Thread: TED: Sam Harris on science and morality

if this is going to bore you, don't watch it, and then also don't comment on how boring it is.



"Who are we to say that the proud denizens of an ancient culture are wrong to force their wives and daughters to live in cloth bags? And who are we to say even that it's wrong for them to beat them with lengths of steel cable, or throw battery acid in their faces, if they decline the privilege of being smothered in this way?

Who are we NOT to say this? Who are we to pretend we know so little about human wellbeing that we have to be non-judgmental about this?"

Originally Posted by gwahir

"Who are we to say that the proud denizens of an ancient culture are wrong to force their wives and daughters to live in cloth bags? And who are we to say even that it's wrong for them to beat them with lengths of steel cable, or throw battery acid in their faces, if they decline the privilege of being smothered in this way?

Who are we NOT to say this? Who are we to pretend we know so little about human wellbeing that we have to be non-judgmental about this?"

I haven't watched it yet (I will, now) but who exactly is it that is advocating such non-judgemental attitudes towards such archaic behaviour?

well a more complete quote (i didn't want to spoil too much, you could say) is

Originally Posted by sam harris

Take women's bodies, for example. What to do about them. Here's one thing you can do about them -- you can cover them up. Now it is the position, generally speaking, of our intellectual community that, while we might not like this, we might consider it as wrong in Boston or Palo Alto, who are we to say that the proud denizens of an ancient culture...

...etc.

and he is right about that. moral relativism is a JUGGERNAUT in modern philosophy. ultimately. that is to say, lots of moral philosophers (and laypeople -- don't forget them!) will maintain that X is right or wrong only to a point and ultimately there is no real reason to maintain that Y viewpoint is more or less correct than another. moral relativism underlies a whole lot of modern thinking to the point that in many contexts it is treated as axiomatic.

This video bored me and is boring.

j/k bro (though I will say the word axiomatic is never necessary)

While we can recognize that some obvious things that people do in other cultures are wrong I still don't think it is anyone's job to be the moral police. While we must not condone such action it is not our responsibility, or even our place, to do anything about it. Every culture has archaic traditions, and it has been proven empirically that any culture will eventually evolve away from these things. To try and mess with it before any culture is ready to involve is just asking for trouble.

EDIT: I didn't watch the video, I'm just making a comment based on gwahir's post.

Or I can read the direct quote and make a comment on the direct quote because the direct quote is a complete thought?

I was agreeing in that there's nothing wrong with being judgmental, but disagreeing with any potential implication that anything should be done about it.

well, to respond to mr e's ill-thought out and unadvisable post:

Originally Posted by Mr. E

it has been proven empirically that any culture will eventually

i should say that this point is technically incorrect. i'm sure you know it's impossible to "prove empirically" that anything WILL happen.

but i'll stop nitpicking. more importantly, it's incorrect in every other possible way there is to be incorrect. it's not even vaguely correct. not a single culture on earth has "evolved out of these things" -- presumably you mean archaic, barbaric and immoral traditions -- and certainly not any culture that calls home the united states of america. (good luck drawing a relevant distinction between the stuff that's wrong with the states and the stuff that's wrong with the middle eastern theocracies -- i just tried; no dice.) not only is there a lack of "empirical proof" that "any culture will eventually evolve away" from archaic barbarism, but there is mountains of historical evidence suggesting that it's very possible for entire cultures to implode on themselves because of them. what an utterly vapid claim. it's just completely wrong.

as for your second vapid claim, what's the value in judgment if it doesn't lead to action? what's the value of belief that doesn't lead to action? nothing at all. there's limited value in saying "those people should not be doing that", in that it might lead to you and your culture behaving better, but your culture should already be behaving better, because you know well enough to understand that what their culture is doing is wrong. you say we shouldn't intervene? if they were just stupid and simple with silly old traditions that didn't do any harm, i MIGHT say you have a valid point. but they're inflicting pain and suffering on their women. brainwashing their everyone with hateful religious dogma. pretty much everything about that culture that harris was talking about is WRONG, and is harming innocent people. how can you say it's just to avoid intervention? it's the definition of unjust. what makes an innocent person in your country more or less deserving of aid, understanding, mercy and protection than an innocent person in any other? "we should deal with the problems in our own country." i'm not simply resorting to hyperbole when i say that it's this kind of thinking that hurts humanitarianism, promotes closed-bordered nationalism and basically allows suffering and torture to keep happening. that's not exaggeration. it's fact.

if something is unjust, and one has a way to solve it, one should damn well solve it. screw this anti-intervention bullshit.

edit: sycld, how did you not already say all this?

