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Sam Harris has argued on many occasions - the earliest of which I'm aware of being in his book, The End of Faith, as well as later on in The Moral Landscape - that it is (at least theoretically) possible for us to scientifically determine what is good and what is evil. He argues that the only assumption we need to make for science to be able to make this determination is that it's bad for there to be a universe which results in the worst possible outcome for all sentient beings. Upon that foundation, he argues, we can theoretically build an entire scientific discipline of determining what should be done to maximize good (ie. that which is the opposite of the bad defined above) in the universe.

Is this logic flawed in any way? Clearly, this science would be extremely difficult to realize in practice (having to take every ramification in the universe of every action into account?!) - but is it theoretically sound?

Jez
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    Empirical science has nothing to do in moral issues, that's the field of the Philosophy, wich is purely theoretical. There no way to determine if an act is "bad" or "good" by an experiment. What's the worst scenario? It's depends on the philosophical position on what's the good, i.e. quite different between utilitarism, existencialism and estoicism. – Apocatastasis Jun 14 '11 at 00:40
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    To define a _Bad_ universe, _worst possible outcome_ must be determined first. What scientific factors can deduce how _worse_ a situation is for a given sentient being ? would the same factors be applicable on next sentient being ? –  Nov 05 '12 at 18:30
  • Even philosophy can't determine "badness"/"goodness". It can only give many possible choices and ideas. – zaa Mar 05 '13 at 23:56
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    Is-Ought problem notwithstanding, we can in practice simply agree on a foundational principle and build rational moral systems ("scientifically determine good and evil") from there. I think the foundational principle is as he states, or more generally, that *existence is better than non-existence*. We can't really justify this, and that's fine, because as long as we agree we can determine which lifestyle choices amongst us (religious vs non-religious in this case) are more or less likely to uphold this principle. Not all beliefs require logical ("scientific", as Harris terms it) justification. – stoicfury Mar 07 '13 at 06:05
  • btw, is it really philosophy of science (as tagged)? i think it's exactly opposite – Bulat Jun 24 '13 at 17:21
  • I believe it can and I've explained how. See my answer: https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/357/is-it-possible-to-scientifically-determine-good-and-evil/85855#85855 – Dan Bray Sep 08 '21 at 15:56
  • Should we firstly define what is good and evil by some measure? Nature and the natural world is full of constant change and transition, death, birth, rebirth - animals competing for survival - some stronger than others. We are told by naturalists to never interfere with the natural world and its happenings, even though we would like to save that poor animal from the clutches of some vicious beast. Or, is evil a human trait, something emerging from deliberate attempts to cause distress and suffering and to take pleasure from it? Evil is experienced as much as it it done? Is it qualitative? –  Sep 22 '21 at 17:39

12 Answers12

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There is no way to take a non-moral "is" and from that extract a moral "ought". (ref) This separation is usually called "Hume's Law". This has been not only a pretty self-evident, but also generally accepted law within philosophy, but nevertheless it regularly pops up wanna-be philosophers trying to break it and failing.

As science can only concern itself with what is, it can not talk about what ought it is impossible to scientifically determine any moral issue, including god and bad and evil.

More.

