Philosophy Discussion Forums

Frequently, a viewpoint I find that Sam Harris has, is that science is able to explain morals to us. I personally disagree. I know this may seem cold but looking with purely what we have, in the nature of it, there is nothing wrong with me killing someone. The opinion that it is wrong solely derives from Judea- Christian influence. This is clearly indicative of moral relativity which shows that morals can't exist. Despite this, he makes the fair argument that the very thing which makes science, science (controversy), is what we are using to 'debunk' morals. Despite this, I think that due to the element of objectivity in science, it outweighs this argument. It is like saying that we should be able to find out which country God supports in a war, even though both countries are saying that God is on their side. There is no evidence for which we can say that this set of morals is correct. We can't simply ask God which country he supports in the same way we can't just check our moral list. We can do that in science through a much longer process of experimentation, which can't be done on something which isn't physically definable as of now. I say as of now as 30 years ago dreams were not physically definable, however we now can almost map someone's dreams. Despite this, we already knew there was an organ that our faculties derive from. We are like Homo Erectus (Praying I got this right so that I don't get lynched by my peers) discovering fire in our knowledge of the brain.

Despite this, I do strongly believe that although morals themselves do not exist, its origin, moral intuition does. Moral intuition derives form conditioning and other factors, but it shows that we are still able to have a moral compass without believing in the things themselves. I do in no way believe that morals exist, however I still have a natural moral intuition that will pop up at certain times. Can science discover this? I think certainly so. Can science discover morals? That is up for debate, and what is this website for? Tell me below!

You'll first have to explain what morals are. If you can define them then they exist in some form. I am guessing your argument is about the empirical data that backs up either our understanding of biological mechanisms and/or evolutionary explanations?

Your post is a little scattered for a direct answer.

As I understand it murder was considered naughty before Judea Christian influence.

Eduk wrote: ↑March 6th, 2018, 5:12 am As I understand it murder was considered naughty before Judea Christian influence.

I can imagine ...

CAVE BOY: "Mummy, mummy that boy in the next cave just killed Daddy!"
CAVE WOMAN: "REALLY? He is such a naughty boy. I'll let his mother know! He's sure to get a good spanking before bedtime. Now go and tell your sister to stop gnawing on Grandpa's carcass and start a fire."

I think that is an accurate depiction, no?

Well, morals exist whether you acknowledge it or not. Just because it's impossible to prove which moral view is superior, that does not negate the existence of morality itself.

What you call "moral intuition" (misnomer) can be the product of two things. One is what you mentioned --> "conditioning and other factors". The other is conscience. Morals are derived both from an inherent conscience which exists in man, although it is normally quite dormant, and also various social teachings and customs and taboos.

The difference between the two origins is that conscience is more real and natural, while social conditioning is more artificial, arbitrary, and subjective. Thus, morals that derive from conscience are always more right, than morals which might derive solely from social conditioning, some of which have even led men to kill and slaughter in the name of God.

The evidence of which morality is correct can only be had by conscience. If a man has no conscience, then indeed there is no evidence, and it's completely arbitrary to assert that one morality is superior to another. But if a man does have a conscience, even if only very temporarily, then at those times he has "evidence" of which morality is superior, i.e. which moral code more accurately reflects conscience.

In this sense, conscience is true 'moral intuition'. There is nothing 'intuitive', or even natural, about moralities not based on conscience. In fact, morality without conscience can easily devolve into insanity and mass murder, as we clearly see today with some religious 'fundamentalist' groups.

If all men had a permanent conscience, there would be no need for morality. We'd always know what was 'right' or 'wrong', because our consciences would tell us so. But since men do not have conscience, except perhaps at very rare moments, we need moral codes to tell us what is 'right' and 'wrong'. Morality is a temporary, and fairly poor, substitute for conscience.

That is the real 'science' behind morality. And what the real science should be is to figure out if it might not be possible to strengthen and augment the feeling of conscience in man, and how to make that happen, so that men no longer have to wade their way through the labyrinth of contradictory moral teachings which present themselves to him, but rather can use his inner voice to know what is right and wrong....

TigerNinja wrote: ↑February 28th, 2018, 6:33 pm Frequently, a viewpoint I find that Sam Harris has, is that science is able to explain morals to us. I personally disagree.

You are mis-representing Sam Harris' position, he doesn't state that science explains morals, he demonstrates that scientific principles can be used to create a moral landscape.
His potoposition is completely valid, if we imagine the worse form of pain and suffering we can possibly conceive we have a foundation to start from. Any state which causes less pain or suffering is an improvement therefore moves up the moral landscape.
If someone were to say murder or torture ought not be classified as a form of pain or suffering, it is reasonable to claim that they do not have the clarity or rational capacity to have a sensible discussion about morality and should therefore not be included in such discussions.

