Can science answer moral questions?

Will, you present many of your blog entries in a very factual manner, generally allowing the story to speak for itself, so I've quite enjoyed reading your analysis of a story in this instance. It should certainly help frame about debate and give it more direction.

A further question that might be useful is what Harris means by 'science'. Whether he means 'an attempt to discern objective facts', 'the use of empirical methods', or 'that thing that physicists do (after all it is the one true science - don't try to deny it chemists!)' has quite a big impact on his argument and the question of whether science already answers moral questions.

Regardless of the answer, I would hope that people could agree that science can be a useful tool in moral debate, as you suggest.

Helio says he does not need an God hypothesis.

Yet he goes on to say that he is god because he can understand the entire universe through maths. Hmmm.

Here we have one person trying to press forward to apparently bring science one step closer to a grand theory of everything, a universal knowledge.

What is your take on this thread Helio? Peter Klaver?

If science truly wants to take authority of philsophy, religion (eg atheistic Christianity) music and the arts then is it not still aiming for the target of the enlightenment, a universal knowledge?

And if so, does that not mean that science does indeed need a theory of everything?

And if that is the case, isnt there a need for something very much like a God hypothesis, even though you may see it as something very different?

Is there room for rival hypotheses?

OT

William, in his piece above, seems pretty much to have raised the key question or response that has been going through my mind.

This wonderful debate is available online here and will be broadcast on ABC tonight.

Does God have a future?

The Nightline 'Faceoff'

"The "Face-Off" is a recurring series where opposing sides debate hot topics. In the sixth installment of the series, Deepak Chopra, a physician and best-selling author of "How to Know God," and prominent scholar, philosopher and writer Jean Houston, will face-off against Michael Shermer, founding publisher of "Skeptic" magazine, and Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith" on the tension between God and science."

The broadcast is 2 hrs long, settle in and enjoy.

Harris and Shermer are coherent while Chopra speaks gibberish and Ms Houston offers insights from LaLA-Land.

--- Science offers a satisfying answer to the question of morality.

Im not a racist but, the essential question that there are some (m)oral questions that are considered to have absolute values dependent upon their differAnce with relation to their ethnomethodology and the seduction of the state that first expiated their first, and last, cause. If science accepts as its normative axiom that the state of the universe has a relatively stable base (viz. Althusser's conception of aleatory materialism or "materialism of the encounter,")then we must accept that the answer may be a heteroglossia of its previously stated ideals. Popper was obviously one who noted this in his verificationalism (see pp. 67-491, Putnam, H. ‘The Corroboration of Theories’, in The Philosophy of Karl Popper (ed. P.A. Schilpp). Open Court Press, La Salle, 1974.) which, if you excuse the repaciousness of my discourse, accepts the principles in the first instance but fails to support those seeking to be introduced in the second, the ethical.

Spinoza, as you will obviously know, demonstrated the ethical order and separated it into five parts. De facto, the supplement of this discourse need not be elaborated upon, however the question asked in any instance hereby must be, if I have a moral answer could you say where it were once it were not able to be first questioned, if the orginal were only a matter of finitism? But no, to the more fundamental axiom to assimilate into the debate is whether the about the state of the universe itself.

In a more complicated way we might say; science does not provide absolute answers, morality claims to. So, no.

Having taken many science courses, including physics, I believe that science breaks down, seperates anything and everything to its very smallest component parts, such that when you get down as far as you can go, you get things like strings and dots; but a dot is not a dot unless you are looking at it (applying consciousness) and a string is not a string unless you are looking at it (applying consciousness).
Our consciousness projects and we call the projection reality. We even give it a concrete name. "This is a stone; that is a cat."
The world as we see it is a result of the amalgamted projections of all consciousness - yours, mine, and all other conscious beings in the universe. This is why the projection can include good and evil, happiness and suffering...
The morality of our NOW, our TIME, is a result of the consciousness of all conscious beings that have ever existed and that exist now. It is our collective conscious (or unconscious). It is the little voice that says, "No, no, no, do not kill your brother."
Science cannot observe consciousness, cannot study it because if you analyze the world udown to its smallest particle, there is nothing that truly exists - not the dot, not the string - nothing.
Sometimes I say that God is evolving and people become doumbfounded by this, but it is what I believe. The mind of God is the collective conscious of all conscious beings in our universe; therefore the mind of God is evolving and since God is all consciousness; then, God is evolving.
Think of this quote:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God..."
In other words, God thought and creation happened. Creation is a thought, a thought that became conscious in the mind of God.

Could somebody tell me what "James" is smoking? Is this a 'Sokal' hoax on W&T?

I take that back. Having looked at "James" previous posts he's very funny.(That "I'm not a racist" line is very good).

Well either he's very funny or I'm up too late.

A 23-minute talk is not the best way of getting to grips with Harris's arguments, so I shall wait to read 'The Moral Landscape' before making a final judgment.

However, on the basis of the talk he overstates his case. Science by itself cannot determine values. It can certainly help in formulating moral principles, but it is incorrect to equate facts and values. While he does not actually state that moral propositions are 'objective' facts about the world, he does implicitly equate the two: "values are a certain kind of fact", he says. I would have liked him to tease this idea out more.

Hume was right: "'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the world to the scratching of my finger" ('Treatise of Human Nature'). But it is contrary to the desires of most of us, and we use reason and science to control and direct those desires.

I agree with the thrust of what he is trying to say: that we need to reject certain relativisms that prevail in certain cultures and religions (like the way women can be treated, for example). However, I don't like the adjective 'objective' in connection with morals. It implies a factual basis for ethics which does not exist. I prefer to talk about the search for certain 'universal' values, meaning a quest to establish a few basic principles that can be applicable to the whole of humanity.

William Crawley - I stand corrected for the inappropriate use of the word 'debate' with reference to the ABC, USA, Nightline show. It is more correctly characterized as a panel discussion and conversation.

There fact that an American, mainstream TV show is
It is 2 hours long (they generally have a short attention span) and that it asks 'What is the future of God' is somewhat significant. Although it is is a bit weird to ask an Atheist to talk about the existence of something one doesn't accept is a low blow.

Opposite the Atheist speakers, Harris & Shermer, are a New Age media guru and someone I've never heard of, Jean Houston. I'm not sure what she is actually babbling on about. Houston-speak rather reminds me of Karen Armstrong's non starter, fuzzy talk.

It is more typical to see prominent figures representing Christianity and Judaism in such situations.

Chopra did finally admit that the old notions of the gods of Western monotheism are dying. He then goes on to offer rather fluffy, feel good ideas that some use to say 'god is love' etc.

re: The Harris TED lecture point of science and morality: Science substantiates with facts why religious beliefs are not moral. If we look at the question of homosexuality that seems to cause many confusion then it is easy to show that the predisposition towards same sex coupling is not a new phenomenon and that people are born that way just as they are with red hair or blue eyes. This perfectly illustrates why the religious position today after science has presented biological facts on the subject is not moral. The continuation of hate speech against those who have not consciously chosen to be homosexuals is inhumane.
Existence is complex.

To those that bring this or that Bronze Age peasant magic book as the benchmark for understanding life today you do a disservice to yourselves. Same sex couplings in humans and other animal species is not uncommon and given that the issue is raised in some ancient tales then again reveals that this was observed and commented on for thousands of years. The rules back then were instituted probably as breeding the herd and tribe was seen a necessary for survival. That is not the case today.
Camels were considered more important than humans then too.

The more questions science seeks to solve the better we all are to offer informed contributions to the evolution of the moral zeitgeist. It is best to use facts rather than emotions to shape communities.

For me the issue is that Harris, (as well as)Dawkins, Hitchens and especially Dennett, have exposed religion - it is that which is based on that Bronze Age magic contradictory book (cf LucyQ above). I read the Dennett/LaScola paper recently (am in that situation) re unbelief in the clergy and I can say it is widespread both there and in the whole 'missions' / 'ministry' racket. Do you religious people not realize that we just make stuff up to get your money!!! Stay in bed on Sunday's, wish I could.

LucyQ, you suggest the scientific evidence can be used to show the religious morals are wrong. I see three problems with this:
1) Tying your ethics to a particular point of science is potentially hazardous because it could all be overturned. I absolutely agree that science is useful, but to leave it entirely to science could end up making you moral in one century and immoral in the next.
2) Not all religious propositions regarding ethics are testable by science.
3) One of the chief claims of Christianity is that we live in a fallen world where the created natural order of things has been disrupted. To draw conclusions about normality from what we observe about the world would be equivalent to taking your benchmark for healthy humanity from a dying cancer patient.

Hello Jonathan,

I like point 1 in your previous post.

I would agree with 2 for now, but maybe you would agree that some of that may be overturned in time as science learns us new things?

I don't like point 3. It accepts a priori that the christian world view is correct. After that grand assumption it is hardly surprising that you come to the conclusion that there is a problem with science determining that religious morals are wrong. If you want to convince LucyQ (or other non-beleivers like myself) then you'll have to come up with something that doesn't start with the grand assumption that you're right. Once you've made the grand assumption there's not much point in debating what comes after it, you might agree?