Lennart Regebro
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    Downvoted because it arrogantly ("wannabe") ignores the clear majority of metaethicists who are moral realists ([some of whom espouse a scientific approach to ethics](http://www.springerlink.com/content/c286020j12256197/)) and their debate. – Ruben Jun 17 '11 at 18:51
  • @Ruben: I don't ignore them. I say they are wrong. – Lennart Regebro Jun 18 '11 at 05:16
  • @Len Calling those who have a different position wannabes is dismissing them without consideration and therefore tantamount to ignorance in my book. Note that I not necessarily disagree with you (but I think it's not as simple as you put it) or agree with Ayn Rand (haha), but with the way you put this argument forward. Are you calling all moral realists wrong by the way? – Ruben Jun 18 '11 at 11:24
  • @Ruben: No, I considered it, and Ayn Rand is a wannabe. Yes, all those that say that moral propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion, are incorrect. – Lennart Regebro Jun 18 '11 at 16:52
  • @Lennart 1. But this is the majority view in academic philosophy. 2. Your plural "wannabes" indicates you don't mean just Ayn Rand. 3. Surely you have not considered many other moral realists. 4. Apparently it's not like you can just throw Hume's law in the ring and expect to be understood to be right (I've tried!). Those moral realists (like Ernst whom I linked) know the is-ought-problem of course and would hardly blink. 5. Again, I don't necessarily disagree with you. – Ruben Jun 19 '11 at 22:09
  • @Ruben: 1. I have a hard time believing that, despite my general disrespect for academic philosophers. :-) 2. Yes. 3. I have. 4. I'm sure loads of people will misunderstand it. You claim a majority of academic philosophers have. 5. Good. :-) – Lennart Regebro Jun 20 '11 at 05:07
  • 1. [You'll have to.](http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl?affil=Target+faculty&areas0=0&areas_max=1&grain=medium) 3. Then you must know that you need to get your epistemological premises straight. 5. No, not good at all. If you're right for the wrong reasons, how can that satisfy you? – Ruben Jun 20 '11 at 13:12
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    @Lennart I'll leave this be for now, because this space isn't intended for prolonged discussions and I don't think I need to argue against ad hominem attacks on a substantial part of the scientific community. I hope you've sufficiently embarrassed yourself, so others will be shamed into thinking a little longer. I think it's sad that this is the accepted answer to a potentially interesting question which was prematurely closed. – Ruben Jun 22 '11 at 18:02
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    -1 for using Hume's law in this context. The claim that moral realism is impossible not because of the contents of a particular argument but "because Hume said so" is just ancestor worship. – philosodad Jul 10 '12 at 19:23
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    @philosodad: The argument is not "because Hume said so". The argument *is* Hume's law. Whom the law has been named for is completely irrelevant. I even make a short and IMO succinct summary of the argumentation. In fact, I only mention Hume because I say that the law is usually called "Hume's law". How you can get that to be an appeal to authority is beyond logical comprehension. – Lennart Regebro Jul 10 '12 at 19:58
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    @LennartRegebro because Hume's law is not considered universally true among Philosophers and is a matter of opinion, not fact. Therefore, you are dismissing a *new* argument that may or may not contradict the authority by simply appealing to the--disputed--authority. – philosodad Jul 10 '12 at 21:09
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    @philosodad: The appeal to authority exists only in your imagination. – Lennart Regebro Jul 11 '12 at 05:14
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    @LennartRegebro Your argument is of the form "Authorities say p about x". However, the value of an authority depends on 2 things, one of which is a *consensus among experts* that the authority is correct. Hume's law is *not* a consensus view, therefore, your argument is an appeal to an inappropriate authority. Your prior comment (on the OP itself) that this question "was answered definitively in 1739" indicates that it is Hume whom you reference as the authority. Also, you are factually incorrect when you say Hume's law is "generally accepted" in philosophy. It is still a matter of debate. – philosodad Jul 11 '12 at 11:54
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    @philosodad: No, my argument is not in that form. You have neither read my answer, nor my response to you. – Lennart Regebro Jul 12 '12 at 03:57
  • @LennartRegebro If I say "Einstein proved that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light" and provide a succinct summary of why he said so, I am *still* arguing from authority. That's okay if that authority is considered valid on this topic by consensus. Your authority is *not* considered valid by experts on the topic, hence your argument is invalid. – philosodad Jul 12 '12 at 12:29
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    @philosodad: My argument is not in that form. You have neither read my answer, nor my response to you. In addition you now claim that making a succinct argument is argument from authority. I suspect that's a position that you, despite it's patent absurdity, you will now continue to defend. – Lennart Regebro Jul 12 '12 at 20:14
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    @LennartRegebro You present a straw man. I argue not that a succinct argument is an argument from authority, I claim that a succinct *paraphrase* or *summary* of an *expert opinion*, with reference *to the expert* and a *claim that the expert's opinion is a consensus opinion* among other subject matter experts is an argument from authority. In your case, it is a *fallacious* appeal to authority because your claim that this is a consensus view in philosophy is a *false claim*. – philosodad Jul 12 '12 at 20:31
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    @lennartregebro until you read your answer to this question, there is no point to this discussion. – philosodad Jul 12 '12 at 22:32
  • A third possibility is is my reference to Aynd Rand? Are you perhaps one of her religiously devoted fans? Do you get offended by somebody pointing out that she is completely wrong on many basic issues? That is also not my fault, although I'm certainly to blame for bringing it to your attention. I'm sorry if it feels insulting to you when you are wrong. – Lennart Regebro Jul 13 '12 at 07:25
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    -1. Regardless of Hume's Law, the fact that "is != ought" doesn't imply anything about out ability to discern what "ought", under some set of guiding premises. Science doesn't tell us what *is*, but rather proposes models which describe *uniformities* in what is. The proposed programme is to identify "how we ought to act" with "what will achieve the best outcome": not to identify what is actually the case about X with what ought to be the case about X, but rather *what would actually promote well being* with *what we should try to achieve* (without a common proposition X being modified). – Niel de Beaudrap Oct 31 '12 at 01:43
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    @NieldeBeaudrap: The problem there is that you assume that promoting well being is good. Which you can't scientifically prove. QED. Also, rephrasing "what is" as "what uniformities there are" doesn't change anything. That's just a rewording. Science still can not determine what ought or what we should try to achieve. – Lennart Regebro Oct 31 '12 at 05:59
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    As a general note it is interesting how many there are that clearly want to be able to scientifically prove morality and get upset when you show them that they can't. – Lennart Regebro Oct 31 '12 at 06:01
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    @LennartRegebro: you have missed the point. The proposal is to adopt as a premise (i.e. to assume) that promoting well being is good. This is not philosophically uncontrovertial: I grant that. But it does then open up the possibility of a scientific programme for discovering what "goodness" may consist of in particulars, that is in extension, from this intensional premise which serves as a pragmatic bridge between "ought" and "is". What I am asking to be recognized is that this is the basis for the argument, and not that people are trying to "prove" that well-being is goodness. – Niel de Beaudrap Oct 31 '12 at 12:06
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    What I (very imperfectly) tried to convey concerning "uniformities" is that science concerns what uniformities *there seem* to be (when we prioritise certain things to measure). "Uniformity" is an attempt to fit things which actually exist to an abstraction. Our scientific models are not the same as the facts, but are merely an attempt to attain a digest of what things are apt to happen -- they are not what *is*, but what we *expect*. If we **posit** that "goodness" is well-being, we may ask what we expect to be supportive of goodness. – Niel de Beaudrap Oct 31 '12 at 12:11
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    As for the remark about upset: I feel that this question was closed and dismissed on the basis of non-sequiturs. In your particular case, I feel that you have argued against the wrong question. If I could convince you to inspect the contents of the question once more, perhaps you might notice that no-one is trying to *derive* the fact that "goodness" consists of well-being, but that this is a practical proposal from which investigation is meant to start. If you have problems with adopting the premise, then make that argument; no-one is arguing that it is an analytic truth. – Niel de Beaudrap Oct 31 '12 at 12:15