That is a fair opinion, though I doubt most world powers would be very effective at supporting grassroots movements these days. These people have a lot more determination than the communists did (which is the last time I am aware of that powers effectively and (relatively) peacefully subverted a major way of living).

Originally Posted by sycld

And it also uncovers a reticent attitude to absolutism in all its forms, including that implicit in science. I feel this extreme push towards relativism is an over-reaction to the extreme Euro-centric views of the19th and early 20th century as well as the assumptions that certain societal views and morals were absolutely true without exhibiting any skepticism towards them.

Even though we have to avoid that extreme viewpoint, radical relativism is also a wrong and dangerous viewpoint as well.

i think this is right.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree gwahir. You and I both know our worldviews are radically different and neither of us will change our minds.

I will say though that:
1. It is nobody's business to force people to act or not act in a way that is not almost universally viewed as detrimental.
2. What barbaric customs are still in effect in America? I realize that you think America is god awful (and I won't argue the politics with you) but the people as a whole are really not hurting anybody.

well okay look

your education system is embarrassing. worse. it is shameful. (so's ours. not as bad, but also not as good i guess.)

your government is still debating stem cell research and gay marriage when it should be debating human rights and the wellbeing of people in AND out of your country's boarders

your country is essentially a very sophistocated, very powerful theocracy and that is just not on

also your first point is just absurd and repulsive and you are a hypocrite about it

even if it is nobody's business to force people to act a certain way, then why is your government still for the most part preventing gays from marrying and persecuting people for actions that are "not almost universally viewed as detrimental" (ie. about which there is any controversy at all in the major sphere)

basically your country's government (as most governments) has always made jolly practice of violating your first point's principle there and apparently you don't consider that a major enough problem to worry about. would you like to try to convince me that these practices are not directly energised by what you call "archaic traditions"?

until a culture evolves out of archaic traditions, there is NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that ANY culture will do that. NO culture has EVER evolved out of its archaic traditions, and i can't believe you don't see that. i absolutely cannot believe that.