PK,

Glad we can agree on point 1.

Regarding point 2, I would say that science can shed new light on a subject, however from a Christian perspective there are elements of morality that are rooted in God's specific command rather than having a naturalistic basis, therefore science simply can't speak to those situations because there is nothing to affirm or contradict.

I could have clarified point 3 better from the sound of things. The Christian claim is that science can't discern orality by itself because the world is corrupted. If Christianity is correct, then a purely scientific approach cannot work. The Christian claim itself is not a claim that can be tested by science therefore science can't be used to prove that necessary conditions for science to be the sole approach to ethics cannot be met. It's not a requirement for people to believe the Christian claim, but merely to see the limits of what science can do by itself.

Hello Jonathan,

I'm afraid I see the grand assumption slipping in at two places now.

On point 2 you say, with my emphasis added,

"from a Christian perspective there are elements of morality that are rooted in God's specific command rather than having a naturalistic basis, therefore science simply can't speak to those situations because there is nothing to affirm or contradict."

Again, from a (or rather 'your', as not all christians think alike) christian perspective what you say is true, but you're starting off again from the grand assumption.

On point 3 you say

"The Christian claim is that science can't discern orality by itself because the world is corrupted. If Christianity is correct, then a purely scientific approach cannot work."

Again starting from the grand assumption.

And you say that the christian claim can't be tested by science. I think the claim is very much falsifyable. If science were to work out morality then science would have shown the christian claim to be wrong. I'm not saying that that will happen, but I think you're claiming the impossibility for scientific success in a particular area without a good basis. Your argument as to why it would be impossible appears to be circular. You can only make the argument if you have already assumed a christian position.

PK, there's no assumption involved.

For point 3, I'm not trying to establish that Christianity is true, but rather using it as an illustration of science's limitations. One of requirements of using science to deduce ethics is for the natural world to show us what is ideal e.g. what is required for ultimate human well-being. However science has no way of testing whether the world arounds us shows us these ideals.

For point 2, you originally asked if science could overturn religious propositions regarding ethics. Again this is not a case of saying that any religion is right, but rather acknowledging that there are some religious claims that science cannot test. Take for example the proposition that praying for the dead benefits them. I don't believe that that does any good, however I could not use science to prove it one way or another. There are ethical questions which are out of the reach of science.

SelfishGene (post 12)

I guess that this comment might be better suited to the other thread, 'Atheists in the Pulpit', but as you mention it, here I'll reply here.

You say, "I read the Dennett/LaScola paper recently (am in that situation) re unbelief in the clergy and I can say it is widespread both there and in the whole 'missions' / 'ministry' racket. Do you religious people not realize that we just make stuff up to get your money!!! Stay in bed on Sunday's, wish I could."

There a curious thing here, which Helio will be able to confirm to you, although a Christian, I make little or no connection between the sub-culture of church as we know it and faith in Jesus. Indeed I lost my faith in the Christian sub-culture a long time ago. Now, I don't know your religious/theological background, but mine is evangelical/reformed/with a touch of charismatic for good measure, so I know very well that "we just make stuff up", there's oodles of made up stuff all over the place. Whether or not there a plot to get money or not I don't know, some of the stuff ain't worth that much, so some people can't be making all that much profit, but to be honest, I laugh at most of it now. Name a feature of the christian sub-culture and I can probably deconstruct it and laugh at it. And that means I can laugh at me too.

And here's the thing, the religion stuff, the sub-culture, all pervading and almost all defining as it is, isn't worth a dry meatball on spaghetti when it comes to something like forgiveness (and I mean the real deal). Real forgiveness needs something a bit more, and so when I read on the Atheist/Pulpit thread that the Southern Baptist minister, "Jack", says that "The love stuff is good. And you can still believe in that", I can agree, but when he says, "and live a life like that.", sorry, splits my sides, that one.

"live a life like that" - Aye, right!

I stay in bed regularly, BTW, you should try it; you could record your sermon and fire it up on the multimedia screen, I believe some call that relevance. Or get your youth pastor to preach and say you're discipling him, tell the audience he has a heart for God... or something, as long as he's enthusiastic people won't care. Or why not go online and do a worship conferencing thing? Never know, if you ran a poster campaign and pretended you were on a mission trip it might get a few more punters in too. How does a percentage increase on the offering sound? Of course, it's all for Jesus ;-)

I suppose I could have spread my cynicism out over 4 or 5 posts, but sure!!

Hello Jonathan,

"PK, there's no assumption involved. For point 3, I'm not trying to establish that Christianity is true, but rather using it as an illustration of science's limitations."

If you are using some tenets from christianity then you are assuming those to be correct. They would only help your argument if they are assumed to be so. So it is again the grand assumption.

If you want to argue to LucyQ or me the impossibility for science to work out morality then please do so without resorting to arguments from christinity that we don't accept. Or argue first as to why we should accept hem (but that's a different discussion).

Taking a somewhat broader view of this, it reminds me of my previous discussions with Bernards_Insight about the chances of science working out the origins of the universe and with Graham about science working out consciousness. In all three cases it's the same story. Christians preferring something to be explained by their fairy tale god, and therefore holding a very negative, unconstructive animosity towards science that is squeezing their sky pixie into an ever smaller hole. All stemming from the same underlying god of the gaps type of thinking. Postulating without a proper basis that science can never do it, while in the background you can hear the footsteps of god approaching, to fill the gap that has just been postulated. The urge in believers to argue against what great things we can achieve is one very important reason to me why I prefer to see such beliefs fade away. Go back to the stone age if you wish, where your can 'Oh' and 'Ahh...' at your imaginitive beings without challenge, but don't drag us back along with you. We very much value thinking and critical questioning, both as an interesting thing in itself as well as fo the practical benefits that come from it.

PeterM, I have previously observed (as have you) that we are very similar in many ways. So here is the crux.

I don't believe in god. You do.

These are matters of simple intellectual acceptance.

Suppose there *is* a god, and suppose this "faith in Jesus" business is correct. I have thought long and hard about these issues, and come to the conclusion that they are totally unsupported by evidence, and I do not believe them.

We both die, and we both stand in front of the Throne of Grace, and the Great Architect of the Universe is deciding what to do with us. Pit of fire, or silk-filled harem of lovely young ladies who make a mean tray bake? What's it going to be?

Is belief in god and Jesus *really* that necessary?

I haven't watched all of Sam's talk yet, and I would share Brian's scepticism. However, science DOES allow us to answer some questions - it allows us to see that religious explanations and formulations of morality are actually *wrong*, and thereby at the very least alerts us to the possibility of very very huge moral errors, such as the Crusades, homophobia, Jihad, Mannafest (yes, I was a teenager in the 80s).

So we dispense with science at our peril. Maybe god will not be impressed?

PK, I've a degree in Physics from Oxford, so believe me when I say that I am very far from having an 'unconstructive animosity towards science.' Neither do I believe in the god of the gaps, so let's put those strawmen to rest.

Try reading my posts again - nowhere am I assuming Christianity or requiring it to be true. I'm simply pointing out that a requirement for science to allow us to empirically deduce morals is for the world around us to indicate what ideal human wellbeing is. However that itself is a claim which cannot be empirically tested. Science cannot form a moral system by itself because it requires some other means of establishing the foundation.

This is a problem regardless of whether Christianity is true or not because science by itself cannot establish the facts. Note that this is not a 'god of the gaps' type argument, it's simply a reminder that there are types of knowledge and ways of knowing things that are not scientific. If that wasn't a readily agree upon fact, then this issue wouldn't be getting debated in the first place.

The issue you need to address is the scientific basis for saying that the world around us provides us with the necessary facts to determine ultimate human well being. To put it another way, what kind of ethical system would science provide? A deontological one or a teleological one? I'd assume teleological since it's concerned with consequences, cause and effect. If morals are dependent on consequences, then how do you scientifically determine which consequences are significant? Is it the consequences for individuals or the consequences for a group? How long a time period do you need to look at in order to see the consequences? What about the possibility of an afterlife - science can't test whether one exists or not, so how can it determine what the consequences in it will be?

There are so many questions which science by itself cannot answer. Yes, it is a useful tool, but to suggest that it could do the job by itself strikes me more as an act of blind faith that avoids critical questioning.

PK
Crossing your fingers and hoping that science will answer every question, when there is reason to believe that science is not suited to answer every question, is no more tenable than a "god of the gaps" argument.
Which I didn't advance - I said that I don't think that consciousness is the strongest argument for Theism, and I certainly don't base my faith on it. I simply hold that if Theism makes more sense of human experience than Atheism then human experience *supports* Theism over Atheism. Human phenomenal experience coheres better with Theism than Atheism (at least atheism as you described it.) So phenomenal human experience is supportive of Theism. That's all I was trying to show with the disjunctive syllogisms and the bayesian arguments.