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    @NieldeBeaudrap: If you assume a moral framework that is scientifically measurable, then you can scientifically measure it, yes. But reducing moral good to well being is really only a circular definition, because who defines well being? It's not a measurable concept. – Lennart Regebro Oct 31 '12 at 12:29
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    Also, your introduction of the word "uniformities" is on this level of discussion meaningless. I agree with you, but in normal language you call these uniformities "facts". renaming them doesn't change anything, it's just wordplay. – Lennart Regebro Oct 31 '12 at 12:30
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    @NieldeBeaudrap: After your changes to the question, which in fact extends the question several times, then my answer is clearly to the wrong question. With the original question, I disagree that it is the wrong question I answer. The original question is whether Sam Harris logic was flawed, when he reduces morality to well being and then claims it can be scientifically deduced. My answer shows that indeed, his logic is flawed, because you can't reduce morality to well being. It is also flawed because well being isn't objective and measurable, which I didn't point out. – Lennart Regebro Oct 31 '12 at 12:34
  • "reducing moral good to well being is really only a circular definition, because who defines well being? It's not a measurable concept." You **haven't** addressed that in your answer; you only refer to Hume's Law and is/ought, whereas this is a specific and deliberate proposals to bridge 'is' and 'ought' by introducing axioms to do so (motivated essentially by an appeal to "truthiness", but that's no different from any motivation for an axiom). I only pointed out (perhaps obviously?) that it only makes sense as a proposal for an *axiom*, and that religious criticism wasn't on-topic. – Niel de Beaudrap Oct 31 '12 at 12:41
  • Physical laws aren't about facts when they concern counterfactuals or other events which have not yet happened, and are subject to our attempts to draw boundaries. My point is that our knee-jerk reaction to call them 'facts' is akin to the knee-jerk reaction to call well-being 'goodness'. Rejecting the idea that any particular choice of 'well-being' gives rise to a meaningful study of ethics is akin to me to rejecting the study of chemistry because chemical bonding comes in a wide variety of strengths so that we could not know where to draw the line for belonging to a specific chemical or not. – Niel de Beaudrap Oct 31 '12 at 12:53
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    I haven't addressed that in my answer, because it is not in the question. I answered the question, not your changes, which I rolled back since it made it into a completely different question. I tried to address some of it in comments here, but that just made you repeat yourself. If you want to discuss something else than the question and my answer to it, perhaps start a new question? – Lennart Regebro Mar 15 '13 at 19:08
  • I disagree. I believe science can explain good and evil, although it's better to use "goodless" or "ungood" to describe evil because the opposite of good is not wickedness, but a lack of good. See my answer https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/357/is-it-possible-to-scientifically-determine-good-and-evil/85855#85855 – Dan Bray Sep 08 '21 at 16:19
  • The citations provided of multiple philosophers who hold by moral realism refutes this claim in the answer: "This has been not only a pretty self-evident, but also generally accepted law within philosophy". The claim about philosophical consensus false. – Dcleve Sep 08 '21 at 18:43
  • @DanBray OK, fine, you disagree, then prove your case and become the most famous philosopher in all time: The one who can objectively prove what is the good action to do an each point. No? You can't prove that? Then stop disagreeing. – Lennart Regebro Sep 19 '21 at 05:09
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    @Dcleve I do not know why you think moral realists claim to have solved the Is-Ought-Problem. The claim of consensus is not false. – Lennart Regebro Sep 19 '21 at 05:16
  • @LennartRegebro -- Moral realism is the premise that "ought" questions are also "is" questions, and therefore there is no "is-ought problem". Moral realism is therefore a rejection of Hume's Law. . As moral realism is the majority position among philosophers, which you yourself already know as you have been pointed to the surveys of philosophic thinking, your claim of a "consensus" for Hume's Law is simply false. – Dcleve Sep 19 '21 at 18:55
  • @LennartRegebro -- and you KNOW your consensus claim is false! In your second post in the comments, you assert that most philosophers are "wrong" on this subject. Then in a later past, you assert most philosophers are "idiots", for disagreeing with you. Just correct the false claim in your answer! – Dcleve Sep 19 '21 at 18:58
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    @Dcleve You have misunderstood moral realism if you think it says that you can deduce moral conclusions from non-moral statements. Moral realism says that moral statements refer to reality. For example, "John promised to clean the kitchen. That means John ought to clean the kitchen". This refers to a fact: John promised to clean the kitchen. But this does not reject the is-ought problem. There's the unstated moral statement there, that one should fulfill ones promises. Moral realism never claims to do away with that and create a fully factual/objective morality. – Lennart Regebro Sep 20 '21 at 19:54
  • @Dcleve https://www.jstor.org/stable/25471868 Quote: "Modern meta-ethics has been conditioned by two dogmas. One comes to us from Hume and is that "is" does not imply "ought". The other is derived from Kant and is that "ought" implies "can". It seems safe to say that these dogmas are accepted, under one interpretation or another, by almost all current theorists of moral philosophy and ethics." End Quote. The article in fact goes on to claim that moral realism can account for these dogmas, while moral anti-realism can not. **I rest my case.** – Lennart Regebro Sep 20 '21 at 20:03
  • @LennartRegebro -- Two days ago on this site, you had a comment in response to Reuben Jun's link to the survey of philosophic opinions, which showed a majority view for moral realism. Your comment was that you considered most academic philosophers to be idiots. I flagged that comment, as a violation of site rules, and it has now been deleted. Now you deny you even wrote it, and try to gaslight the entire community here about what you wrote???? Nobody else can now see that comment, but it was here for years. – Dcleve Sep 20 '21 at 21:39
  • @LennartRegebro -- unless you are just looking for confirmation bias, one no-name author claiming a consensus exists is not actually demonstration of a consensus. Your view, which you are attempting to claim is consensus, is that there is no matter of fact about moral questions -- that there is an unbridgeable is/ought divide. Most philosophers reject your view, which was shown to you in the philsurvey link. Your effort to redefine moral realism, to pretend that the philosophic rejection is not of YOUR views,, is in direct opposition to its definition in the first line of IEP, quoted next: – Dcleve Sep 20 '21 at 23:33
  • @LennartRegebro -- "Moral Realism: The moral realist contends that there are moral facts, so moral realism is a thesis in ontology, the study of what is." https://iep.utm.edu/moralrea/ This is an explicit statement that what "is" includes "ought", therefore the study of "ought" can be a subject of science. Which contradicts the second clause of the second paragraph of your answer. – Dcleve Sep 20 '21 at 23:43
  • @LennartRegebro Additionally your interpretation of "Hume's Law" is noted as only one of many, in section 5 of the SEP on Hume:. Rather than a consensus, the SEP notes of this passage: "Few passages in Hume’s work have generated more interpretive controversy." Hence you also cannot validly cite Hume's Law and consensus in the same sentence! https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral/ – Dcleve Sep 20 '21 at 23:44
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    @Dcleve No, I did not say most academic philosophers are idiots. You simply do not understand what most academic philosophers say, and you also do not understand what I say. And then you apply your own fundamentally flawed logic on your misunderstandings and come to a conclusion that has no similarity to reality. I'm not gaslighting anyone, you are simply completely and utterly incorrect about everything you say. – Lennart Regebro Sep 21 '21 at 05:46
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/129837/discussion-between-lennart-regebro-and-dcleve). – Lennart Regebro Sep 21 '21 at 05:46
  • Forgive me what sounds like an impertinent question. Truly - what is your intention with the wanna-be classification? You are saying Ayn Rand was not a philosopher. But in what way was she not? She may have been well versed in the history of philosophy - yes this does not mean one is a philosopher because one knows history, so in light of Ayn Rand's status as a 'philosopher' (Wikipedia), why do you seem to claim she was only a wanna-be? Isn't anyone who asks "why" a philosopher? Or do you mean a person trained in a college on the subject of philosophy. Why is Ayn a wanna-be? –  Sep 22 '21 at 17:34
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    She is a wanna-be because nobody in philosophy actually takes her seriously. She is seen as an important philosopher only by her cult-like followers. – Lennart Regebro Sep 22 '21 at 18:35
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If  you take it as a given that "it's bad for there to be a universe which results in the worst possible outcome for all sentient beings" and presumably similarly that what is "good" is what results in the best possible outcome for all sentient beings, and if  you assume that you live in a universe obeying classical laws of physics (or you're willing to settle for quantum probabilities), and if  you have a computer with approximately the same amount of RAM as there are particles in the universe, then you would still  have the problem of dealing with a multi-valued objective function.