Despite this, I do strongly believe that although morals themselves do not exist, its origin, moral intuition does. Moral intuition derives form conditioning and other factors, but it shows that we are still able to have a moral compass without believing in the things themselves. I do in no way believe that morals exist, however I still have a natural moral intuition that will pop up at certain times. Can science discover this? I think certainly so. Can science discover morals? That is up for debate, and what is this website for? Tell me below!

You may need to clarify what you mean by "morals themselves don't exist"?
I suspect you're referring to objective morality, which if this is the case then I'm sure most other people here would agree.

There indeed are no morals in the nature of big fish eats little fish or life lives upon life, it is just harsh reality. Nature is not indifferent to your survival ,nature is unaware or unconscious of your plight, there is a difference. Morality arises with the rise of consciousness, perhaps even back to the time we made our way onto land, then nature could be said to care, to be aware. Life is consciousness, consciousness is life and as such, it began recognizing itself in its various forms of life, and when one can recognize the self in another, another capable of suffering, compassion arises, and where fesiable reacted to. The living world is one biology, one carbon based self-interested biology, and any reasonable system of morality needs to be based upon that common biology. Science is surely the most reasonable choice for understanding the means of defining what promotes life and its well being than any other system to date.

In the past the holy scriptures of all the desert religions had made man both ignorant and errogant, and as such completely out of touch with reality and proud of it, the ignorance and errogants lingers. We are late in the game in recognizing that the structures and systems humanity has and will build , are extensions of its own biology. When humanity is confused by fantasy and superstition, the waters of reason are murky at best. So, morality comes from the very nature and complexity of our biological being, as surely as the spiders web comes from its nature. Morality must be based upon our common biology, and as Carl Sagan once said, science is a candle in the darkness.

TigerNinja wrote: ↑February 28th, 2018, 6:33 pm

Frequently, a viewpoint I find that Sam Harris has, is that science is able to explain morals to us. I personally disagree.

-Sam Harris's position is that Science can inform our moral judgments by offering important data. Science can also explain how and why morality as a biological byproduct is essential for the survival of most (if not all) social species.

I know this may seem cold but looking with purely what we have, in the nature of it, there is nothing wrong with me killing someone.
The opinion that it is wrong solely derives from Judea- Christian influence.

-Of course there is something wrong with you killing other people. Its against your well being and the rest of the members of your society.
(you affect the well being of the individual you kill, you affect the well being of their friends and family and you affect your well being because they will come for you!) Killing other members of our society doesn't promote survival of our species.

We know that moral rules against killing members of our society exist in so many non christian primitive tribes and societies around the world.
Establishments have being killing many people in the name of the Judeo-christian dogma for centuries.
Slaves were killed in the name of the bible of this dogma. Witch hunts, inquisition, Crusades etc etc.
So I can not see how one can argue successfully in favor of the exclusive role of this dogma on morality and on killing specifically.
Secular values, improvement of living conditions, addressing scarcity, solving problems in production and provision, social organization and order and repercussions (social exile, punishment etc), are behind the slow end steady evolution of our moral judgments on killing members of our society.
So Science did have a huge role in improving those conditions in our societies, thus provided a trustworthy and rich environment where members could cooperate (instead of killing each other) and improve their well being.

This is clearly indicative of moral relativity which shows that morals can't exist.

-Morality isn't and shouldn't be relative. i.e The mutilation of children on religious grounds should be immoral in all cultures. The mutilation of a child on medicinal grounds should be ethical in all cultures. So Morality should only be situational and based on a "subjective" human principles (Well being) that is able to produce objective judgments.

I don't disagree with you that different societies and cultures display Ethical relativism but based on our agreed secular "subjective" criterion (the promotion of the Well being for every member and his/her society), our Moral judgments can become Objective and Situational.

Despite this, he makes the fair argument that the very thing which makes science, science (controversy), is what we are using to 'debunk' morals.

-Scientific knowledge informs our judgments with facts and we can identify previous errors in our judgements.

Despite this, I think that due to the element of objectivity in science, it outweighs this argument. It is like saying that we should be able to find out which country God supports in a war, even though both countries are saying that God is on their side. There is no evidence for which we can say that this set of morals is correct.

-Objectivity in science is what renders our produced knowledge credible. Objectivity in our morality is what can render our judgments non relativistic and non subjective.
Of course there are evidence that can inform our Moral Principlesand in turn inform our

moral judgments

! We can use science and find out which acts truly promote the well being of members and society.

