Sam Harris is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The End of Faith (2004) and Letter to a Christian Nation (2006). He holds a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. In 2010, before the publication of The Moral Landscape, Harris gave a TED Talk lecture which is viewable online, covering many of the arguments made in the book [1]. I. Revisiting the Is-Ought Problem Are we able to derive an "ought" from an "is"? In other words, is it possible to look at some fact of the universe and come to a conclusion about value? The 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume asked this question in his Treatise of Human Nature, which has since become known as the is-ought problem. Hume's argument, however, has been misunderstood by a great many people, including Harris. The intent behind the is-ought problem is to warn against inferring an "ought" from an "is" without any explanation of a connection between the two. Hume was a fierce critic of ethical intuitionists like Samuel Clarke, who believed that feelings, not reason, are what guide us toward moral facts. In his work on morality, Hume drew a strong difference between the passions (feelings) and rationality, and the is-ought problem questions the ethical intuitionist's reliance on the passions in ascertaining moral facts. Thus, many of the criticisms of Hume's famous problem are due to misunderstandings, but it still deserves to be asked: is there a distinction between facts and values? Harris' central thesis in The Moral Landscape is that "questions about values... are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures" and because "human well-being entirely depends on events in the world and on states of the human brain" [2], there are values to be derived from facts. Medical science has been doing this for decades. Based on a person's condition or symptoms (the "is"), decisions are made about how they should be treated (the "ought"). Physicians are often confronted with ethical choices, and treating someone at all presumes that health is morally preferable to sickness (the physician's creed - "first, do no harm" - illustrates this well). Likewise, architects make value judgments about how they ought to construct a building based on facts of physics, and we certainly hold them responsible when they ignore the safety concerns behind such facts and deaths result. Unfortunately, Harris doesn't spend much time discussing the is-ought problem (only a measly two pages, actually), and even then he gives it a rather hasty dismissal. Since it is one of the most popular misconceptions that would pose an obstacle to accepting a science of morality like we find in The Moral Landscape, it is quite disappointing that the problem isn't given the attention it needs. Nonetheless, there are good reasons to be skeptical about the common understanding of the is-ought problem, so Harris' failure to make a solid case against it does not necessarily diminish the rest of his argument. II. Well-being Why are values about well-being? Harris explains:
Most of the criticisms directed at Harris' ideas on morality have revolved around the ambiguity of well-being, yet it does appear that well-being generally seems to be the underlying concern for a lot of moral paradigms. Happiness, desires, social contracts, duties, virtues, and other suggested values might all be said to relate to well-being at the core. Even religious believers seem to take well-being into account when they obey God, considering the consequences of disobedience and how it will affect them (or their loved ones, perhaps). Harris freely admits to the fuzziness of well-being, but points out that a similar fuzziness in the notion of health hasn't prevented us from studying it or making objective statements about it. There are also some options that are most definitely unhelpful or harmful. Health may be an ambiguous concept in many ways, but there should be no question that torturing, raping, and murdering someone will not aid in their health. If someone disagrees with this, what can be said? Harris contends that these people may be ignored, and although this will likely elicit a firestorm of objections from some relativists, he makes an interesting comparison to the place of consensus in other fact-based fields of study. "[N]o one thinks that the failure of science to silence all possible dissent has any significance whatsoever," he states, "why should we demand more of a science of morality?" (p.37) The case for discounting certain opinions is made stronger in chapter two, where Harris invokes his knowledge of neurological studies that have shown less emotional activity in the brains of psychopaths, as well as an inability to recognize fear and sadness in others (p.97,99). If we wouldn't consult the mentally handicapped in performing medical surgery, why should we consult psychopaths on morality, if some of their major components of moral activity are not properly functioning? Another criticism of well-being that has been put forward is that it's not very scientific. But, as already mentioned, health suffers from the same vagueness as well-being, though it is still possible to study health and to make objective statements about it. Just as there are physical states that contribute to our health and incapacities that diminish it, Harris argues that "there are mental states and capacities that contribute to our general well-being (happiness, compassion, kindness, etc.), as well as mental states and incapacities that diminish it (cruelty, hatred, terror, etc.)" (p.64). Morality as a science is a very new phenomenon, and as was the case with every field of science in its infancy, there are currently far more questions than answers. However, this tells us nothing about whether or not the questions do have answers. One last comment that must be made about well-being is that Harris does not apply it in an evolutionary sense. Morality, he explains, is not simply about reproduction under the influence of evolution, so tired apologist canards about atheistic morals involving greater value in propagating genes or exterminating certain groups are not going to work here. Harris believes that some facts (he uses the example of how throwing a spear 'pointy end first' will cause more damage) are products of culture or 'forced' regularities of the world, not genes selected for by evolution. Certain unethical behaviors that were selected for in the past are not beneficial to us now, as conscious social creatures. III. Free Will For the final 10 to 11 pages of chapter two, we are presented with an argument that free will is illusory. Curiously, Harris does not define free will, aside from giving some vague idea of it in a thereotical example. "You decide what to do and not do," he says at the end of his example. "You seem to be an agent acting of your own free will" (p.102). Harris goes on to note that, "I, as the subject of my experience, cannot know what I will next think or do until a thought or intention arises; and thoughts and intentions are caused by physical effects and mental stirrings of which I am not aware" (p.103). To support this claim, studies are cited which show that our brains are primed for action before we become conscious of our thoughts or choices. The two studies cited by Harris are Libet, Gleason, Wright & Pearl in 1983 and Soon, Brass, Heinze & Haynes in 2008. The conclusions for free will drawn in both studies have been questioned by philosophers [3][4], noting that differences between urges, decisions, intentions, wants, and desires are not addressed. This is important because while decisions and intentions are indicative of conscious choice, urges and wants may not be. We might have an urge to physically attack someone, but we decide not to let our emotions get the best of us. We can want a piece of cake, but choose not to indulge ourselves. If the studies named by Harris rather show that it is urges and wants we are not aware of until they arise, as opposed to intentions and thoughts, then free will has not gotten the beating that is implied. But even so, why would a delay in our awareness of thoughts and intentions have to mean that free will is an illusion? Harris offers no response to the objection that we can know what we will next think or do if we have a thought or intention that informs us of our next thought or intention. The psychologist Julian Jaynes introduced the concept of 'structions':
