4 ms·
Questions of right and wrong, good and evil, are questions about human and animal well-being. I agree that religion can tell us no more about morality than any
by ugh 16y ago
Questions of right and wrong, good and evil, are questions about human and animal well-being.
I agree that religion can tell us no more about morality than anything else but I’m not sure whether it’s that simple. Watching the discourse in society, however, it does actually look to me that this assumption underlies most of the discourse about moral questions.
Nobody, if they don’t want to be laughed out of the room, says “Abortion should be illegal because the Pope who speaks for god on earth says so.”, they say “Abortion should be illegal because of facts A, B and C.” and those facts relate to human well-being [+]. That’s at least my experience with discourse in Europe. You might see overt references to religion but they are really rare.
I don’t know how to justify the assumption that human well-being should be the center of our morality in detail (someone help me out please) and wouldn’t talk with the same certainty about it Sam Harris does but I do think that it today shapes much of our discourse about morality. Most people simply agree that human well-being is central to our morality, that’s why we so often can use science when we talk about morality. That’s why we can all agree about most moral questions. All that’s left are rare edge cases like abortion or euthanasia.
[+] Even the Pope talks mostly about human well-being and not about scripture when he talks about abortion, see for example: http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0506904.htm http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0506904.htm
- tome 16y agoEven the Pope talks mostly about human well-being and not about scripture when he talks about abortion I think this is expedience on the part of the Catholic church more than anything else.
- JunkDNA 16y agoNot quite expedience. This is a tradition that dates back to the very earliest years of the Church (c.a. 160 AD), starting with Justin Martyr and his writings to the Emperor of Rome (known as "apologies"). Justin was a philosopher convert to Christianity and was known for using the language and reasoning common to philosophers of the time to defend the early Christian Church. He reasoned that if he was going to make a case for the Church, he would have to frame his argument with principles familiar to his audience. This was a novel approach at the time, but it has been emulated by countless people since.
- gibsonf1 16y agoThe problem I see with Harris' approach is that he is unable to start using science in moral reasoning without first adopting a philosophical principle. In this case, he is using the idea that morality is predicated on human and animal well-being. Ok, whose human well-being, that which is best for the majority? Does the well being of salmon trump humans? Is it ok to sacrifice the well-being of some individual humans to benefit the majority? Although I agree with Harris that religion is no solution to morality, science isn't either. For moral answers, philosophy is key.