We can't simply ask God which country he supports in the same way we can't just check our moral list.

-Of course we can check our moral list. By evaluating all our judgments by using the above principle we can arrive to objective moral judgments. i.e. An act that undermines the well being of a member and his/her society IS an immoral one. Just apply this principle and you will see that our acts can either be moral or immoral based on the Situation.

We can do that in science through a much longer process of experimentation, which can't be done on something which isn't physically definable as of now.

-We don't need science to check our "moral list". We can use our principle to find out whether an act will undermines (now or in the future) the well being of a member AND his/her society.

I say as of now as 30 years ago dreams were not physically definable, however we now can almost map someone's dreams.

-Correct, the groundbreaking work by Mark Solms on dreams gave us a pretty good understanding about the brain state of dreams.

Despite this, we already knew there was an organ that our faculties derive from. We are like Homo Erectus (Praying I got this right so that I don't get lynched by my peers) discovering fire in our knowledge of the brain.

- I don't get your point.

Despite this, I do strongly believe that although morals themselves do not exist, its origin, moral intuition does.

-Sure Some kind of moral intuition exists and it has put us in trouble many times before. i.e. We no longer keep the woman and children of our enemies as slaves and we allow women and couples to have abortions. Our intuition on those topics didn't serve us well in the past. I guess in the future we will look back and see what we do to humans and animals with our current economic system and we be able to see the immoral nature of it.

Moral intuition derives form conditioning and other factors, but it shows that we are still able to have a moral compass without believing in the things themselves. I do in no way believe that morals exist, however I still have a natural moral intuition that will pop up at certain times. Can science discover this? I think certainly so. Can science discover morals? That is up for debate, and what is this website for? Tell me below!

-Well,that is not the job of Science. Science provides the knowledge. It can provide data so that we inform our philosophy and improve our wisdom and understanding. We can not do Philosophy without science and we can not do science without philosophy. Ethics is a branch of Philosophy and science according to Aristotle and the on going Scientific revolution, is the second most important step in all our Philosophical Endeavors.(1. Epistemology and 3. Metaphysics).

There seems in this dialogue a problem addressing the lack of the physical reality of morals, these are not manifest until they are manifest as ideas. The same biology that manifests the idea, through the creative process will make the idea an external reality, in the forms of codes of conduct and laws supporting these ideas. It is a self-interested process, biology is trying to ensure its own life and well being, thus morality needs to be based upon our common biology through common ideas of how to ensure that well-being. If this could occur, it would be historically grand, finally, we could put on the shelf those old bronze age superstitions/religions and base morality of something immediate and substantal, not to mention rational.

TigerNinja wrote: ↑February 28th, 2018, 6:33 pm Frequently, a viewpoint I find that Sam Harris has, is that science is able to explain morals to us. I personally disagree. I know this may seem cold but looking with purely what we have, in the nature of it, there is nothing wrong with me killing someone. The opinion that it is wrong solely derives from Judea- Christian influence. This is clearly indicative of moral relativity which shows that morals can't exist. Despite this, he makes the fair argument that the very thing which makes science, science (controversy), is what we are using to 'debunk' morals. Despite this, I think that due to the element of objectivity in science, it outweighs this argument. It is like saying that we should be able to find out which country God supports in a war, even though both countries are saying that God is on their side. There is no evidence for which we can say that this set of morals is correct. We can't simply ask God which country he supports in the same way we can't just check our moral list. We can do that in science through a much longer process of experimentation, which can't be done on something which isn't physically definable as of now. I say as of now as 30 years ago dreams were not physically definable, however we now can almost map someone's dreams. Despite this, we already knew there was an organ that our faculties derive from. We are like Homo Erectus (Praying I got this right so that I don't get lynched by my peers) discovering fire in our knowledge of the brain.

Despite this, I do strongly believe that although morals themselves do not exist, its origin, moral intuition does. Moral intuition derives form conditioning and other factors, but it shows that we are still able to have a moral compass without believing in the things themselves. I do in no way believe that morals exist, however I still have a natural moral intuition that will pop up at certain times. Can science discover this? I think certainly so. Can science discover morals? That is up for debate, and what is this website for? Tell me below!

I disagree with you. First, I believe that everything can be traced back down to basic science - kind of in a reductionist view, because the way we act, we think, we do is all caused by our genetics and environment, and that's science.

