1000 The debate here isn't science vs. religion. It's (A) whether there is a gap between FACTS and VALUES, (B) whether science ALONE can *determine* human values, and (C) whether we can just disregard meta-ethics entirely. Nobody on this panel is advocating religion over science; watch the Blackburn video.
panther451 11 months ago
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SESConferenceExpo 11 months ago
@SESConferenceExpo I just don't understand why you felt compelled to add that bit about religion then (we agree). As to whether or not science can determine human values, you are going to need to address the issues Blackburn raises in his 10 minute or so talk. You need to address the apparent fact-value gap, how we ought to prioritize our needs vs. the needs of others, etc.. The fact that science could tell me why I'm wired to be a sex addict doesn't automatically mean that I ought to be one.
panther451 11 months ago
@cutis1000 I do admire your candor about religion, for I share many of the same sentiments.
However, I do think that everyone should NOTE Cutis' comment. This debate did not include a single religious panelist and yet Cutis finds it necessary and relevant to comment on the danger of religion.
What this says to me is that these "new atheists" think that ditching religion is the final frontier. Yet it isn't. Go further, read philosophy, and you'll see that Harris comes off as a charlatan here.
TheBestInterest 3 months ago
@TheBestInterest Harris is no charlatan. He's asking you to consider the best available evidence to draw conclusions that are based on FACT, not superstition. The "new atheists" are, ironically, not new at all. Go read some Bertrand Russell. He's as "new" now as the die he died some 40+ years ago. The "new atheists" is a term coined by media to, in many ways, deride the free thinkers of today. You should think more and pray less!
cutis1000 3 months ago 6
@cutis1000
hahahahahaha
ZombieLincoln666 2 months ago
@ZombieLincoln666 Stupid.
cutis1000 2 months ago
@cutis1000
Science can solve everything ever, and anyone who disagrees with us is an ignorant theist.
Right?
ZombieLincoln666 2 months ago
@ZombieLincoln666 We are all ignorant of what we don't know. Science doesn't proclaim to know everything. That's the point. Humanity evolves and as we continue to evolve so does our understanding of science and what science can tell us.
cutis1000 2 months ago
@cutis1000
Did you actually have anything to say?
ZombieLincoln666 2 months ago
@cutis1000
I conducted a science experiment and discovered that, in fact, The Beatles are the best band of all time.
If you disagree with me, you are a fucking idiot Christian.
ZombieLincoln666 2 months ago
Interesting bit of talking past each other on induction and deduction, from professionals who are primarily inductivists (scientists) and tose who are primarily deductivists (philosophers)
philipcrouch 1 year ago 4
@philipcrouch I agree that this is an accurate description of a lot of what went on at this event. It is a shame that these debates must be moderated on such a strict schedule in terms of time, as it limits the participants' chances of actually responding to one another rather than talking past each other.
jplennon630 1 year ago
@philipcrouch agreed for the most part. BUT...much of philosophy is dealing with both. Many, like Kant, try to create hybrid philosophies which try and fuse the two. Others, like Hume, completely disregard much of induction in favor of looking at many philosophical issues entirely inductively.
JBeezie428 10 months ago
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ryanp123456 1 year ago
@ryanp123456 Can science alone tell us whether or not abortion is a morally correct act?
Also, you're talking about (meta)ethics philosophically, not scientifically, when you make that comment.
jplennon630 1 year ago
@ryanp123456 At the moment, I spend 20% of my income on items of personal need and necessity, save 70% for the advancement of my future children, devote 5% to help friends and acquaintances, and donate 5% to general charity. Without meta-ethics, you aren't capable of generating a falsifiable test that determines how I ought to distribute my earned income. It's equivalent to not having an operational definition. Maybe re-watch the Blackburn video....
panther451 1 year ago
@panther451 Well there are definitely many bad ideas for your earned income, like a crack binge, or setting the cash on fire and cooking some marshmallows over it. Just because it will probably never be possible to use science to derive one best answer in a complicated problem is no reason for it not to get a clearer picture of the consequences by studying effects of various factors involved in the complex system, the results of which can then be used to help guide policy.