In calculating the "worst possible outcome for all sentient beings", do you weigh all sentient beings equally? Do you employ a hard cut-off in determining sentience? (E.g., how would a chimpanzee fit into all of this?)

So, no, it is not scientifically possible to determine good and evil, although given certain (philosophically inspired) assumptions  about what makes an action good and evil, it would be fair to say that science might allow us better guesses as to what actions are "good" and "evil".

Ben Hocking
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    It's worth pointing out that the reason that Harris uses the phrase "Moral Landscape" is because he is postulating the existence of a landscape in the sense of a solution space: I.E., we can't know, even in theory, if we are at THE universal maximum, but we can make observations about the local conditions and work from there. – philosodad Mar 05 '13 at 23:35
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Harris is either

  1. engaging in a bit of circular reasoning when he uses what is effectively a synonym for good ("well-being") to define good, or
  2. he is essentially grounding morality in what amounts to hedonism (which Dawkins more or less admits when he says that Harris bases his entire proposal on the removal of suffering).

(1) doesn't solve anything because it slips common notions of the good in through the back door. (2) opens up a Pandora's box of problems and consequences, some of which undermine Harris's other positions (e.g. biology doesn't prevent organisms, including humans, to evolve which experience pleasure/pain differently; if all activity, including science, becomes motivated only by pleasure, then why should the truth necessarily matter?; the questionable formulation of the common good and its raison d'être; and so on).

I wouldn't spend too much time on Harris's work. He's poorly versed in philosophy, and consequently philosophers don't take him very seriously (if I recall correctly, even Dennett once expressed serious reservations about Harris's competence in this area).

danielm
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    I don't think that you can make the statement that Dawkins admits something about Harris' argument. The argument does not belong to Dawkins, and he is not in a position to make admissions about it. Also, defining a term with a phrase or synonym is not circular reasoning. – philosodad Mar 05 '13 at 23:38
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Not surprisingly, most people here asserted that moral propositions are not under the scope of science. Perhaps it is one of the arguments to support the philosophical independence .