To which you replied...well I dunno, really. That I'm not a scientist, the burden of proof was on me because I might be wrong...something about FSMs... insults....more insults, rude noises...

It was all a bit bizarre really. Still, some of the insults were funny.

GV

Re Sam Harris' talk - I can't say it was particularly convincing, although I sympathised with a few of his points.

But there were certain assumptions underlying his thesis, that were not supported by evidence (in fact, none of his comments were supported by any evidence whatsoever). I acknowledge that his time was limited, but there was no indication in anything he said that any empirical evidence exists to validate, for example, the idea that "we ought to care for other conscious beings". If someone derives his well-being from torturing other people, then what has science got to say about that? Harris used the example of Ted Bundy, but did not ask what motivated Bundy to commit his crimes. One assumes that Bundy did not commit his evil acts with a heavy and regretful heart, but rather he did those things because they gave him a sense of personal pleasure (i.e. well-being). So therefore, according to Harris' argument about well-being, Bundy was simply trying to act within his own personal interests. Now, of course, Bundy was wrong in that he infringed the interests of other people. That is very true. But that is not a scientific argument, and it is certainly not an argument consistent with the world-view to which Harris presumably subscribes, which seeks to explain the development of life through a process of "nature red in tooth and claw" and "survival of the fittest", in which one creature's gain is often another creature's loss (in other words, this is what "nature" is telling us about how life works).

Another assumption is the idea that all "religions" (i.e. beliefs that involve a view of reality not limited to the material) should be lumped together in one simplistic category of intolerance and moral abuse. It seems to imply that any Christian is tacitly complicit in the actions of fellow "religious" people such as fundamentalist Muslims, some of whom would kill their daughters on discovery they had been raped. How does one get through to people like Harris that the vast majority of Christians would be as revolted by such a practice as any atheist would be? And, in fact, on certain issues, many Christians go even further, and are appalled at the way society kills vulnerable children while still in their mothers' wombs (a barbaric practice, by the way, that does not seem to concern many who subscribe to an exclusively "scientific" world-view!)

I notice in some of the comments on this thread that there is the insinuation that those who hold to a so-called "religious" view of reality somehow despise science. This is a typical piece of "zero-sum game" deception and nonsense. It is not a question of "either-or" but "both-and". I thoroughly agree with Harris that the scientific method should be at the heart of the investigation of moral questions. But the alternative to materialistic scientism is not "God of the gaps" anti-intellectualism. In fact, it could be argued that naturalism is a "philosophy of the gaps" paradigm: "We can't explain some aspect of reality, but 'one day' science will give us a naturalistic explanation, and so therefore we assume that such an explanation must exist, and that any alternative explanation must be false - and must be considered false today". A classic example of "gaps thinking" - in other words, what atheists disparagingly refer to as "a leap of faith". Naturalism is as much a "faith" assumption as any so-called "religious" view (hence the circularity at the heart of empiricism, which I have elaborated on elsewhere).

As I have expressed on other threads, as a Christian I do not take a hard-line fundamentalist position on the question of homosexuality. But is it not ironic (and hypocritical) that people like Sam Harris should appeal to science to establish and validate moral precepts, and yet when certain Christians appeal to "nature" to argue that "homosexuality is wrong" (based on the configuration and functioning of the reproductive organs of both sexes) they are dismissed as "religious bigots", even though they are using an argument from that realm studied by science, namely, nature?! Now I am aware that counter arguments can be presented, such as the supposed existence of homosexual attraction among animals (or "other animals" if you prefer). But then, on what basis do we accept one "argument from nature" and dismiss the other "argument from nature"? There must then be an independent arbiter - outside nature - by which we can judge that one position is morally valid and the other not. This clearly demonstrates the limitation of the scientific method when addressing moral issues.

It is easy to make a caricature of "religion", but if Sam Harris et al are going to make moral claims based on science, because "science deals with evidence and facts", then it behoves such people to come forward with the evidence to corroborate their confident assertions.

So where is the evidence?

Will,

At the top of the lecture, he stipulates that moral propositions are objective "facts" about the world. That is an extremely controversial claim, which goes undefended, merely stated, in this lecture.

For me the crux of the defence of this idea is when he says something along the lines of:

There is no notion of human morality or human values that I have come across that is not, at some point, reducible to concerns about conscious experience and its possible changes.

This, then, brings morality into the purview of science. Except, of course for those dualists who think that science hasn't got anything to say about consciousness, but I don't think the talk was aimed at them.

The idea that moral propositions have a range of right and wrong answers in much the same way as the question "what constitutes a healthy diet?" has right and wrong answers follows on from that. In practical terms, as JB's point 1 makes clear, there may be problems. You need look no further than the healthy diet question for illustration, but hopefully Harris will address these and other questions in the book. And in any event, there is no method of determining moral answers that doesn't suffer from the same problem. You can see the analogous process played out in these very pages in arguments over religious interpretation.

Looking at the reactions elsewhere, the talking point seems to be the idea of getting your oughts from is. It's not a notion that comes naturally to the scientifically inclined.

@LSV

Naturalism is as much a "faith" assumption as any so-called "religious" view (hence the circularity at the heart of empiricism, which I have elaborated on elsewhere).

I see you've still not got to grips with methodological naturalism yet. One reason your argument doesn't trouble sciency types is because they are not as wedded to the metaphysical postion of naturalism as you think they are. Methodological naturalism is simply a position scientists have to take to study the natural world. Some people - myself included - believe that the many successful iterations of theory/testing/observation carried out with the underlying methodological naturalism in place is reason to think that metaphysical naturalism may have legs. And if it doesn't, well, hey ho it's not the end of the world.

If ever methodological naturalism stopped delivering, now that would be interesting, but so far the only challenges it has had is creation science, ID and a lot of philosophical hand waving. Oh yes, and tame scientists trousering Templeton's millions.

This clearly demonstrates the limitation of the scientific method when addressing moral issues.

No it doesn't. I'm not saying Harris is convincing yet, but your argument doesn't stand up. Regarding homosexuality - a topic that exercises the moral sensibilities of many religious people - the fact that there are other examples of homosexuality in nature may be evidence that some species other than our own can tolerate a minority of homosexuals in the population with no ill effects. We could then extrapolate that this may hold for humans. There are also, of course, plenty of opportunities in our own species to determine if consenting homosexual relationships are any different to consenting heterosexual relationships in terms of well being, both to individuals and societies. We could then examine the proposition, "Homosexual acts are wrong" in the light of this and also in the light of known psychological motivations for displaying prejudices such as in group/out group factors etc and come to a rational conclusion that the proposition has no evidence to support it. Most civilised societies have done exactly that.

Now, of course, Bundy was wrong in that he infringed the interests of other people. That is very true. But that is not a scientific argument, and it is certainly not an argument consistent with the world-view to which Harris presumably subscribes, which seeks to explain the development of life through a process of "nature red in tooth and claw" and "survival of the fittest", in which one creature's gain is often another creature's loss (in other words, this is what "nature" is telling us about how life works).

Still not read any good books on evolution, I see. Again, I'm not saying I buy into Harris's argument on the strength of this talk, but you are doing what you always do and ascribing positions to people out of a poor understanding of the relevant issues. We have talked about this before. We are not ichneumon wasps. We are social animals for whom it makes sense to co-operate. It's really not that difficult to grasp.

@LSV

Whoa, I've just noticed this again:

It is easy to make a caricature of "religion",

Pot and kettle.

What happened to the Old Testament Lecture?

Hugo's old, but I don't think that he's an apt replacement (;

Hello Jonathan,

"PK, I've a degree in Physics from Oxford, so believe me when I say that I am very far from having an 'unconstructive animosity towards science.'"

I would expect most people with a science degree not to have animosity towards science. Though it's not a 100% guarantee. Previously geneticist prof. Andy McIntosh, a young earth creationist, posted here on W&T. You wouldn't want to know what he'd like to do to much of biology, physics, geology, astronomy, climate science, etc.

"Try reading my posts again - nowhere am I assuming Christianity or requiring it to be true."

You were, see point 3 in your post 13 and the part of your post 15 that I highlighted in post 16. But in post 21 you do indeed state your case without supporting it on tenets from christianity. I'm not convinced of a number of things you say there (a different discussion though, which we may or may not decide to pursue further), but I wouldn't make the criticism against it that it is unsupported because of its underlying christian basis.

Graham,

"Crossing your fingers and hoping that science will answer every question, when there is reason to believe that science is not suited to answer every question, is no more tenable than a "god of the gaps" argument. Which I didn't advance"

I know it's impossible to improve your mind, but let me at least refresh it for you. You dismissed my statement that there is reason for some hope that science will one day explain consciousness. Instead you asserted that theism stood a better chance of explaining it. When challenged to provide a basis for saying that, you came up with

"
1) Either Theism is true or Physicalism is true.
2) If Physicalism is true there are no non-physical facts
3) But there are non-physical facts
4) Therefore physicalism is false
5) Therefore Theism is true
"

That makes it clear. You see everything in the world as something either to be explained by science or to be attributed to god. And then you go into high negativity gear and bash the prospects of science explaining something as much as you can. And once you've convinced yourself that science can't explain something, you hold that up to yourself as proof for you fairy tale god. Take a look at your 5 steps, you don't offer any positive argument or evidence for theism. You just make the claim that science can't do it, and therefore it's your god thingie. That is very much god of the gaps thinking of course.

