Sam Harris: Science Can Answer Moral Questions

[Brosa Luxemburg]

So, I just watched this video. I don't know much about Mr. Harris, but I know he is generally unliked around here. What are your thoughts to this video?

http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_harris_science_can_show_what_s_right.html

[Sea]

Giving somewhat scientific principles to an unscientific domain isn't science, and he assumes that good exists. Sprinkle on some idealism and light hedonism and I can safely say he's full of shit.

I'd give a more thorough dissection of that crap spewed in that video but to be honest at this point I feel like I'm responding to an Ayn Rand vid in the youtube comments section (futile is as futile does) so I'm not going to bother.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Giving somewhat scientific principles to an unscientific domain isn't science, and he assumes that good exists. Sprinkle on some idealism and light hedonism and I can safely say he's full of shit.

That was about what I thought of it as well, lol

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

What i heard sounded pretty cool. He says that that ignorance should not be allowed to be an opinion, human suffering not being acceptable etc. Maybe i do not hear the small things, but overall i am a scientific socialist and find this quite progressive.

[Gray]

Wouldn't moral queztions need to have a single universal answer to be solved 'scientifically'? It sounds like this Harris has a hidden agenda that he wants to justify with pseudo-science.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Bump

[Ocean Seal]

Morality is not based in science, morality is based in concrete human relations and is only relative.

[Raúl Duke]

Science can give some facts, background which would be factored in when doing ethical thinking. But science in it of itself cannot alone "answer moral questions" I believe.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Of course morality is always tied to human relations, but look what Harris is proposing here: He is proposing that scientific findins should be the basis of our understanding of morality. For instance, Bourgeois morality has always been one that criminalised murder nationally, but told persons that it is glorious to kill people who live in another nation. Today the majority of people would say "What?! A Human is a human, killing humans is wrong" because it is not in the material interest of the proletariat, and that is a scientific acknowledgement that humans are equal. If you will, a "scientific" morality can be called a Proletarian morality, since science can only show material reality of equal humans. So i find this development quite good, it goes against the bourgeois status-quot of nationalism (humans are scientifically/materially all the same), of religion (no scientific proof of idealist philosophies), and by claiming a "scientific" morality it goes against idealism and social-darwinism (the two bourgeois ideologies) at once. Great in my opinion.

[La Comédie Noire]

"There are no moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena" - Friedrich Nietzsche

[DasFapital]

he once said he supported the war in Iraq because the soldiers over there didn't feel like it was a scam or they were being cheated. I don't put much stock in what he says.

[Zealot]

He also once claimed that Communism is a nationalist ideology on par with Fascism. I don't really take him too seriously.

[Beeth]

Of course morality is always tied to human relations, but look what Harris is proposing here: He is proposing that scientific findins should be the basis of our understanding of morality. For instance, Bourgeois morality has always been one that criminalised murder nationally, but told persons that it is glorious to kill people who live in another nation. Today the majority of people would say "What?! A Human is a human, killing humans is wrong" because it is not in the material interest of the proletariat, and that is a scientific acknowledgement that humans are equal. If you will, a "scientific" morality can be called a Proletarian morality, since science can only show material reality of equal humans. So i find this development quite good, it goes against the bourgeois status-quot of nationalism (humans are scientifically/materially all the same), of religion (no scientific proof of idealist philosophies), and by claiming a "scientific" morality it goes against idealism and social-darwinism (the two bourgeois ideologies) at once. Great in my opinion.

Well said. There is bourgeois morality and scientific morality. Workers would do well to choose the latter instead of abandoning morality altogether, or blindly following social norms which passes for morality.

[Rafiq]

Mr. Harris appears to pressupose that there exists an intrinsic objective morality, of which he proceeds to explain through pseudoscience. I thought this video was going to be much more interesting, to be quite honest.

[Luís Henrique]

Science Can Answer Moral Questions

But what science? Physics, Biology, Chemistry?

Does he realise social sciences need different methods from natural sciences? Does he even acknowledge the existence of social sciences?

How is any science that does not have society as its subject going to answer moral questions, which are evidently social questions?

Has he ever heard of Poincaré's premises in the indicative have no logical conclusion in the imperative? How does he circumvent this, without introducing moral premises, ie, begging the question?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Of course morality is always tied to human relations, but look what Harris is proposing here: He is proposing that scientific findins should be the basis of our understanding of morality. For instance, Bourgeois morality has always been one that criminalised murder nationally, but told persons that it is glorious to kill people who live in another nation. Today the majority of people would say "What?! A Human is a human, killing humans is wrong" because it is not in the material interest of the proletariat, and that is a scientific acknowledgement that humans are equal. If you will, a "scientific" morality can be called a Proletarian morality, since science can only show material reality of equal humans. So i find this development quite good, it goes against the bourgeois status-quot of nationalism (humans are scientifically/materially all the same), of religion (no scientific proof of idealist philosophies), and by claiming a "scientific" morality it goes against idealism and social-darwinism (the two bourgeois ideologies) at once. Great in my opinion.

That's a complete fantasy. Harris does not think killing people who live in other nations is immoral; rather he has actively supported America's counterjihad in the Middle East, without any care for scientific understanding of Middle Eastern societies.

And he evidently is a social-darwinist; he thinks it is possible to apply darwinism directly to human societies without taking notice of the many starking differences between human societies and biological environments and eco-systems (which makes me doubt very much he actually believes in the equality of all humans).

And he certainly ignores the concept of proletariat. He completely ignores Marxism, or dismisses it as "unscientific" or "metaphysic".

We need to find allies elsewhere; those like Harris would gladly butcher us in collusion with the American religious right, under the banner of "objective" and "scientific" market "laws"...

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

Does he realise social sciences need different methods from natural sciences? Does he even acknowledge the existence of social sciences?
The basic framework for the procedure is the same in both fields. Put forward a hypothesis and tests it against found facts. Of course, concrete applications of these is what is at stake here, and the definition of the term "method". If you will, you can call it a infra-method or meta-method, and establish thereby the important distinction between essentially speculative inquiries such as theology and scientific such as biology and sociology (which doesn't mean that social sciences are entirely free from ideological assumptions; it would be ridiculous to accept more or less crude variants of ideological apologism as "innocent" science)

[Jazzratt]

So what's scientific about condoning torture and racial profiling?