Sam Harris on morality (Updated)

I sometimes offer atheists and agnostics the advice that atheism's great shortcoming is its inability to offer a plausible grounding for moral realism. Apparently "new atheist" Sam Harris also perceived a glaring need in that area. Harris has written a book ("The Moral Landscape") intended to fill the void.

And here's a video of Harris giving a talk on the subject:



I'm afraid that Harris' approach to the issue is all too familiar.
He tries to make the point that science can address morality because science is about facts and morality, if it exists, is a fact. That's all well and good, but even if you assume that there is an existent morality how do you detect it using science? And that's where Harris falls flat on his face:

Now, to speak about the conditions of well being in this life, for human beings, we know there is a continuum of such facts. We know that it's possible to live in a failed state. Where everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Where mothers cannot feed their children. Where strangers cannot find the basis for peaceful collaboration. Where people are murdered indiscriminately.

How do we know? We just know! What could be more convenient?

And we know that it's possible to move along this continuum, toward something quite a bit more idyllic, to a place where a conference like this is even conceivable.  And we know, we know, that there are right and wrong answers to how to move in this space.  Would adding cholera to the water be a good idea.  Well probably not.

Apparently we don't know quite enough about the cholera question to answer definitively!

Seriously, a guy with a degree in philosophy from Stanford can't do any better than this?  It's not even difficult to illustrate the problem.

Suppose for the sake of argument that morality is an illusion.  We have ideas of morality but moral precepts are not real.  Now suppose in that scenario we know--we know--there is a continuum of moral facts.  If that subjective impression of knowledge is sufficient to make morals real then this scenario results in a contradiction.

In the end, Harris adopts a strategy akin to that used by Ayn Rand and George Smith:  assume that something basic ("well being") is an objective moral good and then propose that science can help figure out certain things that result in well being.  Then claim that science can answer moral questions while ignoring the fact that the finding of science is utterly reliant on the axiomatic moral precept ("well being is good").

Update:

Though not on precisely the same subject, a just-published story by Michael Gerson about the brothers Hitchens seems like a good companion to the above.

Chris Hedges on the new atheism

Over the years I've been known to make an argument or two to the effect that certain groups of atheists tend to present themselves in ways markedly akin to the religious fundamentalists they profess to despise (in terms of their thinking if not their person).

Earlier this week I heard author Chris Hedges on the Michael Medved radio program discussing his book "I Don't Believe in Atheists." Hedges made sure to get in a few shots at the "neocon" antiterrorism strategy in the Mideast--so his critique apparently comes from a region of the political left that might enable him to gain a hearing among those he criticizes. I say that because, with the exception of Randian Objectivists and their sympathizers (not to draw the resistance too narrowly, I hope), atheists demonstrate an affinity for progressive politics.

Hedges mentioned a debate with Sam Harris, and I have purposed to review that debate. Truthdig hosts the opening statement from Hedges, and I'll post a portion of that below.

Sam Harris has conflated faith with tribalism. His book is an attack not on faith but on a system of being and believing that is dangerous and incompatible with the open society. He attacks superstition, a belief in magic and the childish notion of an anthropomorphic God that is characteristic of the tribe, of the closed society. He calls this religion. I do not.

What he fails to grasp is not simply the meaning of faith—something I will address later—but the supreme importance of the monotheistic traditions in creating the concept of the individual. This individualism—the belief that we can exist as distinct beings from the tribe, or the crowd, and that we are called on as individuals to make moral decisions that at times defy the clamor of the tribe or the nation—is a gift of the Abrahamic faiths. This sense of individual responsibility is coupled with the constant injunctions in Islam, Judaism and Christianity for a deep altruism. And this laid the foundations for the open society.
(Truthdig)

I look forward to reviewing the debate.

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