ScottBrown666 11 months ago
@ScottBrown666 Yes, I agree! But that's not the point being debated here. Sam seems to be advocating the position that you can just disregard meta-ethics entirely -- that science (alone) can determine human values. I'm responding to that position alone. Nobody here (even Blackburn) questions that science helps us understand the world.
panther451 11 months ago
@panther451 Meta-ethics is a needlessly confusing way of talking about morality. Sam's method of simply talking about the well being of conscious creatures is clear and concise. Science is the only thing that can conceivably guide us morally. Meta-ethics was an attempt at finding a scientific way of talking about ethics, but now we have a better method thanks to Sam Harris.
ryanp123456 10 months ago
@ryanp123456 You are still skirting around the problems that Blackburn raises. Science alone can't tell us how to prioritize our own needs against those of our family, friends, and strangers. Sure, science can tell us that monkeys, dogs, and cats have brains. Maybe sharks have emotions and are capable of feeling pain. But that doesn't necessitate that sharks merit moral consideration. Again, this goes back to the issue of sociobiology; facts inform values, not dictate them.
panther451 10 months ago
@panther451 I agree. We seem to have only miscommunicated on one thing the only thing I meant to talk about was the actual suffering of conscious creators. Meta-ethics is very important tool for helping average people make decisions. The only thing I am advocating is the having of a realistic, scientifically minded discussion about how to reduce the very real suffering in this world, I can't understand an opposition to this position so I know we must have gotten our wires crossed.
ryanp123456 10 months ago
@ryanp123456 I think that's exactly the problem. Blackburn and Singer both want science to play a part in how we approach moral problems. But Harris goes further and says that values reduce to scientific facts and that the is/ought problem is a pseudo-problem. But Harris doesn't seem to understand that his position takes a lot more work than what he's put into it.
jst1g 10 months ago
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cfperformanceawards 10 months ago
@jst1g I think Harris might actually be aware that it is a lot of work, which is why he writes off meta-ethics as "boring". He's argued that one of the problems with morality is that the only people certain of right & wrong are religious demagogues, and he feels a need to at least posit a theory whereby science could be certain of right & wrong. He views uncertainty about morality (e.g. extreme moral relativism) as a potential weakness of modern secularism and needs to distance himself from it.
panther451 10 months ago
@jst1g More evidence for the last point -- Sam did a similar thing recently when he spoke at an atheist convention. He argued that we ought not to call ourselves atheists because it is a metaphysically bankrupt term AND that politically/rhetorically it could be dismissed easily. This was again an attempt by him to distance himself from the crowd; humorously, he later admitted in the Q&A that he didn't know the best strategy to advance secular humanism. But it's on his mind.
panther451 10 months ago
@panther451 What the hell does he mean by "metaphysically bankrupt?"
jst1g 10 months ago
@jst1g That's a good question -- I'm assuming that he means atheism asserts nothing about metaphysics -- it is merely an absence of theism. I suppose he is trying to say that it is like calling yourself a non-stamp collector rather than a foosball player (sort of defining yourself of hobbies/behaviors in which you do not participate rather than ones in which you do). Under this view, terms like "rationalist" and "secular humanist" are presumably superior -- though he wouldn't concede this point.
panther451 10 months ago
@panther451 I see. He means it's a negative position. It tells you what there isn't instead of what there is. That seems like a reasonable point to make. But a negative position might be the best available. Non-stamp collectors need not have anything in common in addition to not collecting stamps, so it's not clear that atheists should have anything more in common than not believing that at least one god exists.
Anyway, I see why he'd call the term "metaphysically bankrupt" now.
jst1g 10 months ago
@ryanp123456 You are advocating a practical conversation about employing science somehow to better the human (animal) condition. Everyone on the panel agrees that we ought to have that (practical) conversation. Philosophers like myself get all worked up about theoretical grievances -- like Sam's untenable effort to reduce scientific facts to values. I suspect you misinterpreted the theoretical attack as a practical/pragmatic one, which is easy to do.
panther451 10 months ago
@panther451 "You are advocating a practical conversation about employing science somehow to better the human (animal) condition." Not somehow, what I am advocating is that we have this conversation in the context of the well being of conscious creators.
The only thing values could possibly arise from is facts about this universe. All Sam is doing is pointing out that this subject is firmly within the purview of science.
ryanp123456 10 months ago
@panther451 What I am advocating is having a practical conversation about reducing the real suffering in this world. The only intelligible space to have this conversation in is within Sam's framework for well being.