That in itself is bad enough, but it gets worse if we consider that you are an RE teacher. An RE teacher making the god of the gaps argument and not seeing that, even after it is pointed out to him, is no brighter than a chemistry teacher who is holding a period table of the elements, has it pointed out to him that he is, yet dismisses that and still can't work out what he is holding in his hands.

Helio #20

This conversation has been running over a few threads now, and, as always, I enjoy the banter (and to be honest there’s as much good humoured banter as argument). But you’ve got me thinking with post 20 and this question in particular, “Is belief in god and Jesus *really* that necessary?”

And I’m just not sure how to answer you this time, by which I mean that I am hesitant, that I don’t presume to have an off pat answer and that even if I did it would be disrespectful to you to fire one off - so the rest of this is, ‘just what I’m thinking’.

You know, and I know, that the standard response is generally going to be, “Yes.” (and I’s sure there’s a gazillion bible verses to back up that ‘yes’), but...

Here’s the thing (or at least a thing), I was in Cornmarket yesterday morning (you know), and there’s seats and banners and stuff, where, it appears, God heals people. And, as I walked passed, I was thinking about Acts (which is probably your fault for throwing up that funny), but I was thinking about Paul, and the silversmiths, and the ding-dong in Ephesus, and I was kinda thinking, right, I know you’re not asking for money or anything, but this is a bit unseemly, is it not, it sorta seems like... peddling magic... you know, magic in return for belief, it looked sort of silversmithish. That makes me uncomfortable.

Please don’t get me wrong, I actually like these particular guys who hang out in Belfast on Saturday mornings, they do a bundle of good stuff, a lot of really credible stuff, but I think you get what I’m saying. If this is what it’s about (if it’s about my ability to believe stuff), if this is the currency of heaven... then...

And your background and mine in the church and all the paraphernalia which goes with it isn’t a help cos we’ve basically been told that we have to swallow the lot before we even begin to think about Jesus. It’s a sort of reductionism gone mad, and in my neck of the woods, belief (whatever that actually is) got separated from anything normal. It was as if I was supposed to just run with a set of doctrines or stories without question, without context and without them having any meaningful impact on my life, in short there was a bundle of ‘magic’ going on. And sometimes, somewhere along the line things like Mannafest can become ‘Super-cali-fragi-listic-mannafest-i-docious’, this I *do* get. And I can see why ‘Amen’ can sound like ‘abracadabra’, and yes, that is perilous, and God is not impressed. And I can see why you would ask if anyone is ‘saved’ in any meaningful sense. But there aren’t any easy answers, and ignoring the questions certainly isn’t an answer... and let’s face it there aren’t any easy answers to anything.

If you were to ask me do I believe stuff, I’d say, “yes, I do”... but...I’d also say that sometimes the whole sh'bang just frustrates the life out of me, and sometimes the answer to, “Is belief in god and Jesus *really* that necessary?” is, “Bottle of Bud?”

Grokesx - # 24

"For me the crux of the defence of this idea is when he says something along the lines of:

There is no notion of human morality or human values that I have come across that is not, at some point, reducible to concerns about conscious experience and its possible changes".

Can I ask you to expand on this? I am not sure what it means. It would not appear, at face value, to chime with my understanding of many moral systems.

Ah, the weary tone of condescension! How I missed that!

Yes PK, I re-read that post the other day. What you neglect to copy cut and paste is the rest of the post.

(You see the idea generally is to state an argument briefly, then give an exposition of each premises meaning.)

"On (1) - I think Theism is the simpest and most powerful metaphysical worldview. If you can propose an alternative, that you would consider more rational, I'm all ears.
Physicalism seems to be the version of Atheism that you are endorsing. That is, only the physical is real, and therefore the scientific method is the key to understanding reality. If you have a more nuanced view I'm all ears"

"In any case, Theism makes facts like consciousness, causal power and intentionality fundamental. That's just what it is to be personal. So the existence of an ordered contingent reality with conscious agents who can have knowledge of that reality is not very improbable or mysterious on Theism, but very mysterious and improbable on physicalism."

So I asked you to provide reasons for rejecting the first premise. You could provide an alternative to Theism. Or you could redescribe your version of Atheism. And I pointed out that Theism had some explanatory power.
You didn't pay any attention at all to what I was writing then. And you confuse bad manners with arguments, once more.

Actually, I'm rather annoyed at being quoted out of context in such a rude and arrogant way.

So to get the context clear, I'd also argued:

"Thomas Nagel has argued that we need an "Autonomy Assumption": "...people have, to greater or lesser degrees, a capacity for reasoning that follows autonomous standards appropriate to the subjects in question, rather than in slavish service to evolutionarily given instincts merely filtered through cultural forms or applied in novel environments."

There are three reasons for accepting the autonomy assumption (i) it reflects normal human pratcice (ii) it is normally adequate to explain a person's beliefs (iii) to deny it is incoherent.

(i&ii) We normally want to know a person's reasons for believing a propositionto be true, which we can then go on to assess as good or bad reasons for such a belief. We don't normally regard a person's judgment as merely physically caused and the reasons they offer as mere rationalizations. Once a person has cited their reasons, we have an adequate explanation of their belief. We only search for non-rational causes when a belief is held against all reason or experience
(iii) If we lack the relevant intellectual autonomy across the board, then even the neurologist's beliefs about the brain would just be attributable to such biological causes, rather than to reasons that provide real warrant for such beliefs within a rational framework with truth-tracking integrity.

For a full account of autonomous human rationality we humans need to be an enduring self that can form premises, see logical connections, and draw conclusions. The self needs to be able to remember, consider and decide. Some sort of responsibility for a proportion of our beliefs seems to be necessary for rationality. A deterministic system doesn't meet the requirements. My calculator my be reliable, but it is not rational.

5) I've argued at length on the God and Science thread that material causes would not be expected to produce mental events. Nagel argues that there must be a deeper reality that is the basis of both consciousness and physical facts. The theist agrees - and identitifes the cause as God. Consciousness, causal power and reason are assumed as basic properties of reality. These are basic properties of a person, so we say that the personal is the basic state of reality. From the Theists viewpoint it is not surprising to find a contingent, ordered universe with conscious beings in it.

But now the case for Theism is clearer as we do not only have to explain conscious events, but enduring selves with knowledge of logical truths, capable of rational refelection and reliable rational faculties. I can't see that the materialist can account for this at all."

Now that's a postive argument for God. Not the strongest, but it's an argument.

Then I added a few posts later....

"In this case O is conscious events, even of the simplest kind. They are more likely on Theism than on a Universe of merely physical parts. So O confirms Theism and not Physicalism.

This argument concerns confirmation and not posterior probabilities."

So a positive argument was put forward, and continually answered with - "gee, you know you might be wrong" and "science might show brain events and conscious events are identical one day".
Which is just crossing your fingers and making a wish. But, yes, you can be much ruder than me, and yes, you made up the best insults.

GV

"We must not only account for the existence of mental events, but also for the existence of the substantial selves that are the subjects of those events. Merely physical explanations are inadequate. All the metaphysical explanations (Aristotleianism, Platonism, Cartesianism, Panpsychism, Process Theism etc.) invoke theism at some level as a causal power is required to create the mental substances - the selves. Furthermore Theism provides an explanatory framework in which the goodness of conscious life and libertarian free will provides the fundamental reason why conscious, free subjects exist. Physicalism offers a nonpurposive, nonintentional account of the cosmos, and cannot predict or explain the emergence of selves."

You see if you offer positive reasons for Theisms explanatory power it's not a god-of-the-gaps argument.
And I considered alternatives to Theism.

"There is an alternative - Idealism. But most varieties also invoke Theism at some level, and idealism seems much too counterintutive to be a live option."

But then you haven't even read what I wrote in #22. The bulk of it was cut and pasted from the Science of God thread. (#318)
Deliberately so, as I expected to be told that I needed my memory refreshed.
Why I'm sitting up so late to answer this nonsense is beyond me.
Good luck Jonathan!

A briefing on God of the Gaps arguments for the ill-informed has been posted on the "Open Thread".

I'm not wasting much more time on this nonsense.The post is mainly taken from some other work I was once involved in, so it doesn't make reference to consciousness or morality.
It relies heavily on work in atheistic journals ("Philo")or by atheist philosophers.
It's amazing what you learn when you actually open your mind to other viewpoints and *listen to what they're saying* and not what you *presuppose they're saying*.