Generally, I agree with what most of the people here said, but I need to expound it further. Empirical inquiry does not solely refer to natural sciences if we are talking about moral philosophy. When we say Empirical or scientific inquiry, we simply refer to a meta-ethical justification stating that physical feelings can correspond to a certain moral value. Thus, hedonism and utilitarianism are forms of empirical justifications, because it equates goodness with pleasures. In a first glimpse, we cannot see any absurdity in that. After all if we are all satisfied, everything is good.

But ethical non-naturalism challenges this ethical justification. Ethical non-naturalism argues that combining pleasures and satisfactions cannot constitute to anything aside from being pleasurable. As such, the term "good" is not a physical property, rather it is an irreducible component of a particular action. Thus, an action should satisfy a certain objective standard to deductively justify the intrinsic goodness of an action. This means that the term good is not empirical and is not synonymous to pleasures, because we will still ask what made pleasures good or right?I am not saying that hedonism is wrong. I am just saying sciences can use hedonism to make morality entirely empirical. But it failed because goodness is not an empirical property.

There are also other attempts to make morality scientific, one of which is through psychology. It argues that external influences shape our moral convictions. According to these people, mind sciences give a better view about morality. However, these sciences only discuss the "motivation to act", and not cannot justify an action. Suppose that a person killed a rabbit, mind scientists would assert that a person did that because there are some uncontrollable impulses that forced that person. But this does not account for any moral value. Is it immoral or moral? Therefore, mind sciences only compliments moral philosophy after it has justified the value of an action. it is sound to say that John became immoral, because his peers are likewise, because we have defined immorality. But it is absurd to say that John is influenced by his peers to kill, thus killing is immoral.

joshua_atienza
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Science can tell you an awful lot about contingent oughts ("in order to achieve X you ought to do Y"), and it's not completely clear that non-contingent oughts even exist. (We like to think they do since it saves arguing about whether X is worth achieving, which ends up with the realization that we don't have a satisfyingly solid grounding for knowledge, etc..)

Unfortunately, Sam Harris doesn't really delve into the issue adequately; rather than making a spirited defense of the value of contingent oughts like e.g. Daniel Dennett does, he just expresses his feeling that of course science can tell you what you ought to do. (And not in a very impressive way, either--he starts with really clear cases where everyone agrees what to do and notes that adding a scientific perspective doesn't change anything, and then as far as I can tell dismisses the rest as details.)

Instead, it would have been nice if he had brought to bear the full force of contingency, including extinction if you screw up too badly. Harris' personal views seem to be very typically American--highly individualistic and happiness-based, in particular--which may explain in part why he didn't go in that direction. Happiness is great and all, and it's nice not to worry about people telling you what to do. But when one starts from "we're intelligent social primates in an indifferent and largely deadly universe", it's hard to get to a point where you don't start thinking it could potentially be a good idea to curtail individual freedoms to maintain environmental sanity, and that we should probably demand a much higher degree of attention to nurturing our offspring to enable them to make informed decisions about this complicated technological society we've built.

(Someone needs to write a book titled "Your Feelings are Trying to Make You Evolutionarily Fit in a Social Context".)

Anyway, I view the is/ought divide as probably much ado about nothing; I think when we end up fully exploring the force of contingent oughts, we may have enough. (In a way similar to coherentist views of knowledge--you can't perfectly ground things, but when everything you care about ties together, that's good enough.)

Rex Kerr
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As far as Good and bad are seen as relativistic terms, science can help to know whether the outcome of a cause will be good or bad, however the final judgement has to be done on by the intellects of man. A good is good because it helps to advance towards a predetermined goal. The means to achieve that goal has to be vetted on moral grounds, and I feel science doesn't have such faculties to vet the path taken and there is exactly where the difference emerge For example, lets say population growth of a country is increasing at a very high level, and it is required to reduce it. Science can't see why it should be wrong to end life of some to achieve this, as long as it is an option to serve the purpose, though morally it is wrong.

sarath
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  • So, if there are two contradicting goals, any action leading towards goal A will equally be against the goal B. What is the action in this case, a good or evil? – Be Brave Be Like Ukraine Nov 11 '12 at 05:51
  • If you make a system that works on a set standard, it can check whether the action is inclined towards A or B and tell accordingly whether it is good or evil. Just that, but it can't tell why it is good or why it is bad except that because it has been told so. There science fails and only intellects like human possess can help with that, that weighs the task on a moral ground and involves emotions with it. – sarath Nov 15 '12 at 16:06
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Science is wholly unable to tell us what should be. It can only tell us what is. If you imagine someone seeing a Lion tackling a Gazelle. Now we can in accordance with the scientific method perceive that the lion has killed the Gazelle. We can posit reasons as to why he does so. Maybe he is hungry. Maybe he is driven to survive and propagate.

Now can we use the scientific method to determine if the Lions SHOULD eat the Gazelle? No we cannot. Can we use the scientific method to determine if the Lion is being fair to the Gazelle? No we cannot. Science simply cannot answer these questions.

Now that does not make them not worthy of consideration. Neither does that mean we should a hold a view of agnosticism towards these questions. It simply means the scientific method cannot answer such a question.

It is to me a young budding scientist alarming to see such a claim. Atheism has no right to be spokes people for science as a whole. Neither does it have the right equate scientific enterprise with atheism.

You should remember that Sam Harris is only speaking for Sam Harris. His views are not the views of the scientific community as a whole. Their are many scientist on both sides of the religious divide which would disagree with him.