Scientific facts all reduce to values like respecting evidence. This doesn't present a problem. Evidence is worth valuing.
The science of morality presumes a respect for well being. No problem. Well being is worth valuing.
The science of medicine presumes the value of life. etc.
ryanp123456 8 months ago
@ryanp123456 It's not the *ONLY* intelligible space for a practical conversation about reducing suffering in the world.
Kant's categorical imperative is intelligible. So is Hume's sentimentalism. So is Aristotle's virtue ethics and the Rawlsian Theory of Justice. So is Peter Singer's preference utilitarianism, and Blackburn's quasi-realism.
panther451 8 months ago
@panther451 No they aren't. :)
ryanp123456 7 months ago
@panther451 Those arguments are intelligible, I admit that, but they are unimportant to morality as I understand it.
So I stand by my statement. The only intelligible space to have a discussion about morality is within Sam's framework of well being. If it has nothing to do with well being it has nothing to do with morality. If those positions DO have something important to say about well being than they can be incorporated into Sam's framework of well being.
ryanp123456 6 months ago
It's a pity that Harris has not bothered to educate himself in metaethics. He has a strong following from US atheists and as a hard atheist myself I think he's gonna sucker in a lot of the other atheists and convince them that discovering moral facts is like discovering scientific facts. This will play into the hands of the religious ignoramuses who what to claim that only faith in god can allow you to discover moral facts.
In this sense he's doing a slight disservice to secular morality.
Mthooz 1 year ago
Churchland should know better! Science as formally practiced whether in the lab or in the armchair tries its BEST to get as close to deduction as possible so as to preserve the truth of the premises of an argument. If we had the time and patience to deduce truths about the world then we would. She can't argue against the is/ought fallacy by saying that we dont really care about it. That's not the point. If we care about truth (as scientists presumably do) then we MUST care about the is/ought.
Mthooz 1 year ago
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Clearly Harris doesn't realize how important metaethics is to this debate. This debate IS a metaethics debate. And it's unfortunate that this discussion focused more on promoting the role of literature/fiction in ethics (perhaps an agenda as Kraus's advertisement suggests). If fiction had primacy in helping us understand ethics, then moral philosophers would be doing creative writing instead. As Pinker said, philosopher's thought experiments are more precise and rigorous.
Mthooz 1 year ago
why was this only 40 mins? what the eff gimme more brain candy NOW.
itchynights 1 year ago 2
@itchynights yeah and they spent less than a quarter of that time on the IS/OUGHT debate... which just so happens to be the POINT of the ENTIRE DISCUSSION!!!
Mthooz 1 year ago
You've finally bored me to tears. I give up. You win.
MikieBBB2007 1 year ago
@MikieBBB2007 Now that I've asked you to do some reading? How does throwing your hands up at a body of literature and refusing to consider even introductory material because it's "boring" in line with the ideal of rationality that Harris strives for? I think I'd pose the same question to Sam.
jst1g 1 year ago
When you're sick and uncertain about what you have, do you then make the same argument? "Work it out for yourself, doctors won't discover the answers for you."
If Simon means that you must go to the "scientists" (a group of men with white coats) for all the answers about how you to live, clearly this IS a straw-man.
And my earlier point is that if you're against positivism in this case, in my view you're basically making the "god of the gaps" argument - only in this case for morality.
MikieBBB2007 1 year ago
@MikieBBB2007 Harris has not established the meta-ethical premises that would lead to the conclusion that ethics is concerned with "well-being." That aside, even if we allow him this invalid move, it is not entirely clear what is well-being consists of, and it's certainly not apparent that it reduces to any sort of objective, empirically measurable fact. That is what Blackburn is skeptical of. I am not sure what you mean by positivism in your anecdotal atheism reference.
jplennon630 1 year ago
@MikieBBB2007 Blackburn would say that the doctors can give you a medical advice but not moral advice.
Simon doesn't just mean that. He means that studying human behavior will not get the answers on its own.
Do you think Sam Harris vs Simon Blackburn is science vs religion? Blackburn's an atheist and a naturalist. For what's it's worth *I'm* an atheist and a naturalist.
jst1g 1 year ago
Here's a simple question for you that I think may help shed some light on this discussion:
Do you believe human well-being is good?