@ Parrhasios 30

As I said before, I'm not sure I buy the argument on the strength of the talk, but a simple examination of a couple of common moral propositions shows where he is coming from:

Thou shalt not kill. Well, why not? Leaving aside the answer, "Because God disapproves" (this is Sam Harris we are talking about, after all), we can reduce this down to the fact that there is no more dramatic change in conscious experience than death. But that's not all, of course. The grief of those left behind, the effect on others in society of the possibility of being killed at any time are all similarly reducible to negative effects on conscious experience.

It is wrong to smack a child. Why? Because it causes immediate pain, a change in the conscious experience from not being in pain to being in pain. It can cause fear and anxiety. It can inculcate in a child the idea that causing pain is acceptable in unequal relationships. These are all changes in conscious experience of the child and hold the possibility of the child going on to cause similar changes in others. The counter arguments assert that the short term negative changes in conscious experience are outweighed by the beneficial changes later. These are all factual claims that can, in principle, be tested.

Grokesx - thanks for your reply. I have, too, now been able to listen to the talk which I really enjoyed. I suppose I should start by saying that I am very much in broad general agreement with a lot of what Harris was saying and in pretty absolute effective agreement with just about all his conclusions - cultural relativism, for example, is something totally to be despised.

I agree with you, however, that the difficulty is moving from ought to is. Desiring something to be true does not make it so.

I can see how the understanding you have offered of the two propositions above follows from Harris's notion that "values reduce to facts ... about the conscious experience of conscious beings". I suspect you might share my scepticism about the claim, however, that there is "no notion of human morality or human values" (even if we restrict the notions to those which Harris is likely to have encountered) of which this understanding is not true.

If we take the standard conservative Christian moral system, for example, I suspect most proponents would think the conscious experience of the child and any changes thereto were of no consequence in deciding whether or not to smack: what is important is the inculcation of life-skills promoting survival of the individual within the family or tribe. Likewise with murder, this is not (traditionally) a proscription of killing per se (the destruction of enemies is encouraged), it could be seen as a pragmatic instruction not to reduce the manpower of the group by the elimination of a member whose contribution might be useful in, say, fending off a future attack on the tribe.

I would contend that this sort of moral system is reducible to a level far below that of consciousness; we can see the core of the Judaeo-Christian moral framework as simply a formulation or recognition of actual behaviours which result from and continue to promote a high inclusive fitness of altruism.

If we can reduce "morality" to this level does the word have any meaning? The only "virtues" would be adaptedness (possibly) and fitness. The potential consequences are horrifying.

"These are all changes in conscious experience of the child"

Yes, but Harris believes that science cannot account for conscious experience.
And he holds to a bastardised version of Buddhism.
As usual Sam's all over the show -all opinions, no coherence, not worth bothering with.

GMV

Mr. God of the gaps, posts 31-34,

Wow, 4 posts, totaling over 1000 words (1105) in response to a pretty simple post of mine. If I had simply made a mistake in quoting you, you wouldn't have done that. A better explanation of why you're getting so riled up might be that you know I'm right, and it deeply discomforts you?

Anyways, I did indeed only quote your summary. I don't see much point in going over what you elaborated here, as the greater detail doesn't remove the error in your summary. And all of that was already dealt with on the old thread. See rebuttals therein.

But honesty, don't get so upset over having past mistakes pointed out to you, my dear. Silly as it was, it was only a mistake. Since it seems to hurt you, I might not bring it up again (but no promises on that). After all, to err is human, to forgive humanist.

Yes, but Harris believes that science cannot account for conscious experience.

That doesn't begin to address the argument. Science cannot provide a full account of quantum mechanics and gravity, but that doesn't stop us from building computers and carrying out slingshot manouvres.

Dear Dan the Illogical Scientist (google Dilbert, you'll get a laugh)

"If I had simply made a mistake in quoting you, you wouldn't have done that. A better explanation of why you're getting so riled up might be that you know I'm right, and it deeply discomforts you?"

yeah. great argument. the way to show that you've been misquoted is just to say so. Gosh, I feel silly now.

"I did indeed only quote your summary."

nope. you asked for an argument for God. I constructed one from the terms of our discussion. as is conventional.

"See rebuttals therein"

there's a prize readers for anyone who can find a rebuttal to my arguments on that entire thread! one will do. "you could be wrong" is not a rebuttal.

"I don't see much point in going over what you elaborated here, as..." you didn't read it then, so why read it now?

"don't get so upset over having past mistakes pointed out to you"

Do not fear. I will learn to live with the pain and rejection.

KERP

grokes

Yeah, that's a good coherent point for *you* to make. Not Sammy boy.

I'm pointing out that Sam thinks science cannot explain consciousness as it is not explicable - it's beyond the physical realm. Just like the weird Buddhist sum of all conscious doo-dahs that he postulates.

There are just some things beyond science in Sams worldview. Which he seems to invent as he goes.

GV

The point - *Sammy* believes that the conscious experience of the child will forever be beyond our measurements.

PK #27,

'I would expect most people with a science degree not to have animosity towards science. Though it's not a 100% guarantee. Previously geneticist prof. Andy McIntosh, a young earth creationist, posted here on W&T. You wouldn't want to know what he'd like to do to much of biology, physics, geology, astronomy, climate science, etc.'

Wouldn't it better to address arguments rather than making spurious accusations?

'You were, see point 3 in your post 13 and the part of your post 15 that I highlighted in post 16. But in post 21 you do indeed state your case without supporting it on tenets from christianity.'

Again you seem to be misunderstanding what I wrote. Post 15 was a clarification of and elaboration on post 13 and in it I was fairly explicit in saying 'It's not a requirement for people to believe the Christian claim, but merely to see the limits of what science can do by itself.' i.e. there is no assumption of Christianity, but rather it raises a question that science cannot answer. If you read the far, you should know that.

'I'm not convinced of a number of things you say there (a different discussion though, which we may or may not decide to pursue further), but I wouldn't make the criticism against it that it is unsupported because of its underlying christian basis.'

If you're not planning on critiquing anything I said, then what exactly is your contribution to this discussion? From what I've seen of your posts so far, you prefer to attack other people rather than provide than build on the debate. Do you have anything to say to askance the case that science can determine morality, or are you going to pretend that the burden of proof is on everyone else?

@GV 41 & 42

The point - *Sammy* believes that the conscious experience of the child will forever be beyond our measurements.

Really? I don't know if he has said anything on the subject since this:

Most atheists appear to be certain that consciousness is entirely dependent upon (and reducible to) the workings of the brain. In the last chapter of the book, I briefly argue that this certainty is unwarranted. I say this as one who is deeply immersed in the neuroscientific and philosophical literature on consciousness: the truth is that scientists still do not know what the relationship between consciousness and matter is. I am not in the least suggesting that we make a religion out of this uncertainty, or do anything else with it. Needless to say, the mysteriousness of consciousness does nothing to make conventional religious notions about God and paradise any more plausible. Still, consciousness remains a genuine mystery, and anyone who attempts to study it is confronted by serious conceptual and empirical problems.

If this is still his view, then he is not saying anything that can't be said about physics, cosmology and a whole lot more besides. The fact that there are serious conceptual and empirical problems in, for instance, the study of dark matter, dark energy and other mysteries doesn't invalidate what we can and have learned about galaxies and the nature of the universe.

As for the mystical stuff - well, it's not everyone's cup of char, but he makes clear what he is talking about if you follow the link. If you've got specific examples of doo-dah, do tell.

@Parrhasios 36

Got a couple of points festering - hope to get them out soon.

You can find Dan, and his style of argument, here:


https://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-12-22/

https://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-12-23/

https://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/1997-12-24/


If the links get moderated go to the Dilbert site, click strips, and search by date 1997, 22nd 23rd and 24th December

Dan's arguments would run:

Dan: Hi, I'm Dan the illogical scientist. I know your argument for God will never work because I'm a scientist.

Graham/Bernard/whoever: But you haven't even *read* our argument!

Dan: Apparently someone doesn't understand science.



Dan: Hi, I'm Dan the illogical scientist. I know science will explain conscious experience because I'm a scientist.

Graham/Bernard/whoever: What's your reasoning?

Dan: Oh, I get it, you're one of those religious nuts!

Grokes

I'll get back to you on soapy Sam. I think I kept the quotes on my laptop. (I hope I did. Don't want to read the books again!)

GV

If we take the standard conservative Christian moral system, for example, I suspect most proponents would think the conscious experience of the child and any changes thereto were of no consequence in deciding whether or not to smack: what is important is the inculcation of life-skills promoting survival of the individual within the family or tribe.

I don’t think this challenges Harris’s contention. The inculcation of life skills constitutes a positive change in conscious experience, so the argument boils down to a trade off between positive and negative effects that can in principle be subject to scientific analysis. The problems lie in finding ethical ways to do this, IMO.

Likewise with murder, this is not (traditionally) a proscription of killing per se (the destruction of enemies is encouraged), it could be seen as a pragmatic instruction not to reduce the manpower of the group by the elimination of a member whose contribution might be useful in, say, fending off a future attack on the tribe.