Neil Meyer
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  • "Science is wholly unable to tell us what should be." The position that Harris is taking is that this is simply not true. It isn't that he's unaware that this argument has been made, he *disagrees with that premise*. Also, in his definitions as put forward by the OP, morals don't apply to Lion behavior. – philosodad Mar 05 '13 at 23:41
  • Maybe my examples where a bit simplistic but I think my point is still valid. – Neil Meyer Mar 12 '13 at 10:27
  • You miss my point. The fact that morals don't apply to Lion behavior is secondary, the main point is that Harris simply *does not agree* with your premise. He is aware of your premise and has an argument for why your premise is wrong. You have not presented a valid argument or example which supports your premise, so from my perspective there is no reason to believe your point to be valid. – philosodad Mar 13 '13 at 01:14
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Yes, but that would require inclusion of concepts from Informations Theory, AI, Physics and coming up with some notion of Weighted Emotional Entropy and myriad of other conceptual structures that is by far beyound human comprehension, but when our superior robot overlords take over they will muse over how their human pets do a crude form of Philosophy and squable over definitions of good and evil instead of doing a simple (to them)compuation.The notion of Computational Philosophy Theory is maybe far beyound the reach of humans that can keep at most 7 things in their head but to a machine roaming over giga-tera flops of computational power will be just plain obvious.

Humans can be very well represenred as complex neural networks, and what ever that humans can perceive can also be modeled. Turing test will be turned around, those who pass it will be considered machines and those who don't will be the cute human pets.

To say that human morals can not be broken down to pure calculation is only short sighted arrogance on humans part.

PS: Instead of scientifically, good and evil can be computaionally calculated.

jimjim
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    I had a physics professor who used to say the simplest model of the universe that captures all of its behavior is the universe. That might be a slight oversimplification, but I think it's basically correct. Furthermore, there are sometimes good reasons why our complex neural networks make snap judgments instead of weighing all possibilities—sometimes if you take the computational time required to calculate an optimal solution, you've passed the time when that solution would apply. – Ben Hocking Jun 14 '11 at 01:47
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    @Ben, That is because the neural netwroks have been trained for some specific tasks, that is how we have survived as species this long. Yes it is a given that for human to try to calculate the optimal solution it might not feasible, but it doesn't mean that for higher beings it is also true. – jimjim Jun 14 '11 at 02:37
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    there are calculations that _just_ _can't_ _be_ _performed_ in even an infinite time on a Turing machine with infinite memory. I mean sure, if you want to posit entities that exist outside of logic, then anything is possible, but for entities operating within the realm of logic, there are real problems that can't be solved exactly, but for which _guesses_ sometimes suffice (such as the Halting Problem). – Ben Hocking Jun 14 '11 at 10:48
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    The Shadow of Consciousness: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25191522-the-shadow-of-consciousness provides an informative discussion of the failures of computationalism when it was applied to consciousness over the last several decades. Your optimism about computability of the universe is -- demonstrably misplaced. When one realizes that physics itself is underdetermined (QM is underdetermined, as are chaos phenomena), the failure of computationalism relative to consciousness is just one instance of its general insufficiency. – Dcleve Sep 08 '21 at 16:48
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It is only possible to scientifically determine what is good and what is evil if you allow operationally meaningful definitions of good and evil.

This is true of absolutely everything in science. Let's take the example of gravity. A theory of gravity is a theory that (very loosely speaking) answers the question "How do up and down work?".

But what if someone said, "I don't agree with your definition of 'up', or 'down', or 'direction'? I think all those things are subjective and that there's no reason to privilege your definition of 'up'?"

And the answer is that of course it wouldn't matter, because whatever word you used to describe "down", the phenomena of down would still be observable and measurable and you could make predictions about it and so forth.

Harris takes the position that "morality" relates to the well being of conscious creatures. You can take the position that you don't agree that morality relates to the well being of conscious creatures, but arguing semantics doesn't change the underlying phenomena.

Much like "up" or "down", the well being of conscious creatures is measurable, observable, and you can make predictions about what will promote it and what will not. So you can say "Harris isn't talking about morality, he's talking about wellbeing" and that's fine. He's at least talking about something.

Now, you could have an alternate definition of morality, and if that definition also focused on observable and measurable things, you would also be able to scientifically demonstrate what would and would not be moral. And if there's no consensus definition of morality, that's a bit of a problem for Harris.

For example, if I defined "good" as "there are sheep and cows, but more sheep than cows", then any action can be measured against whether it promotes the future existence of sheep and cows but ensures that there are always more sheep.

So we might ask why one definition of "good" is better than another. The answer that Harris gives is that, when it comes right down to it, people are always talking about wellbeing when they talk about morality. His claim is that he's just using the concept at the core of every definition.