You also said that "The opinion that it is wrong solely derives from Judea- Christian influence." Well even if we assume that's true, I could argue that Christianity - or any religion, really - is derived from science. Humans are biologically proven to want to fit in, and the most efficient ways back in the old days to unite people and create law and order was to create a "big social belief" (quote Hawking from Brief Answers to the Big Questions). It all comes down to behavorial science.

Tell me what you think!

Subatomic,

If it is not our fairy godfather who in writing these archaic religions to inform us of what our nature should be, it must be that humanity put morality into these text. It is, however, a morality of civilizations of two thousand years ago, in the case of Judaism longer. The structures and systems humanity creates comes from its own basic nature. Science is in a much better place to understand our complexities, reason and the scientific method are the only qualifiers at this time in our history. May Zeus be with you!!

Sorry, I did mean to be offensive, with the Zeus thing. I was just trying to be funny.

It seems to be an ideal of science to get rid of morality completely.

(2018) Immoral advances: Is science out of control?
To many scientists, moral objections to their work are not valid: science, by definition, is morally neutral, so any moral judgement on it simply reflects scientific illiteracy.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... f-control/

(2019) Science and Morals: Can morality be deduced from the facts of science?
The issue should have been settled by David Hume in 1740: the facts of science provide no basis for values. Yet, like some kind of recurrent meme, the idea that science is omnipotent and will sooner or later solve the problem of values seems to resurrect with every generation.
https://sites.duke.edu/behavior/2019/04 ... f-science/

Morality is based on 'values' and that logically means that science also wants to get rid of philosophy.

Some recent perspectives on philosophy by scientists at a forum of a university in Great Britain (Cambridge):

Philosophy is bunk.

...

You may describe philosophy as a search for knowledge and truth. That is indeed vanity. Science is about the acquisition of knowledge, and most scientists avoid the use of "truth", preferring "repeatability" as more in line with our requisite humility in the face of observation.

...

Philosophers always pretend that their work is important and fundamental. It isn't even consistent. You can't build science on a rickety, shifting, arbitrary foundation. It is arguable that Judaeo-Christianity catalysed the development of science by insisting that there is a rational plan to the universe, but we left that idea behind a long time ago because there is no evidence for it.

...

Philosophy never provided a solution. But it has obstructed the march of science and the growth of understanding.

...

Philosophy a retrospective discipline, trying to extract something that philosophers consider important from what scientists have done (not what scientists think - scientific writing is usually intellectually dishonest!). Science is a process, not a philosophy. Even the simplest linguistics confirms this: we "do" science, nobody "does" philosophy.

...

Science is no more or less than the application of the process of observe, hypothesise, test, repeat. There's no suggestion of belief, philosophy or validity, any more than there is in the rules of cricket or the instructions on a bottle of shampoo: it's what distinguishes cricket from football, and how we wash hair. The value of science is in its utility. Philosophy is something else.

...

Philosophers have indeed determined the best path forward for humanity. Every religion, communism, free market capitalism, Nazism, indeed every ism under the sun, all had their roots in philosophy, and have led to everlasting conflict and suffering. A philosopher can only make a living by disagreeing with everyone else, so what do you expect?

When science is practiced autonomously and it intends to get rid of any influence of philosophy, the 'knowing' of a fact necessarily entails certainty. Without certainty, philosophy would be essential, and that would be obvious to any scientist, which it apparently is not.

It means that there is a belief involved (a belief in uniformitarianism) that legitimizes autonomous application of science (i.e. without thinking about whether it is actually 'good' what is being done).

The idea that facts exist outside the scope of a perspective (that is, that facts are valid without philosophy) has far-reaching implications, including the natural tendency to completely abolish morality.

How can there be a place for morality when one thinks in science that facts are outside the scope of a perspective (i.e., that facts are valid without philosophy)? Asking attention for morality, despite the strong natural tendency for moral consideration embedded in human nature, would in theory be comparable to demanding a belief in God.

When morality is reduced to an empirical property of the social sciences, what theory could possibly prevent the idea that morality is an illusion?

If morality were based upon our common biology and thus its continued life and well-being, it would seem apparent science is already does a better job of it than superstitions, mythology/religions and all the gods put together.

I don't know what you exactly mean by morals, so I'll assume you'll mean a socially established wide belief of what's "right" and what's "wrong?" If so, then yes, I believe that science can explain that. This also relates to why people still believe in religion and God. Nowadays, we have technology and science, and yet we still find that many people believe in religion, because we need a point in life and we need something to tell us what to do and what not to do. Humans regulate their community by having a big social belief, and that's exactly what God and morality are, we have always done this (even in prehistoric times), and even if I don't know the specific science behind it (I'm more of a physics person), I'm sure there is a behavioral biology concept about it.