This is not a trick nor is it me being facetious. I'm honestly curious.
MikieBBB2007 1 year ago
@MikieBBB2007 I take human well-being to be good both if it's defined as super-happiness and if it's defined as what's good for humans.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g
You're answering in the affirmative. So the "project" is already off the ground. So what's the problem?
You're being disingenuous:
(1) If you're referring to part 2 @ 2:40, Sam indeed interrupts when Simon says "I'm not saying we make anything up." But then Simon seemingly agrees with Sam, but he had plenty of time to respond. He didn't do so.
(2) Again at part 3 @ 4:20 he had plenty of time to respond. He didn't do so.
Right. Sam is clearly dominating in the Bill O'Reilly sense.
MikieBBB2007 1 year ago
@MikieBBB2007 Your confusion about my answering to the affirmative shows that you have no idea what I'm talking about.
I think Blackburn's complaint about Sam comes at 3:00 pt. 3. I suspect Simon decided at that point Sam's not worth arguing with because Sam seems to think distinguishing relativism and expressivism is stupid.
This brings up an interesting question for us: Why argue with somebody who thinks its stupid to take the time to understand what the other person is talking about?
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g It shows also that YOU have no idea what you're talking about, and the statement "it's good if it's good for humans" is circular. I already assumed you said this as an attempt to make a point - but you're only reaffirming the point Sam's making. If you can't say that moral questions relate to human well-being, then you're most likely talking nonsense. You have to assume it even if it's not precisely defined in the same way you accept "life" and "health" as the starting points of medicine.
MikieBBB2007 1 year ago
@MikieBBB2007 If well being is defined as "what's good for humans," then I take well being to be good (because it's trivial). If well-being is defined as "super-happiness, then I take well-being to be good.
The meta-ethical question is whether or not "Is well being good?" is answerable by science. I take well being to be good, but that does not mean I think science has or can tell me so.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g Call it "meta-ethical" or whatever you will, it is a nonsensical question. If well-being isn't good, then you have destroyed the meaning of "good".
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 If "well-being" is defined as "what's good for human beings," then there's nothing informative about saying that well-being is good. If well-being is just a fancy version of happiness, then Sam needs to show that science (and not moral philosophy) tells us that well-being is good. It's not enough for it to be obvious that well-being is good, because that's appealing to an intuition and not science, which is OK for a philosopher but not for a scientist.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g A fancy version of happiness? What are you talking about? You don't know what "well-being" means? I suppose we need science to tell us that physical health is good, right?
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 *I* don't need science to tell us that well-being is good because I don't accept Sam's position. I'm fine taking well-being to be obviously good without any science. *Sam* needs science to tell us that well-being is good because he thinks values reduce to scientific facts.
jst1g 1 year ago 2
@jst1g I guess I don't follow you again. If morality has a subject matter (perhaps the well-being of conscious creatures) then could there be a normative science of it? Medicine has a subject matter (physical health) and it is a science. The goal of preserving/increasing physical health doesn't need to be scientifically justified so why should the goal of preserving and increasing well-being generally? Suppose for the sake of argument that virtually all people shared the goal preserving (cont..)
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 and increasing well-being as you conceive it. Would you then say that in order to start a science of well-being, a scientific demonstration that "well-being" is "good" would be a prerequisite? If so, what makes the hypothetical scenario different from the actual scenario of medicine?
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 A scientific demonstration that well-being is good is not a prerequisite for going out and helping people. But a scientific demonstration that well-being is good is needed if Sam is right in saying that values reduce to facts.
The idea that health is good, at best, is presupposed by medicine. If it's a fact at all that health is good, medicine doesn't inform us of that fact, it's moral philosophy or something. So we can't say that values reduce to medical facts.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g I don't understand your logic. If value and morality have a subject matter (well-being?) then values reduce would reduce to facts, no? I actually find Harris' phrasing a little unclear and so I sometimes translate that as "values reduce to factual claims". For example, someone who values the practice of strict Sharia law and hence believes it is the path to the greatest forms of well-being is making a factual claim. And that claim, it seems very likely, if false. continued......
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 I think this can be helpful. When someone says values reduce to scientific facts, I take them to mean that if you can translate every value statement into a statement science either has or can tell us is true or false.