Consciousness studies a problem and prepares it as a struction, a process which may result in a sudden appearance of the solution as if out of nowhere. During World War II, British physicists used to say that they no longer made their discoveries in the laboratory; they had their three B�s where their discoveries were made�the bath, the bed, and the bus. And, as I have mentioned earlier, this process on a smaller scale is going on in me at present as I am speaking: my words are as if chosen for me by my nervous system after giving it the struction of my intended meaning." [5] As Jaynes explains, we often self-consciously use struction to prepare ourselves for a process of free association thinking, so while it may seem that intentions and thoughts suddenly pop into our heads without our control, we are actually directing our train of thought without being aware of it at the moment. One thing on free will about which I can agree with Harris is that even if it is illusory, we are still obligated to act as if it is real. Not only to preserve our societies that depend on ideas of moral responsibility, but because there is really nothing we could do to resist, or be more accommodating to, determinism. Even refusing to do anything is still a choice, one which, according to determinism, we were already fated to make. However, I do find it an odd contradiction that Harris acknowledges that we look at intentions to assess moral responsibility, yet he considers this "without any recourse to notions of free will" (p. 108). Didn't he just get through telling us that our intentions are not our own? How is one morally responsible for intentions that they aren't, in fact, responsible for? IV. Belief and Religion In chapters three and four, Harris moves on to discussing belief and religion. He contends that belief is the act of accepting a proposition which appears true, and argues against belief based on feelings. Proposing the scenario of a man who converts to Christianity because it makes him feel good, and who then abandons his faith because he thinks it would make him feel better to be with a Muslim girl, Harris creates doubt that any such person has ever existed. I believe I have met several such people, but our author would likely respond that they may have been merely professing belief, not truly in possession of it, which I would agree is possible. I cannot agree that we do not choose our beliefs, though, especially not after Harris' flimsy argument for determinism. Some very interesting details and ideas are presented with the chapter on religion, such as a study that found children ages 8 to 10, whatever their upbringing, to be more inclined to creationist views of origins than their parents (p. 151), and findings that revealed dopamine, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and schizophrenia to be "regularly associated with hyperreligiosity" (p. 152). Harris also posits some insights into the psychological needs met by religion in our species' early history, as well as the strange fact that we seem to intuitively adopt mind-body dualism, which has possibly been responsible for giving us ideas like the soul, the afterlife, talking to the dead, and so on. However, I'd say the most enjoyable part of the religion chapter is Harris' spectacular demolition of Francis Collins' views on science and religion. For those unfamiliar, Francis Collins is a physical chemist, a medical geneticist, the former head of the Human Genome Project, and the current director of the National Institutes of Health, appointed by President Obama. Collins also happens to be an evangelical Christian who has written a book, The Language of God, detailing his conversion to faith after stumbling upon a frozen waterfall (no joke) and reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. Harris appropriately dissects many of Collins' statements and exposes the flawed reasoning behind them.
Responding to those who would try to say that theistic evolutionists like Collins are our 'only hope' for bringing more Americans out of the scientific dark ages, Harris delivers an especially eloquent correction. "The goal is not to get more Americans to merely accept the truth of evolution (or any other scientific theory)," he states. "[T]he goal is to get them to value the principles of reasoning and educated discourse that now make a belief in evolution obligatory" (p. 175). For all the complaints aimed at the 'New Atheists' as fanatics out to turn a buck, isn't it interesting that their critics seem to be the ones viewing others as a means to an end? V. The Value of the Landscape The Moral Landscape is a worthwhile read for the questions that it asks about morality, the neuroscience that it mentions, and the criticisms of religion that it offers. Harris' case for science aiding in our determination of values is scant, and so those hoping to find real world examples and formal arguments will probably be unimpressed. I believe this book is intended to be the beginning of the discussion, though, not the final word. It is written for a popular audience, not philosophers or ethical scholars, and as such, many points are phrased as questions: if x, then why not y? This may irritate some readers, but the questions Harris asks are important ones, and they seem to have been either missed or ignored by the majority of negative responses to the book. Certainly there are faults, though. I find it inexcusable that Harris quotes Daniel Dennett in his section on free will and yet fails to discuss one of the things Dennett has become well known for: his views on compatibilism. Even so, The Moral Landscape has plenty of interest for non-believers, including those who disagree with some of its ideas. Although it probably won't persuade any theists to change their opinions, it may be enough to give pause for thought with a few of its questions, and believers might also find the neuroscientific studies intriguing, or perhaps even sympathize with Harris' critique of moral relativism. I give The Moral Landscape 3.5 out of 5 Crazy Crazy Collinses.
1. TEDtalksDirector. (2010) Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions. YouTube.com. Retrieved Mar. 17, 2011.
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