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Sure, science can answer moral questions IF you have a pre-scientific moral framework. For instance, "the suffering of conscious beings should be avoided." Then

by rgejman 17y ago

Sure, science can answer moral questions IF you have a pre-scientific moral framework. For instance, "the suffering of conscious beings should be avoided." Then science can help you figure out who/what are conscious beings, under what circumstances they suffer and how to end their suffering. Unfortunately, the speaker misses the fact that science alone gives no basis for morality.

andrewcooke 17y ago
absolutely; that talk was kind of embarrassing in how unquestioningly it accepted a kind of utilitarianism.
- indrax 17y ago
  It could be the case that a scientific exploration of human values would show that (for example) truth-telling is more important than its consequences in what we consider good. Only one way to find out!
ThomPete 17y ago
The point is that you can have a moral (whatever that means) society without religion. Mirror neurons is what allow us to put ourselves in others place, thus feeling empathy with them. This and this alone is the basis for the possibility of some sort of social dynamics. I have people in my life I love and don't want anything to happen to so I can recognize that there are other people who feel the same about some they care about. I am therefore willing to make a deal with these other people that we don't hurt those who other people love and they don't hurt who we love. It's really that simply but of course the emergent complexity of this is much bigger.
- andrewcooke 17y ago
  his caricature of religion was awful. i think most religious people in an educated audience like a ted talk would think of it more as encoding communal priorities than delivered over a phone line from a guy with a beard... ...and an emergent system that can encode ideas in persistent forms cannot be decoupled from its history. you are pretty much going to have some kind of activity close to religion. if you listen to the talk, where he's arguing for universal truths, and domain experts in morality, it's surprising just how close he is to arguing for a rather traditional religious approach...
  - ThomPete 17y ago
    I don't agree. From what I know of Harris having followed quite a few of his debates his point simply is that to the extent that you can talk about right or wrong moral systems, science actually allow you to back up your claims. This is in grave contrast to the moral systems that base their logic on premises that have no merit at all. I would much rather live in a society where moral claims can be accessed and debated than in one where it can't. Not to because I believe that science leads us to a more correct version of morals but because it's accessible to everyone. Religious moral systems aren't hindering bad moral behavior, people are. So studying people would in my mind give us a much better basis to discuss morals than consulting 2000+ year old books.
indrax 17y ago
Science can help us resolve the question of what it is that we do in fact value. As in the example of valuing rocks little, and primates greatly. What we value is a matter of fact, it is complex and not directly clear to us, so it's exactly the kind of problem we need science to help with.

by rgejman 17y ago

andrewcooke 17y ago

absolutely; that talk was kind of embarrassing in how unquestioningly it accepted a kind of utilitarianism.

indrax 17y ago
It could be the case that a scientific exploration of human values would show that (for example) truth-telling is more important than its consequences in what we consider good. Only one way to find out!

ThomPete 17y ago

The point is that you can have a moral (whatever that means) society without religion. Mirror neurons is what allow us to put ourselves in others place, thus feeling empathy with them. This and this alone is the basis for the possibility of some sort of social dynamics. I have people in my life I love and don't want anything to happen to so I can recognize that there are other people who feel the same about some they care about. I am therefore willing to make a deal with these other people that we don't hurt those who other people love and they don't hurt who we love. It's really that simply but of course the emergent complexity of this is much bigger.

andrewcooke 17y ago
his caricature of religion was awful. i think most religious people in an educated audience like a ted talk would think of it more as encoding communal priorities than delivered over a phone line from a guy with a beard... ...and an emergent system that can encode ideas in persistent forms cannot be decoupled from its history. you are pretty much going to have some kind of activity close to religion. if you listen to the talk, where he's arguing for universal truths, and domain experts in morality, it's surprising just how close he is to arguing for a rather traditional religious approach...
- ThomPete 17y ago
  I don't agree. From what I know of Harris having followed quite a few of his debates his point simply is that to the extent that you can talk about right or wrong moral systems, science actually allow you to back up your claims. This is in grave contrast to the moral systems that base their logic on premises that have no merit at all. I would much rather live in a society where moral claims can be accessed and debated than in one where it can't. Not to because I believe that science leads us to a more correct version of morals but because it's accessible to everyone. Religious moral systems aren't hindering bad moral behavior, people are. So studying people would in my mind give us a much better basis to discuss morals than consulting 2000+ year old books.

indrax 17y ago

Science can help us resolve the question of what it is that we do in fact value. As in the example of valuing rocks little, and primates greatly. What we value is a matter of fact, it is complex and not directly clear to us, so it's exactly the kind of problem we need science to help with.