Whether that is true or not is in some ways irrelevant. Harris concedes that you have to agree with his basic assumption that a state of universal, maximal suffering is maximally and universally undesirable for his argument to work. Anyone who brings up, say, the "is-ought" problem is rejecting this premise. I mean, fine. They've rejected his definitions. That isn't the same as addressing the argument. It isn't useful.

philosodad
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  • Your and Harris's approach both use opinions, the pretense that the answer to "Is it evil to torture and maim babies for entertainment?" isn't an opinion is -- silly. There are further opinions that you and Harris rely upon, to presume that there is a global rather than local answer to "what is good". This undercuts Harris's entire rationale. Additionally, what one ends up with if one answers yes to both questions, AND assumes that good==utilitarian maximization of hedonism, then one can possibly calculate "good". But this is bookkeeping, NOT science!!!! – Dcleve Sep 08 '21 at 17:17
  • @Dcleve I don't think you have understood what I said. At no time did I say that there is a global answer to the question "What is good" unless we agree on what we mean when we say "good". It's a question of definition. But the same is true of, say, gravity. If we don't agree on a definition of gravity, we can't make universal statements about it. – philosodad Sep 09 '21 at 22:16
  • I understood your post, and am noting flaws in it. There are many. Science does not start with definitions, but with a field of study, then observations, hypotheses, and testing. Postulating definitions is not science. The theory of gravity was not arrived at by postulating definitions, but by attempting to fit models to observations. And appealing to intuitions about whether morality is objective or not - is an appeal to opinions. So decrying "merely a matter of opinion", is self contradictory. I spelled these points out in more detail in my answer to the question. – Dcleve Sep 10 '21 at 05:05
  • @Dcleve Thank you for confirming that you did not understand my point. I'll work on editing it to make it more clear. – philosodad Nov 24 '21 at 03:15
  • I created a room for further discussion. and am offering some further comments there. https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/131749/harris-and-morality-as-a-science – Dcleve Nov 24 '21 at 17:22
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easy. good and bad are social scores, like nice and pain are biological ones. so everything that's advantegeous for this concrete society, considered good by its ethics. of course, societies are different (like species), so for example in Communism goal to become reach considered as bad, while in Capitalism it's good

but many, if not most things are good for any society. these are like biological instincts, i.e. things required for every animal to keep alive and get lot of children. in the same way, any society need that you will be ready to kill its enemies, work, create family, produce children, keep its religion/ideology, don't violate this particular society laws (written and non-written) and so on, so on

Bulat
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  • Please check out [how to write good answers](http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/help/how-to-answer) if you want to avoid spending a lot of time with answers that get downvoted. – iphigenie Jun 24 '13 at 12:55
  • i still don't see why it should be a bad answer, except that i don't follow existing phylosophies. it's easy to check that ethics is strictly defined by society needs like the pleasure and pain are defined by biological needs. probably everyone will be happy if i can make reference to famous old Philosoph, but i can't. although my view may be considered as developement of Marx philosophy who have said "social being determines consciousness".... Nevertheless, if someone need to SCIETIFICALLY determine what's good and bad - i propose the solid MATERIALISTIC theory. like no other? – Bulat Jun 24 '13 at 16:59
  • Then I will simply say that you are wrong. – iphigenie Jun 24 '13 at 17:07
  • thak you for the good answer. ok, i will add that it's impossible to answer a complex question is a short manner. obviously, people perform things that are bad for their own societies - just in the same way that auto sometimes don't ride. but ethics was created by society to force men to disregard their biological needs when they contradict to society needs. i suggest you to start studying from the common cases rather than search for contradictory ones, which you can find to any real-world theory. just for example - what cases of murder are moral? – Bulat Jun 24 '13 at 17:18
  • btw, are you agree at least that good/bad are SOCIAL MOTIVATION engines, like pleasure/pain are BIOLOGICAL ones? are you know a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasure_principle_(psychology) ? – Bulat Jun 24 '13 at 17:24
  • @Bulat Sticking with your terminology, emphasizing words by writing them in all-caps has a low social score. Try _italics_. –  Jun 24 '13 at 17:59
  • no problem. although for my eyes, italics is hardly distinguishable from the normal text – Bulat Jun 24 '13 at 18:29
  • No, I don't agree, and I think it's rather funny how you state it as if it's an obvious truth. – iphigenie Jun 24 '13 at 18:39
  • why not? i stay on the shoulders of giants – Bulat Jun 24 '13 at 19:21
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The very short answer is: No. The longer answer is to explain Harris's five mistakes:

  1. Harris starts with the mistaken view of "scientism" that all knowledge is scientific knowledge. But we have multiple fields of study, including fine arts, humanities, and areas of practical skills (engineering, technical, medical, organizational, etc) that are not "science". He therefore invalidly assumes that if we can arrive at any shared knowledge of a moral question, that makes morality a "scientific" question.
  2. Harris is further confused about what and how science, is, and operates. Science is an EXPLORATION process, not a bookkeeping one. Science investigations go through a set of stages: Exploration of a subject; speculation on its key features; informed exploration to better understand those features; postulating hypotheses; testing, then revising those hypotheses based on test results; development, then testing of formal theories; formalization of definitions and methodologies to solve most problems in the field. Harris's method does not fit into any of these stages of scientific inquiry, nor does he understand or include the crucial aspect of testing and falsification. What Harris is doing is NOT science.
  3. Harris's key assumption set -- both the priority of consciousness/sentience, and the presumption of goodness, along with his concern over moral action in the first place, are incompatible with his deterministic reductive materialism. If consciousness is no more than the operation of specific mechanical structures, then it ISN'T important, and does not justify any morality. And moral goodness -- is an abstract object, which is not material, and has no relevance in a a reductive material worldview. And if we are all determined, none of this discussion matters anyway. Harris's entire subject and starting assumptions are irrelevant in his overall worldview.
  4. Harris pretends he is doing non-subjective morality, but he is explicitly using subjective opinion to try to motivate his readers to accept the reality of morality. He is explicitly appealing to our moral sense, but then pretends one can then do morality without either justifying the validity of such an appeal, or making any further appeals.
  5. Harris's approach to morality is to assume both hendonism for an individual == good, and that good is and should be optimized through utilitarian calculus. This has several problems: 5a) Most moral thinkers believe that hedonism fails to capture the essence of morality. Care for OTHERS, empathy, is a far more central concept than the maximization of pleasures or minimization of pains. And WELFARE matters a lot more than pleasure or pain. And the object of moral calculation is not obviously an individual. From a Darwinian perspective, it should be the species. OR, from a deep ecology perspective, it should be the entire biome -- Gaia. From a social perspective, it should be the community. At any rate, there are lot of alternatives to hedonistic utilitarianism that most moral thinkers consider to better capture morality. 5b) Utilitarian calculus -- simply does not work. Even form a hedonistic framework, one CANNOT calculate the sum of pleasure and pain, or any choice. Even if one excludes all other living things, and treats all humans as equal experiencers. Add in the problem of scale of importance of a consciousness, and how to account for future lives, and the level of impossibility goes up by several degrees. And then if one tries to switch to welfare -- that isn't measurable. And adding in the other levels of objects to optimize for: society, species, ecosystem, biome, galaxy -- the absurdity of Harris's project should be readily apparent.