I think this analysis is a bit wide of the mark. Social groups cannot function if indiscriminate killing is allowed within the group. The success of a tribe depends on co-operation; otherwise there would be no need for a tribe. It’s hard to co-operate with someone if you think they might kill you (or to put it another way, reduce your conscious experience to zero) as soon as your back is turned.

I would contend that this sort of moral system is reducible to a level far below that of consciousness

Well, everything is reducible to a level of electrons, quarks and the rest (and maybe below that) but we don’t have to get to work on Schrödinger’s Wave equation every time we come across a moral proposition. I take Harris to mean that we can reduce morality to the level of conscious experience and assess the questions at that level.

we can see the core of the Judaeo-Christian moral framework as simply a formulation or recognition of actual behaviours which result from and continue to promote a high inclusive fitness of altruism.

If we can reduce "morality" to this level does the word have any meaning? The only "virtues" would be adaptedness (possibly) and fitness. The potential consequences are horrifying.

And indeed Harris says in his talk that the only people who agree with him about “objective morality” (scare quotes because I don’t recall him using the term) are religious fundamentalists. They, of course, have a somewhat simpler reasoning.

This all comes down to ultimate and proximate causes, a topic I briefly discussed with LSV a while back buried in the weirdness that was the Haiti pact with the Devil thread. If we think a god furnished us with moral sensibilities but gave us the free will to ignore them, or if we think we have a set of genetic predispositions evolved over millions of years that get played out in the most amazing, complex and unpredictable things in the known universe, namely human brains, the moral difficulties and dilemmas we face are pretty much the same. Secular societies have come up with a way – sometimes messy, sometimes perverse, not always rational, but better, in my opinion than any other tried so far – of muddling through these questions. Theocratic ones hand over the power to decide these things to bitter old men with hearts of stone. I know which one I prefer.

I don’t really see where Harris is coming from in all this, because as LSV says, there’s not much flesh on the argument yet.

Grokesx

If we are talking science answering moral questions, real science not some sort of sociological pseudo-science, then we have to be talking definition and measurement. We can only talk meaningfully in this context about measurable conscious experience.

Science's ability to measure brain states is improving all the time and we can certainly devise measurements for the immediate impact of, say, a smack. I venture to suggest that that impact will be generally negative and my proposition can be tested: if we were to smack in a carefully controlled fashion a sufficient number of children with varying degrees of severity we could establish a range of perceptions of and physical responses to the action and tabulate the quantum of negativity (or otherwise) experienced. If all Harris is saying is that actions engendering a negative conscious experience are bad, then we might well in due course be able to say that smacking is, by this arbitrary standard, immoral.

Such a simplistic view is, of-course, ridiculous and you propose a more sophisticated weighing of the immediate conscious effect of the action against the cumulative conscious effects of the life changes brought about by the action. That might be justifiable if it were possible but it is patently not possible because of the practically infinite number of variables which enter the equation as soon as we move away from immediate impact.

How, for example, might we measure the impact of the memory of that slap and how could we know the different ways in which the memory might be experienced as life progresses and the context alters? Even more important, how do we measure the life-long efficiency of any particular action or class of actions in influencing the adaptation of some skill and how do we determine if the change in conscious experience brought about by the possession of that skill will be positive or negative? A long life is not necessarily a happy life nor indeed a positive experience. Embedding survival skills may help the organism to live to propagate but do nothing to make its existence enjoyable.

I think I expressed my point on murder with insufficient clarity. I was arguing that many moral codes do not prohibit killing full stop, they prohibit killing within the kin group; they are not concerned in a humanitarian way about reducing the conscious experience of any old person who happens to be human to zero, they are concerned in a very practical pragmatic way about maintaining the viability of their own kin unit. Moral codes which say "you shall do no murder" may well positively encourage the slaughter of those outside the constituency of the code. Even, however, if we attempt to reduce this reckoning to conscious experience I cannot see how it is helpful unless we regard morality as nothing more than maths.

Let us say a group of ten nomads are crossing the desert they are tired and extremely thirsty, but not dying, they see a small oasis with a well but there are a number of heavily armed Bedouin from a rival tribe lying sleeping by a camp-fire - they creep up and slit the all their throats. Immediately on tasting the water their conscious experience rises dramatically while that of the Bedouin has been reduced to zero. How does change in conscious experience help us determine if the killing was a moral or immoral action unless the only measure of morality is a number? If there were only three or four Bedouin might it have been a perfectly moral thing to do while, if there had been fifteen would it have been grossly immoral?

When we look very generally at Harris' suggestion that science can give moral guidance based on measurement of conscious experience is it essentially saying that we might be able to assess any action as a kind of ethical vector? Let us assume that some people's conscious experience of life is positive, some people's negative, and that death equals zero conscious experience. Actions are judged moral if they move a person's conscious experience in a positive direction and immoral if the vector is negative. Does murdering (humanely) the chronically depressed then become a duty which the truly moral man cannot shirk? It is a win-win situation. The killing moves the conscious experience of the depressed person in a positive direction from negative to zero and the conscious experience of the killer, gratified at the performance of a public service and humanitarian act, from positive to even more positive.

I tend to say, forget about morality, all you need is law...

Ooops! The last line in my last post rather begs the question...

#24 - grokesx -

"I see you've still not got to grips with methodological naturalism yet. One reason your argument doesn't trouble sciency types is because they are not as wedded to the metaphysical postion of naturalism as you think they are. Methodological naturalism is simply a position scientists have to take to study the natural world."

William can disabuse me of my misapprehensions, but I was under the impression that on W&T we are discussing issues which may touch on the nature of reality as a whole. We cannot therefore avoid metaphysical questions, and thus the attempt to reduce epistemology to the merely methodological is disingenuous, to say the least. I could understand this approach if W&T were a DIY plumbing advice site, but, unless there is something about the discussion of "the often controversial political, religious and ethical issues of the day" (W&T's raison d'etre) that I can't discern, I'm afraid I fail to see your point.

You say that "methodological naturalism is simply a position scientists have to take to study the natural world". If that is true, then "methodological naturalism" sits perfectly well with Christian belief (and by that I don't include the avant-garde variety known as "Christian atheism"). There is no conflict whatsoever in believing in God and also functioning as a natural scientist, who believes that the universe operates according to natural laws open to human investigation. In fact, I'm a methodological naturalist, as are a great many people who believe that life is not the result of nature left to its own devices (by the way... I am also an unashamed Christian humanist, Christian rationalist and, in a sense, Christian secularist, in that I believe in the sacred value of human life, the centrality of reason and in the well-being of the "here and now" based on freedom of speech and tolerance of belief).

No one who is merely a methodological naturalist would make a big issue - in principle - out of other people's religious beliefs (I say "in principle", because of course some "religious" beliefs are thoroughly obnoxious in their denial of the proper practical scientific method - and I totally disassociate myself from the views of many people who claim to believe in God). It is clear to me that many of the views expressed by the "anti-theists" on W&T go way beyond mere "methodological naturalism"!

The discussion of origins has, of course, a bearing on metaphysical questions. That is why many of those who "study the natural world" (so-called methodological naturalists) seem to have extreme and vituperative views about something they call "religion". And anyone who suggests that there are aspects of reality beyond the purview of the natural sciences (given the limitations of the empirical method - due to the weakness of empiricism as an epistemology) is dismissed as "unscientific" - a charge which cannot be explained other than by recourse to a metaphysical position concerning the nature and limits of knowledge and reality. This then brings us beyond the realm of the merely "methodological".

So, please, do encourage your co-ideologues on W&T to limit their comments to the merely "methodological". I look forward to in-depth discussions about leaky taps and computer hardware etc.

Thank you for your remarks about homosexuality. They exactly agree with the point I was making. You are offering evidence from nature to argue for the validity of homosexual experience among humans. That is a point I affirmed in my post. But I also stated that there is evidence from nature which supports the opposite position. You will perhaps have noticed that I was not supporting either position, but using this issue as an example of how evidence from nature can provide conflicting results. Therefore, on what basis do we choose one set of data over the other? By recourse to a metaphysical position, and not merely a methodological one.

"We are not ichneumon wasps. We are social animals for whom it makes sense to co-operate. It's really not that difficult to grasp."

Yes, I agree - it does make sense for us to co-operate. But to what end? Why? What if some people feel that it is in their interests not to co-operate with other groups? What if some individuals feel that it is in their interests to be anti-social? What is wrong with that? If the whole teleology of natural selection relates to survival, then we deduce that any ethical position is "right" if it tends to that end. Now I would say that that indeed "is not that difficult to grasp".

The realisation that it is "wrong" to oppress others and the sense we have that we should tolerate other people and pursue an ethic of compassion is, in my view, evidence of the truth of a world-view completely at variance with the popular theory which seeks to explain the origin and development of life in purely natural terms. As they say, that's not "rocket science".

@ Parrhasios 49

I don't really know where Harris is taking his argument based on the talk, I dare say we'll have to wait for the book for clarification. As I said in 48, though, I can't see many ways of testing moral hypotheses. Quite apart from the practical difficulties, the ethical obstacles are insurmountable.