and hey if anyone feels like discussing the content of the video, go ahead

Ok, so the facts/values distinction he talks about right at the start is a classic piece of enlightenment thinking implicit in the logic of many of the philosophers of that period (and ever since), but first elaborated by David Hume. In a way, though, the problem goes back to Occam, who, thinking that man having a telos (a natural purpose), contradicted the divine omnipotence (because it meant that some things just were that way as opposed to God deciding EVERYTHING), made the natural law contingent on God's will. Anyway, Hume comes along and asserts "It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger," and from this position followers of his facts/values distinction try to resurrect some sort of morality in the forms of utilitarianism, emotivism, quasi-realism, and universal prescriptivism (incidentally, a great critique of all of these positions is to be found in Brecher's "Getting What You Want; A Critique of Liberal Morality").
Now, the reason for the facts/values distinction is precisely to defend the enlightenment rallying call of "freedom!"; if man lacks a telos, and if values are actually a matter of taste, then obviously the church and state have far less reason to interfere in a man's life and a man has far more choice in constructing his worldview and lifestyle.
Along comes Sam Harris; "This facts/values distinction thing is an illusion.". Oh, right. "You see we know that some actions objectively make people suffer more than others." Uh huh. "So there we are hey presto morality." Um no because well you are begging the question, you are trying to show that facts and values are not distinct, what you are doing is taking your set of values i.e. "Suffering is bad, the burka is bad" and applying these to existing facts. Even in your pseudo-mythical world where we can directly read brain states you would need to attach values to these brain states in order to do anything about this information.
Ok, but let's be charitable, presume he knows this, and that what he's suggesting is a new ethical theory based on "objective" wellbeing (currently limited to physical wellbeing and intuition based on our knowledge of what distress and maladaption look like, but eventually broadening out to an "objective" knowledge of the contents of the mind). Now, the way that he makes it sound alright as an ethical theory is by being superficial to the point of platitude, with the exception of some trendy liberal examples which won't hurt the feelings of anyone watching. If there is an objective wellbeing that I'm meant to be hitting, am I morally obliged not to smoke, drink, have sex lest I get AIDs, avoid sex lest I get prostate cancer? I mean, if, as opposed to mobilising a theory to further his own particular worldview and agenda, he actually believes what he is saying, isn't he suggesting a potentially authoritarian moral theory? Or perhaps his objective standards are less demanding than that, let's assume so. What are these standards? A certain blood pressure level? A certain set of beliefs? Or maybe we are dealing only with interpersonal relationships. Liberal society is obsessed with this subject, so perhaps I can safely presume that this is the case. In this case, all his theory states is that if an objective state of affairs comes about, I should alter my behavioural pattern accordingly. So if a woman cries, I should stop hitting her. Ok, great advice, but we don't need a theory for that (unless you're going to at least fill it up with some examples that are closer to home for your smug liberal audience, you equivocating dickwad). But really he doesn't even mean that. I don't think so, at least. I think, if I asked him "Guy 1 will go through intense emotional suffering and probably take his own life if guy 2 marries guy 2's fiancée (who Guy 1 has loved for years). Is guy 2 responsible for guy 1?" He'd probably say "no if guy 2 didn't know about guy 1's feelings, maybe if he did"; but his theory is quite clear that guy 2 is equally culpable in both cases, because in both cases evil is merely the objective damage to wellbeing irrespective of knowledge (otherwise his attacks on non-liberal Muslim cultures would be merely "what they're doing is objectively wrong, but they believe they're doing right so they're not culpable as individuals"). That is, unless Harris presupposes some moral system that says "Guy 1 and Guy 2 have a right to do anything they like unless they directly injure each other"... but this is what Harris is ostensibly challenging.
Ok, but I suppose for all my criticism, at least this is better than moral relativism. Oh wait, his completely unspecified, unqualified "but some things may be of equal value without falsifying what I'm saying" means that he actually does say absolutely nothing substantial whatsoever.
Except dropping in his characteristic "but whilst I hate all religion I think Buddhism is great" bullshit.
But then what was I expecting from a man who thinks the important objection to torture is that we can see the suffering, and that if we could only develop a pill that prevented any physical sign of internalised suffering, then we'd be ok with it?

i don't think i agree with you, think. (you're going to outmanoeuvre me in every way if i go in too deep here so i'm going to duck out if it becomes unmanageable for me) but:

a) your understanding of what he calls "human flourishing" is pretty shallow -- i think he's talking about something he isn't defining, because it isn't really the point of the proposition. "physical wellbeing" is a rather meaningless term for someone like me, considering that everything IS physical anyway, so if i said it, it'd include mental as well as "physical" wellbeing. but i think it is in a VERY ROUGH BUT SUFFICIENT FOR NOW way equivocable to "happiness".

b) there are many ways to promote human flourishing. yes. that doesn't make his point meaningless. we should be able sensibly to determine what things promote human flourishing and what inhibit it. just like physical health. i'm pretty much repeating exactly what he said. why does this mean all that he's saying is insubstantial?

c) what exactly are you saying in the final sentence of your first post? if we don't know something's wrong, we can't fix it. are you going off some other video/quotation that i haven't seen/heard/read? what he is a problem with is not visual signs of internal suffering, but any internal suffering -- he is claiming, maybe over-optimistically, that we should be able to tell (better than we currently are telling) when someone is suffering, and with some actual investigation and intelligence, sort out what causes it. what you're saying about this pill is insane and absolutely not what he would say, unless i'm very much mistaken.

d) he kind of goes of this superficially (do remember that he has ~15 minutes to make this speech), but he is saying that morality concerns the experiences and wellbeing of creatures able to have experiences and wellbeing. that's a little bit of a leap, but, i think, a reasonable one.