But I don't think Harris has shown that we can translate "well-being is good" into a statement that science either has or can tell us is true or false.
So Harris has not shown that values reduce to scientific facts.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g . Another person might value compassion highly and believes that if there was more compassion overall in society more people would be better off. That's another claim about the relationship between human behavior and emotion and well-being. That one, I suspect, stands at least a fair chance of being true. The point is that claims about what should be valued and what is moral are claims about the relationships between thought, intention and behavior and human well-being.
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 When Harris talks about compassion he talks about it in terms of recognizing the capacity to suffer in others and he seems to think that loving someone is wanting them to be happy. So I think he's going towards two reductionistic claims: (1) values reduce to scientific facts (2) complex evaluative notions reduce to happiness and suffering.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g Claims about what is good for physical health would be analogous to "values" in the analogy I'm drawing.
So I guess I'm not understanding your main objection. And why did you not answer my hypothetical question?
Who claims that the proposition "health is good" is a fact? You're right that medicine doesn't inform us about that conclusion and that is not a problem for medicine. Can you spell out the difference for value/morality?
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 I think I have a question that will be helpful before I try to respond again. What's the medical analogue to "values reduce to scientific facts"?
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g I thought I made that clear, sorry if I didn't. The analogue would be '[some] claims about physical health are scientific facts".
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 I think I see. I think we fixed the meaning of "health" in a way that leaves open whether health is good, and I don't think we can fix the meaning of "good" in the same way. In fact, I think leaving open whether health is good is the very reason that fixing the meaning of health in that way is possible at all.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g I don't understand.
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 As scientists, we can identify bodily states as being healthy as a practice. However, as scientists, we leave open whether whatever we're calling "healthy" is good.
But to make the same move with values gets tricky because we can't leave open whether whatever we're calling "good" is good.
jst1g 1 year ago
@bcn533 I think Sam is saying that we can always translate "x is good" into a statement that science can tell us is either true or false. But what about "well-being is good"?
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g I think that is the "claim" (judgment, axiom, whatever) that gives the very context of morality and value and as such we don't need to spend any time trying to scientifically prove it. Just as the that basic human judgment "physical health is good" gives the very context for a science of human health and no one seems to think we need to scientifically prove the validity of that statement.
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 Excellent! Now when you say that it's basic, that means that you don't figure out that well-being is good with science, but you either assume it without justification or you justify it by means other that science.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g I meant "by means other than* science"
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g That's right. I don't figure out that physical health is good with science. As you point out, it's almost tautological. If "good" is to mean anything, it would be applicable to physical health. We're talking ultimately about the difference between life and death, after all. What could be more basic?
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 I don't think it's tautological because Sam is thinks identifies goodness with happiness-type states and it's not tautological that happiness-type states are good.
The problem now is that we have a value-question that science can't answer, but Sam thinks that science can answer it.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g This brings us back to square one (and two and three). If "happiness-type states" are not "good", then 'good' doesn't mean 'good'.
And Sam doesn't think science can answer it. He has made this clear in print on the web, in talks/debates, and in his book. On p. 37 of TML he is forthright that valuing "well-being is even less in need of justification than our concern for health is...". So you're just wrong to say that Harris thinks science can "answer it". It is the starting point.
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 I see. "Happiness" doesn't mean "goodness" and "suffering" doesn't mean "badness." Killing everyone painlessly and peacefully with some kind of gas minimizes suffering to zero, but it doesn't minimize badness to zero. Putting everyone in a virtual dreamworld that puts them in happiness-like states would not be as good as a world with less happiness-like states but where we're not all in a dreamworld.
jst1g 1 year ago
@bcn533 Also, if Sam doesn't think science can answer it, then he is wrong in claiming to have solved the fact/value problem because reducing values to scientific facts requires that the question "Is well-being good?" is answerable by science.
jst1g 1 year ago
@bcn533 Here's G.E. Moore's issue with the idea that "happiness" and "goodness" have the same meaning: The questions "Is is good that x makes people happy" and "Is it good that x is good?" seem like two totally different questions, but they should be the same question if "happiness" and "goodness" have the same meaning.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g You're dismissed.
