{"id":3855,"date":"2014-02-03T19:58:51","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T00:58:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=3855"},"modified":"2014-02-03T20:06:53","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T01:06:53","slug":"an-unofficial-entry-to-sam-harris-moral-landscape-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2014\/02\/03\/morality\/an-unofficial-entry-to-sam-harris-moral-landscape-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"An Unofficial Entry to Sam Harris’ Moral Landscape Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Harris is soliciting essays for what he calls the Moral Landscape Challenge<\/a>.\u00a0 In his words,<\/p>\n

It has been nearly three years since The Moral Landscape was first published in English, and in that time it has been attacked by readers and nonreaders alike. Many seem to have judged from the resulting cacophony that the book\u2019s central thesis was easily refuted. However, I have yet to encounter a substantial criticism that I feel was not adequately answered in the book itself (and in subsequent talks).\u00a0 So I would like to issue a public challenge. Anyone who believes that my case for a scientific understanding of morality is mistaken is invited to prove it in under 1,000 words. (You must address the central argument of the book\u2014not peripheral issues.) The best response will be published on this website, and its author will receive $2,000. If any essay actually persuades me, however, its author will receive $20,000, and I will publicly recant my view.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The “central argument of the book” is defined as follows:<\/p>\n

Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds\u2014and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe. Conscious minds and their states are natural phenomena, fully constrained by the laws of the universe (whatever these turn out to be in the end). Therefore, questions of morality and values must have right and wrong answers that\u00a0 fall within the purview of science (in principle, if not in practice). Consequently, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I doubt my power to compose an answer of sufficient caliber to blast right through Sam’s confirmation bias and convince him that his whole “scientific morality” project has been a waste of time, or even to get him to shake loose a paltry $2000 for the lesser prize, so I will limit myself to posting one here on my blog.\u00a0 Here it is:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Evolution by natural selection is the ultimate reason for the existence of morality.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Morality evolved because it promoted the survival and procreation of the genetic material carried by individuals.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Since evolution by natural selection is a natural process, as an evolved trait, morality cannot have a purpose or goal in general, nor the specific purpose or goal of promoting “human flourishing” in particular.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Therefore, the notion that morality has some goal, and a goal (such as human flourishing) that has nothing to do with the reasons that resulted in the evolution of morality to begin with, is false.<\/p>\n

QED<\/p>\n

It’s a testimony to the power of the illusion of the Good that Mother Nature planted in our brains that so many seemingly sane people who pass for scientists have bamboozled themselves into believing there can be such a thing as “scientific morality.”\u00a0 The old lady didn’t mess around.\u00a0 Assuming she ever experimented with moral relativism to begin with, no doubt she gave it up as a bad job when she noticed that her test subjects were dying like flies.\u00a0 No, we perceive the Good as an object, a thing-in-itself, and there are few things harder than recognizing the illusion for what it is.<\/p>\n

Normally, as is the case with Sam Harris, who is forever\u00a0 chasing his moral butterflies, the rationalizations we come up with are remarkably flimsy.\u00a0 Others can see the little man behind the curtain perpetrating the fraud immediately, assuming he’s not doing the special effects for their illusion as well.\u00a0 As I’ve mentioned before, religious believers, who have their God to fall back on, may come up with some of the most whacked out versions of the divinity imaginable, but haven’t the least problem seeing through the secular versions of the charade.\u00a0 For example, while I may have pronounced the Interdict on David Bentley Hart in my last post, I must admit that, in one of his rare lucid moments, he wrote,<\/p>\n

If we examine the premises underlying our beliefs and reasoning honestly and indefatigably enough, we will find that our deepest principles often consist in nothing more – but nothing less – than a certain way of seeing things, an original inclination of the mind toward reality from a certain perspective.\u00a0 And philosophy is of little use here in helping us to sort out the valid preconceptions from the invalid, as every form of philosophical thought is itself dependent upon a set of irreducible and unprovable assumptions.\u00a0 This is a sobering and uncomfortable thought, but also a very useful reminder of the limits of argument, and of the degree to which our most cherished certitudes are inseparable from our own private experiences.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

which can be rendered into the vernacular as, “Your personal opinions about what’s Good are not binding on me.”\u00a0 And I must also admit that, if you accept Hart’s rarified, mystical version of God as an Ansatz<\/em>, and aren’t too fussy about a little metaphysical fuzziness around the edges, his “proof” for the existence of the Good-in-itself makes a lot more sense than Harris’.<\/p>\n

Alas, I personally deem the existence of Hart’s God no more likely than the possibility that Harris’ own version of the Good can somehow manage to come flying out of his skull, grab me by the scruff of the neck, and escort me kicking and screaming into his brave new world of “human flourishing.”<\/p>\n

Does that mean I’ve relapsed into moral relativism under the stern scowl of Mother Nature?\u00a0 Heavens no!\u00a0 I’m just as prone as the next person to grab a rifle, sing the Marseillaise<\/em>, and sally forth to battle for my own version of the Good (indeed, I have, minus the bit about the Marseillaise<\/em>).\u00a0 I just don’t flatter myself that there is some objective reason that my Good must necessarily be everyone else’s Good as well.\u00a0 I don’t further flatter myself that the fits of self-righteousness I occasionally suffer with the rest of our species (especially when I’m driving), and which\u00a0Jonathan Haidt<\/a> described so well in The Righteous Mind<\/em>, can have any objective justification whatsoever.\u00a0 If everyone agreed with me on that point, I think it might actually promote “human flourishing.”\u00a0 At the very least, it might restrain the pathologically pious among us from their most flamboyant and ostentatious displays of virtuous indignation.\u00a0 I’ve always found that sort of thing very irritating (in others, of course), and think the world would be a better place without it.<\/p>\n