I’m disappointed. 
Science can (and should!) certainly inform our moral goals, as well as help us achieve them. If we value the well-being of conscious beings, then science may be able to tell us which entities have conscious experience, and thus, count as moral subjects, as well as how to minimize suffering (or maximize happiness, which are two distinct moral aims) among them. However, science does not tell us that we ought to value the well-being of conscious entities in the first place.
Well, even if it did work, it does not therefore follow that those who support it support it for that reason; but more importantly, whether it works or not has no bearing on whether it’s good or bad. And it’s that sort of conclusion that Harris draws again and again.
I’m not sure what you’re arguing here. Certainly, you’re not meaning to suggest that ethics is somehow akin to woo medicine and belief in life after death? Because there’s of course the very important difference that the latter make in-principle empirical statements, no matter how much their proponents attempt to avoid their actual testing, while ethics exactly makes no claims on what is, but on what ought to be—on what we should value, not on what the facts are. So, it’s a fact that may be discovered by empirical inquiry that homeopathy is bunk (actually, a fact that has long since been discovered), but it’s not such a fact that, say, certain animals ought to be granted moral status.
Well, but here you’re just espousing your own bias, that those using the term ‘scientism’ are necessarily dishonest. As I said, I think there is a very legitimate use of the term, denoting a real and unfortunate phenomenon that I think needs to be opposed in rational debate.
This is exactly the naturalistic fallacy that pretty much Harris’ entire argument rests upon: in order to claim this empirical component, one first needs to accept that well-being is a moral goal; but, while there are good arguments to do so from various moral traditions—e.g. utilitarianism—this is itself not an empirical claim. As Hume points out, it is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the world to the scratching of my finger—it merely depends on what you value. And while you can make (good) arguments against, say, advocating the destruction of the human race, those arguments are not of an empirical nature. So Harris can only claim an empirical component by first accepting a particular non-empirical stance (human well-being is good); this then of course doesn’t help him at all towards establishing that there’s an empirical component to moral values.
Yes, I know. But as the analysis I quoted above shows, that analogy is severely flawed.
I read one of his books and thought he made some pretty good points, he is very good with metaphors. Also he holds a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA.
I do not know much of his views on genetics or free will, but he is not a dumb person.
Liberals and their desire to appear ‘tolerant’ by not even admitting some of the negatives of contemporary Islam is like is pathetic. They are so afraid of being labeled un-PC that they won’t even call a spade a spade. Of the nations which have backwards views on minorities, women, gays, religious tolerance, etc many are Islamic nations.
I don’t like or agree with Trump, but he had a point where he said that standing up to Islamist fundamentalism was a way to support the LGBT community.
Having said that, American Muslim’s attitudes towards gays was not much different than other Christian groups and far higher than groups like Mormons.
However, there is no risk of Mormon’s killing someone for being gay overseas.
Of course not. I’m arguing that some religious beliefs, even those which are tied to ethics (as in, do good or go to Hell), can be falsified in a reasonable sense of the term and are not beyond what science can reason about.
In short, basing your ethics on eternal reward or punishment can be made to look quite perilous by evidence from neurology that the conscious mind has a purely physical explanation.
Taking “moral status” to mean what I imagine is reasonable, science can, at least, give us the tools to make our determination of which animals have it self-consistent from a factual standpoint.
OP,
There is quite a bit of evidence that genetics determine some personality traits. It’s actually a budding field of science which is ever-growing in support of Sam Harris’ general perspective.
Signed,
Debbie Downer
Of course genes can determine personality traits. If you’re born incredibly incredibly attractive or incredibly ugly, people will treat you differently and that’s going to have an effect on your personality. Same if you’re very short or very tall, very fat or very thin. There’s also evidence that some psychopathic traits such as callousness and reduced emotional affect are heritable. Same with depression and obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
I did something similar when Harris first crossed my radar, confusing him with a singer. In my case, I confused him with a singer who shares the actual name - Sam Harris, a guy who was on the first season of Star Search years ago. In fact I think he was the winner. Singing competition shows are so common now but back then it was a real novelty.
But yeah, it took a while before I stopped thinking the Star Search guy with the super dramatic rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” had become a famous antheist! :eek:
Not when you are replacing it with rabidly anti-LGBT people like his followers, and in larger numbers with government backing. Which is what putting him in power would do.
What do you hate about “Jewish Nationalism” so much?
Do you also despise Arab Nationalism, German Nationalism, Black Nationalism, and Irish Nationalism?
If not please explain why you seem so upset about Jewish Nationalism in particular.
Thanks in advance.
Well, nobody’s really been appealing to religion as a means of formulating a sound ethical system, though, so I’m not really sure what position you’re attacking…
Something on which, incidentally, Harris would probably disagree with you:
[QUOTE=Sam Harris]
It seems to me that […] an analysis of purely physical processes will never yield a picture of consciousness.
[/QUOTE]
OK, so Sam Harris is kind of a yahoo on that point.
Well, I think he has a refreshingly nuanced position on the issue, compared to his simplistic understanding of ethics, and also to the knee-jerk physicalism of most of his New Atheist brethren; but that’s of course a different debate.
I can’t speak to his scientific track record, but I’m not a fan of his contributions to the political culture. He didn’t coin it, but he helped popularize the “regressive left” concept, which in Orwellian fashion is how imperialists denounce anti-imperialists. There’s also the oddity of seeing a fellow atheist who claims atheism is not a religion arguing for objective morality. In recent years he’s been one of the more successful trojan horses for right wing values into liberal discourse.
Oh dear god he’s introducing right-wing ideas into our discourse!
Burn him at the stake!!!
Nah, burning at the stake isn’t very lib. He goes to the gulag, or up against the wall.
:rolleyes: Straw liberals. Actual liberals, as has been abundantly attested in all the Islamist-terrorist threads on these boards, readily recognize and denounce the negatives of the many extremist/theocratic/oppressive variants of contemporary Islam.
What has the anti-liberals so pissed off is just that liberals refuse to equate extremist/theocratic/oppressive variants of contemporary Islam with the entire Muslim religion as a whole.
Sure they do. Why the Islamophobes are so annoyed at them is simply because the Islamophobes want to call every implement a spade, whether it’s actually a spade or a rake or a chainsaw, and liberals don’t let them get away with that kind of ignorant overgeneralization.
Well, the question here is what Sam Harris thinks about Jewish nationalism. And given that Harris is so staunchly anti-religious, you would expect him to denounce the aspects of Jewish nationalism that are based on religious belief. Which he sometimes does, but half-heartedly:
Given that the existence of a Jewish state specifically in the Biblical Land of Israel is fundamentally a consequence of religious belief, I think it’s fair to say that Harris “gives a free pass” to Jewish nationalism much of the time, at least compared to his denunciations of the political consequences of other religious beliefs.