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 I'm not sure what that means, but I'll summarize my main points anyway:
(1) Sam hasn't solved the meta-ethical fact/value problem, and doesn't seem to understand what the problem is.
(2) The version of hedonism (utilitarianism, whatever) is subject to the same problems as other versions of hedonism.
I think it's worth mentioning that (1) and (2) are two different kinds of problems. One is a problem for his type of naturalistic realism, and the other is a problem for his hedonism.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g And need I remind you, you still haven't said how the situation for morality would differ from the one for health or any other branch of science (value question science can't answer).
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 We can identify certain bodily states (long life, normal blood pressure, etc.) with health while leaving open whether those states are good. Trying to identify goodness with physical states doesn't work the same way.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g Science can answer whether or not beating your wife causes her pain, and it can also answer questions about vacant brained muslims and their oppression of women
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails (1) Identifying pain is not as straight forward as you'd think, even from a scientific perspective.
(2) Can science tell us whether folks in consensual sadomasochistic partnerships are experiencing pain? Can it tell us whether athletes are experiencing pain when they endure hard training? Science should not give us the result that sports and consensual partnerships are bad.
(3) It's obvious that a lot of painful activities are bad, but science doesn't tell us that.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g You obviously missed the point of this video entirely. (1) identifying evolutionary changes in animals is not straight forward as you think, that doesn't stop evolution scientists to do work.
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails I'm glad you've broken this up into sections. I think it'll aid clarity. There's a distinction between doing work and reducing values to scientific facts. I'm happy to do work myself, but I don't think Sam has reduced values to scientific facts.
Here's a helpful way of putting the point: The problem of reducing values to scientific facts (which Sam think he's solved) is a problem that has nothing to do with what we should actually do.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g (2) women in islamic countries are not consensually involving themselves in oppression, they are born into the stupid religion and if they leave Islam in an Islamic country, the penalty is death. Concerning yourselves with athletes and sports instead of important issues, would be like concerning yourself with the board game monopoly, instead of curing cancer.
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails I agree that the oppression of women is bad. I just don't think that you prove that by means of science alone.
All I'm saying is that if you try to reduce good and bad to pain and pleasure or something, then you'll have problems because (among other things) you have to call mountain climbing bad because it involves pain.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g If you aren't going to prove opression of women via, science, what are you going to prove it with? christianity bible claims? if it says in the bible somewhere that treating women is bad, you're going to use that as the proof? where are you going to get your moral values? from the clouds? the rain? the sunshine?
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails It's called normative ethics. You use arguments.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g Normative ethics is Woo Woo. Philosophy was killed by science. Those still studying philosophy are headed for the bottom of the ocean.
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails Philosophy was killed by science? Why do so many scientists operate with a naive version of Karl Popper's philosophy of science in mind? Does that mean scientists think philosophers have something informative to say about methodology?
What's causation? What's a law of nature? What's a scientific theory? To what end should we use science?
Are you telling me that science has answered these questions? I'm not even sure that science *can* answer these questions.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g (3) it's obvious that science can tell us that activities are bad. Math can tell us that 1 apple plus 1 apple equals 2 apples. Even math can be used to say that 2 apples is better than no apples. Therefore 2 pains is worse than no pain. Obviously a skiier going down a hill would much appreciate it, if science proved that a helmut would protect the skiier from smashing his brain (physics, engineering of helmut, etc.). You're just playing word tag here and screwing around with semantics
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails (a) There's no mathematical proof that 2 apples are better than none. Talking about how many apples it's better to have is not doing math.
(b) Suppose we have a gas that can kill everybody peacefully and painlessly. If we use it to kill everybody, have we made the world a better place because we reduced pain to zero?
(c) Nobody's denying that science can **help** us make decisions. Sam is making the stronger claim that science is the **only** thing we need.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g There is a proof that 2 apples are better than one if you have proof that 2 children would have otherwise died of starvation. If you think that science isn't the only thing we need, then you are making an argument that God is what we need. Therefore you are an idiot. There is nothing else other than science, everything is based on science including your computer that you use.