Regarding groups, the conscious experiences of the whole group, be it tribe, kingdom, nation or, eventually, globalised society, would need to be in the mix. Thus, in your example we would need to take into account the effects of increased fear in the wider community of being euthanized when you feel a bit sad and the corrosive effects on the collective conscious experience of carrying out such killings.

I don't really see how reducing things to this level works any better than thrashing out the arguments the way secular societies do now, which incorporates most of this anyway without it actually being spelled out. I suppose it is just another way of trying to reduce the input of the evidentially challenged in moral discourse. I'm all for that.

"Most scientists consider themselves physicalists; this means, among other things, that they believe that our mental and spiritual lives are wholly dependent upon the workings of our brains. On this account, when the brain dies, the stream of our being must come to an end. Once the lamps of neural activity have been extinguished, there will be nothing left to survive. Indeed, many scientists purvey this conviction as though it were itself a sacrament, conferring intellectual integrity upon any man, woman, or child who is man enough to swallow it.

"But the truth is that we simply do not know what happens after death. While there is much to be said against a naïve conception of the soul that is independent of the brain, the place of consciousness in the natural world is very much an open question. The idea that brains produce consciousness is little more than an article of faith among scientists at present, and there are many reasons to believe that the methods of science will be insufficient to either prove or disprove it."

“Consciousness may be a far more rudimentary phenomenon than are living creatures and their brains”
Sam Harris, The End of Faith


He goes on to argue that the self is an illusion, but consciousness is not.

@LSV

William can disabuse me of my misapprehensions, but I was under the impression that on W&T we are discussing issues which may touch on the nature of reality as a whole. We cannot therefore avoid metaphysical questions, and thus the attempt to reduce epistemology to the merely methodological is disingenuous, to say the least. I could understand this approach if W&T were a DIY plumbing advice site, but, unless there is something about the discussion of "the often controversial political, religious and ethical issues of the day" (W&T's raison d'etre) that I can't discern, I'm afraid I fail to see your point.

Metaphysical questions crop up all the time in these discussions- the problem is that beyond the level of the “merely methodological” the answers are the result of thinking hard and making stuff up. Many fine, subtle, clever minds have done just that over the centuries, bringing valuable insights into the nature of reality, but since the time of Bacon, Descartes etc, the advances in our understanding have been mainly down to science with philosophy providing some commentary. Nowadays philosophers are the Alan Hansons and Mark Lawrensons of the intellectual world, sometimes providing insights into what is happening where the action really is but mostly a distracting irrelevance. As for metaphysics itself, don’t get me started.

Anyway, the empiricist/rationalist/whateverist questions so beloved of the philosophically minded are mostly ignored on the playing field of science. So, while you think you have witnessed a last minute penalty in what you see as a contradiction at the heart of empiricism, to the actual players in the game you are arguing over the position of the penalty spot.

You say that "methodological naturalism is simply a position scientists have to take to study the natural world". If that is true, then "methodological naturalism" sits perfectly well with Christian belief (and by that I don't include the avant-garde variety known as "Christian atheism"). There is no conflict whatsoever in believing in God and also functioning as a natural scientist, who believes that the universe operates according to natural laws open to human investigation.

There are many excellent scientists who hold that view.

The discussion of origins has, of course, a bearing on metaphysical questions. That is why many of those who "study the natural world" (so-called methodological naturalists) seem to have extreme and vituperative views about something they call "religion". And anyone who suggests that there are aspects of reality beyond the purview of the natural sciences (given the limitations of the empirical method - due to the weakness of empiricism as an epistemology) is dismissed as "unscientific" - a charge which cannot be explained other than by recourse to a metaphysical position concerning the nature and limits of knowledge and reality. This then brings us beyond the realm of the merely "methodological".

Forgetting the obligatory reference to the position of the penalty spot, if someone says that they believe in a vague wishy washy deistic sentimental spirituality because it helps to give their life meaning, it is of no particular concern to anyone else. That’s not to say argumentative old pub bores like me won’t challenge it, but that’s by the by. If, however, someone says god hates homosexuality and that the law should be changed because of it, that’s a different kettle of fish altogether. Likewise any claims of the myriad flavours of religion kicking around today that cross the divide between metaphysical musing and real physical acts like flying planes into buildings, killing your daughter because she’s been raped, disrupting funerals because "god hates fags" or simply using “god’s word” in defence of a prejudice. In those instances there is no question that the thing called religion is open to close scrutiny. And if you think anything that appears on a blog as heavily moderated as this one is vituperative and extreme, you should get out more.

Thank you for your remarks about homosexuality. They exactly agree with the point I was making. You are offering evidence from nature to argue for the validity of homosexual experience among humans. That is a point I affirmed in my post. But I also stated that there is evidence from nature which supports the opposite position. You will perhaps have noticed that I was not supporting either position, but using this issue as an example of how evidence from nature can provide conflicting results. Therefore, on what basis do we choose one set of data over the other? By recourse to a metaphysical position, and not merely a methodological one.

If you think that we need recourse to a metaphysical position because of human plumbing arrangements, then I don’t think it is ever going to be possible to have a meaningful conversation with you.

@Parrhasios

I missed a bit out in my last post to you, or rather muddled stuff up in late night posting.

Your Bedouin example has to do with the sometimes arbitrary boundaries we draw around whose conscious experience we are concerned with, while euthanizing depressives is clearly an intra group question.

Anyway, as I say, I await the book with interest.


@GV 53

The article in 44 is Harris’s response to some criticisms of The End of Faith. I’m not sure you can get to *Sammy* believes that the conscious experience of the child will forever be beyond our measurements from the later quote, although the original one was a tad sloppy.

Grokes

Given what he says about a realm of consiousness (but not personal identity) beyond the physical world, oor wee sammy seems to be expressing himself with greater conviction and clarity in the first quotation.

GV

#54 - grokesx -

"If you think that we need recourse to a metaphysical position because of human plumbing arrangements, then I don’t think it is ever going to be possible to have a meaningful conversation with you."

Grokesx not understanding what a metaphor is? Surely not!

Or perhaps the 'reductio ad absurdum' argument is not your forte? Silly me to use this device! I will make a note of that for next time.

Anyway, I appreciated and understood your footballing metaphor (which is not the same as agreeing with it).

@LSV

Not quite understanding the metaphorical bit in the part I quoted which refers to the argument based on the configuration and functioning of the reproductive organs of both sexes, hence the admittedly rather lame reference to human plumbing arrangements.

#58 - grokesx -

OK, I made a twit of myself with my response #57. I have been known to get hold of the wrong end of the stick occasionally. Round 58 to you. (I saw the word "plumbing", having used this word in a previous post... oh, well, you get the picture...)

Concerning the argument about homosexuality, I was merely pointing out that some people use an argument from nature to assert that homosexual practice (or at least certain homosexual practices) are wrong. You may deride that argument (and my terminology may make you cringe), but my question is: on what basis do you deride this argument and see it as meaningless? On a scientific basis? Hardly, since it is merely an argument from nature. How we interpret the physical data depends on some other criteria - which are what?

Concerning philosophical ideas and insights being merely a commentary offered by peripheral thinkers - the Alan Hansons of this world (apologies to AH) - this view simply will not stand up to scrutiny. All intellectual endeavour (including, of course, scientific investigation) is defined by epistemological presuppositions. Therefore philosophical ideas are more like the rules of football and not merely the commentary.

"And if you think anything that appears on a blog as heavily moderated as this one is vituperative and extreme, you should get out more."

It is possible to express oneself in a vituperative manner by using language which will easily pass through the moderators' filter. So I am referring to the content and not merely the wording.

(I do try to get out, if only to clear my head from all the nonsense written by certain people on the internet!)

grokesx - it appears we are in broad general agreement that Harris still has a little work to do to flesh out his argument. I wonder a little though how appropriate an evidence-based approach to morality might actually be. Evidence can help with understanding what is, I am not sure how we might use it to establish what ought to be.

If we return to my example suggesting the termination of chronic depressives, I suspect we might find, if the evidence were gathered, neither of the counterindications you posit.

People who do not suffer profound depression or who have had little contact with those who do, are very unlikely to identify with them or to feel themselves in any degree of danger from the policy. It is very easy for individuals or groups to ignore completely threats which they do not believe apply to them. It is not obvious that the extermination of minorities has had marked negative impact on the conscious experience of the generality of the populace of the socities in which they previously existed.

Similarly, I am not sure that, if we look closely, we will find that murder, even mass murder, has any necessarily corrosive effect on the conscious experience of the murderer. Lord Goddard is reported to have ejaculated every time he passed a death sentence. Concentration camp officials often enjoyed normal and unstressed family lives. I do not think, if we persuaded society of the all-round good of our plan, that we would have any difficulty recruiting a sufficient number of executioners on whom the only conscious effect would be the positive sense of job-satisfaction which comes from the efficient performance of a worthwhile task.