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails (1) You said that you can prove that 2 apples are better than none with mathematics. The claim "Those kids could have starved to death" is not a mathematical claim. (2) It's not either science or God. Blackburn, for example, is an atheist and he agrees with me that you can't do it all with science. (3) Personal attacks aren't arguments and they're not scientific.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g Yes it is a mathematical claim. In math if I have a formal problem that is outlined:
"Students, please solve the following mathematical problem. Two children will die and need the following amount of calories to urvive. The amount is 200..... Prove with math that 200 calories will be satisified with X amount of apples."
You can indeed use Science and Math to solve energy equations. You, missed the entire point of this video. You cannot fully prove evolution either. So what?
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails You told me that mathematics can prove that two apples are better than none. This formal problem doesn't prove that 2 apples are better than none. This problem merely shows that mathematics is helpful when it comes to this sort of stuff.
So what? Sam Harris believes that all you need is science. I deny that all you need is science. That is why I'm criticizing the claim that all you need is science.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g I proved mathematically that 2 apples satisfied the calorie intake and therefore saved the life of the person. What you are arguing is a complete straw man. You are claiming that you do not need just science. What do you need, then? God? Anti-Science? If not science, it must be something non scientific, therefore logically you are arguing for AntiScience. Therefore I've formally proven you're a moron.
SeeProfileForDetails 1 year ago
@SeeProfileForDetails You said you could prove 2 apples better than none with mathematics, I've pointed out that you can't, but now you're slowly adding things that you didn't say before. Which is fine, but we should keep track.
Your second point requires the extra premise: A person either engages in nothing but science or they're engaging in a moronic, stupid, possibly religiously motivated activity. I don't accept that premise. Many rational behaviors are not scientific.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g That was not quite right, sorry. I should have said "claims about how to preserve and promote...."
bcn533 1 year ago
@jst1g I want to let you know it is not clear what you mean in your first possible definition of "well-being", which you give as "what's good for human beings". It's confusing because "well-being" clearly refers to experience but the definition reads as something like "the things which cause well-being". Like when we say "drinking milk is good for children" or "getting in trouble can be good for a person". "Well-being" obviously can't be defined as the things which promote it.
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 Right. I'm just saying that you could have a trivial definition of well-being like "What's genuinely good for human beings" which is not informative or you could have a non-trivial definition like "higher happiness" ("higher happiness" is the way Sam sometimes characterizes well-being) which is problematic because (1) Science doesn't tell us that higher happiness is good and (2) I didn't mention this before, but hedonism has a lot of problems.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g I'm not following you. I don't know what you mean by the first possible meaning of "well-being" you gave (as I explained in another comment to you). Secondly, you say that "higher happiness" is the way Harris characterizes "well-being". Can you provide citations? I really don't even know what the phrase "higher happiness" means, but I'm next to certain Harris has never used that phrase. You imply that his notion of well-being is hedonistic. Again, on what basis do you say that?
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 Sam uses the phrase "higher happiness" in The End of Faith pgs 283-284 footnote 24. He also says there are right and wrong answers to moral questions because there are more and less effective ways to seek happiness and avoid misery in his Moral Landscape Q and A at his website.
The first possible definition is trivial and uninformative because it's just saying that what's good is good.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g It is ironic that you cite that footnote. In it, you see that he isn't forwarding some shallow hedonistic happiness but actually a well-being that encompasses 'happiness' at its deepest and most profound. Your argument is that because he sometimes uses the word "happiness" that he's advancing hedonism. Well, that's an argument that is easily dismissed. Again, you could not have been honestly listening to/reading him if you think that.
bcn533 1 year ago
@bcn533 It's a fancy version of happiness. He thinks that to treat others ethically is to act out of concern for their happiness and suffering. That's on 186 of The End of Faith.
It's hedonism. He probably has something like JS Mill's view. Mill thinks you can have higher happiness and lower happiness, and Mill's a hedonist. I'm just using the term as a label, not in the derogatory "pig philosophy" sense. Hedonism has problems whether it's the "pig philosophy" version of it or not.
jst1g 1 year ago
@jst1g Your second sentence there puzzles me.
So you're using the term in a moral philosophical sense right? A technical sense, almost? I wish you would have said that upfront if so. In ordinary usage that word has somewhat negative connotations and it certainly is in contrast to deeper, more long-term forms of happiness/well-being.
When Harris says "well-being" he is referring to something very open-ended, like "health". He essentially means everything that we recognize to be on the.....
bcn533 1 year ago