On another thread a contributor argues that religion is required to make good men do evil (I think that anyone who does evil is by definition not good) but all that is required for ordinary averages joes to do evil is either direction from recognised authority or general social consensus on the acceptability of the practice.

The point I am making is that neither reason alone, or science alone, or even science plus reason can adequately address the question of morality. They would be hard-pressed to come up with worse, but they are, if they are honest and rigourous, unlikely to come up with better, than the dicta of the Old Books. I believe some questions can only be answered by using our whole brains, by engaging our emotions and by starting to work out how thought and feeling can constructively modify one another.

I don't think the examples you give affect Harris's argument. His whole contention is that moral questions have answers that are independent of individual opinions on them. He says that some people's (and cultures') ideas on moral questions are not worth listening to and that there could be moral experts in the same way as there are physics experts, biology experts etc. So, the existence of death fetish judges, easily manipulated concentration camp guards (a large group, if the Milgram experiments are anything to go by) and moral apathetes with a limited capacity for empathy is not a problem because we do not have to take their moral preferences into account.

How a society that adopted such principles would avoid falling into totalitarianism is another question altogether.

@ Parrhasios

61 was to you, of course.

BTW Harris expands here.

You may deride that argument (and my terminology may make you cringe), but my question is: on what basis do you deride this argument and see it as meaningless?

On the basis that it is a specious argument. If a minority of individuals in a population choose to use their reproductive organs in a way that could never result in a new life and this doesn't have an impact on the rest of the population (and there are six billion of us on the planet, so survival of the species is clearly not an issue because of it), what business is it of anyone else?

On a scientific basis?

Well, you could couch it in scientific terms, but it is not really necessary.

Therefore philosophical ideas are more like the rules of football and not merely the commentary.

Philosophers like to think that. And to make a pedantic distinction, it is not so much the commentary as the post match analysis. You lose nothing of a football match if you turn Motty or Clive Tyldesley down, but Hanson does actually know what he's talking about :)

It is possible to express oneself in a vituperative manner by using language which will easily pass through the moderators' filter. So I am referring to the content and not merely the wording.

I'll give you vituperative. But extreme? Come on.

Look, before everyone writes off philosophy, or thinks that there's some big war between science and philosophy, check out Elliott Sober's web site.

https://philosophy.wisc.edu/sober/recent.html

I think he'd meet with everyone's approval.

(I'm a bit annoyed that he's been distracted by Fodor - he'd very interesting and challenging things to say about design arguments.)

GV

To all those (and I suppose that means all of us at some time or other) who would make moral judgements about others perhaps we might ask the question, what does it mean to be human?

Look, before everyone writes off philosophy, or thinks that there's some big war between science and philosophy, check out Elliott Sober's web site.

War? Who said anything about war? I'm talking about post match analysis - sometimes useful, often well informed, but ultimately peripheral.

Sober seems to be a clued up guy and I can see why he is interested in Fodor's latest. When philosophers go marching around in hobnailed boots kicking up a fuss about what Darwin got wrong without really getting to grips with what they are talking about, it must be embarrassing for other philosophers.

There was a scientist in there too, Grokes. With a background in evolutionary biology. So which one of the dynamic duo should take the lion's share of the blame? Be honest, it's good for the soul.

(:

Nice to be exchanging fire with you again!

Oh, yeah, when it comes to science, post match analysis only from philosophers.
I mean, if Fodor were to write "Why the Fed Got it Wrong" and tried to set interest rates, or "Why Kwik-Fit Got it Wrong" and told the world that he had an argument that made trainees into better car mechanics, we'd be dubious.
So I can see why biologists would get a tad annoyed at being treated this way.

GV

Nice to be exchanging fire with you again!

The pleasure's all mine.

Regarding the dynamic duo, it's got to be Jerry - he started this nonsense back in 2007 and got roundly spanked for his trouble. He's obviously got a hide like a rhino though.

Not sure that Piattelli-Palmarini could be said to have a background in evolutionary biology seeing as he's a cognitive scientist with a PhD in physics. He's certainly no expert or he wouldn't have put his name to such balderdash.

And that's a confident assertion from someone with no background in biology whatsoever who flunked first year philosophy at the University of Wikistanoogle ;-)

Grokesx - # 60.

Thank you for the link, it was very informative but it has not improved my opinion of the scientific validity of Harris' claims. I do not think I've ever seen so many cognitive biases in an article purporting to be science outside the stuff I once read on link posted here to a creationist website.

It is simply a leap too far to suggest that the value of promoting the positive conscious experience of conscious beings is in any sense an objective fact about the universe. This is not an assertion on the same level as the general reliability of sensory input; testing it will refute it rather than confirm it. There is no evidence that I have ever seen which would suggest that there is any concern in nature for conscious experience, there is no evidence indeed of any concern for value: there is only success or failure and neither matter, they merely describe outcomes.

What Harris is suggesting is not on a par with suggesting an astronomer might reasonably ignore the opinions of astrologers, it is much more like saying he could rationally ignore the existence of black holes.

I actually tend to think Graham's word earlier may have been right: "silly". I can see no level on which these ideas even begin to work. Returning to my example of the chronic depressives, Harris does not just state that moral values are objective facts, he states that the evaluation criterion is the direction of change in the conscious experience of conscious beings. Good is positive change, bad is negative change. The movement of the conscious experience from negative to zero of an unvalued and disregarded sub-group in society by persons who saw the task of termination simply in terms of job opportunity - is, by this criterion, moral. There is no downside in terms of the conscious experience of the terminated, the terminators, or indeed of society at large. If this kind of reading is possible, and I contend it is, then future adherents would adopt some variant at some stage.

The whole notion is nonsense because it is based not on fact, not on evidence, but on little more than wishful thinking.

Let me conclude, though, by reiterating that I agree with his conclusions - I have an aesthetic preference for banning the genital mutilation of both male and female children, for proscribing clothing which discriminates against one gender, for the promotion of tolerance and inclusivity. I do not pretend, however, there is any scientific basis for that preference.

There is no evidence that I have ever seen which would suggest that there is any concern in nature for conscious experience, there is no evidence indeed of any concern for value: there is only success or failure and neither matter, they merely describe outcomes.

I don't think Harris is saying there is concern for conscious experience in "nature" as an abstract concept. Rather there is a concern for it in the nature (as it were) of conscious beings. Moral systems, thoughts, feelings come from conscious beings, chiefly humans. All of them, according to Harris, concern themselves with the conscious experiences of those beings, either in this life or the putative next.

The movement of the conscious experience from negative to zero of an unvalued and disregarded sub-group in society by persons who saw the task of termination simply in terms of job opportunity - is, by this criterion, moral. There is no downside in terms of the conscious experience of the terminated, the terminators, or indeed of society at large.

I really don't see why this should be so. If we attempt to evaluate all the possible ramifications objectively, the conscious experience of the disregarded sub group matters every bit as much as anyone else's. It is not the method you are worried about, but, as ever, the motives and morality of those in charge. This is the perennial problem of all societies, no matter how they decide their moral systems.

All this, of course, is more of a problem for those of us who don't think there is a fount of all love and goodness feeding its way into the world in some unspecified way to make everything better :)

#63 - grokesx -
"And to make a pedantic distinction, it is not so much the commentary as the post match analysis. You lose nothing of a football match if you turn Motty or Clive Tyldesley down, but Hanson does actually know what he's talking about :)"

I was using the word "commentary" in a more general sense, which would include the analysis. The background noise during the game is something I tend not to pay much attention to (unless it's Brian Moore commentating on the rugby. But then he is in rather a league of his own).

"If a minority of individuals in a population choose to use their reproductive organs in a way that could never result in a new life and this doesn't have an impact on the rest of the population (and there are six billion of us on the planet, so survival of the species is clearly not an issue because of it), what business is it of anyone else?"

I'm not disputing the validity of what you are saying (as I point out for the third time). This is not the point I am making. Your argument - whatever its validity - is not a scientific argument. There is nothing in "science" that tells us that it is "right" or "not morally wrong" for two people of the same sex to use their anatomy in this way. Its moral validity is based on something else - culture, perhaps? Or some philosophical position? But definitely not science, whose position is, frankly, amoral or neutral.

And if "science" could be appealed to, then nature tells us different and possibly conflicting things. So therefore something else - other than the natural sciences - has to be appealed to, in order to interpret and abitrate between conflicting natural data.

And if "science" could be appealed to, then nature tells us different and possibly conflicting things. So therefore something else - other than the natural sciences - has to be appealed to, in order to interpret and abitrate between conflicting natural data.

Well, if you actually take the time to think this through in the light of Harris's points about conscious experience, and come up with some solid objections, then that's fine and dandy. I can think of a few myself but the argument is novel enough to warrant closer attention.

We are on one of those endless bloggy loops, but what the hell, whichever way you cut it, the argument from human plumbing does not constitute conflicting natural data needing metaphysical arbitration - especially if that arbitration comes via some old goatherders' book.