So -- the long answer is NO, as well.

BUT -- there is a way in which Harris has hit upon a partially valid point. One CAN get from "is to ought", IF our intuitions about "ought" are valid, because those intuitions are an "is". But to do this, one:

  • FIRST has to establish an ontology in which consciousness and selves matter, and in which there are relevant moral choices to be made. Acceptance that abstract objects seem to be real, and that the "hard problem of consciousness" suggests that consciousness does not reduce, hence reductive materialism isn't valid, is all that is needed. One can operate with a pragmatic openness to both the reality of consciousness and abstract objects, without commitment to a single ontology.
  • SECOND one has to establish that intuitions of morality give valid information about morality. There are two methods I have seen to do so. Eusocial darwinian theory holds that eusocial species need to enforce common welfare, and evolution could reasonably used our moral intuitions to do so -- making moral intuitions valid at least up to the level of species. Or, if one accepts that abstract objects exist, then a moral sense implies that it was evolved to detect a real object -- abstract morality.
  • THIRD, one then has to deal with the obvious contradictions in moral sense person/person and society/society. The eusocial answer is that eusociality does not rely upon the details of a moral intuition, just its existence, hence lots of contradictory moral views are equally eusocially good. The abstraction detection view would hold that our moral sense is weak, hence often in error, and one must integrate moral intuitions across large numbers of people and societies for them to be valid. The combination of these two views would predict that societies could and would maintain objectively flawed moral systems to maintain social cohesion, and its members would tend to ignore their intuitive objections to the immorality (dogma trumps conscience).

Complete these three steps, and one can then begin a study of objective morality based on "is". This would not be a science yet, as the subject is far too immature, but could at some point emerge from philosophy as a new science.

Dcleve
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I present my own theories and wish to debate logical arguments for or against them. Please don't dismiss everything just because I don't have enough evidence to backup my points because proving any theory comes after the theory, and before theory comes mere speculation.

Yes it is but only if you use purely logical definitions of the words "good" and "evil" and exclude emotions and opinions from determining what is good and evil. For a non opinionated, non-emotional answer to even be possible, we have to consider evil as being the opposite of good and only consider intention (or law of physics), not end result.

What really is good and evil (short answer)

  • Good = pure selflessness
  • Evil (ungood, not necessarily wicked) = pure selfishness or more accurately, pure lack of selflessness

NB This is not based on emotion, but the theory and logic that I have explained in the long answer below.

What really is good and evil (long answer with logical explanation)

  • Good = consciousness
  • Evil (ungood, not necessarily wicked) = material

If you define "evil" as being wicked, then this is not possible, as what constitutes being wicked is purely a matter of opinion. If we define "evil" as being the opposite of good, then we have something logical we can work with. The opposite of good is "goodless" or "ungood", not wicked. Therefore the word "evil" is ambiguous. Evil can't mean both "wicked" and the opposite of good, otherwise the opposite of light would not be dark. To avoid this ambiguity and so that we have something logical we can work with, I'll refer to "evil" as "goodless". Neither "goodless" or "ungood" are in the dictionary, however, it's more important to use words with the right meaning, than the wrong words just because they are in the dictionary.

If you exclude consciousness, the laws of physics describe "goodless". The second law of thermodynamics, "In a closed system, the entropy always stays the same or increases". A closed system is simply a system without consciousness, and entropy is chaos. One way of looking at it, is without good, things either stay the same or become more chaotic. All the laws of physics that describe the material world describe "goodless". Therefore, all material on it's own is goodless, and the laws of physics already describe its behaviour.

The laws of physics do not describe "good" though. Considering ungood = material, good must mean the opposite of material and be described by laws of physics that are the opposite of what describe "ungood". That's because the laws of physics do not describe consciousness. Some people live in a messy environment because they lack the conscious effort to keep it tidy but how many people live in a messy environment because they put a conscious effort in to intentionally create a mess? That was just a simply example but the same is true with much more complicated mess that we are not always aware of. Consciousness always seeks to lower chaosness. A computer without consciousness, is purely ungood, and that includes our brains too. The laws of consciousness are the exact opposite of the laws of physics describing material. Material is finite, consciousness is infinite. The entropy increases on its own without consciousness, the entropy decreases with consciousness. It's similar to electricity taking the path of least resistance. It's as if electricity is consciously aware of it's circuits and to avoid increasing entropy, it takes the path of least resistance. On it's own consciousness does not have free will. How can it, considering it's impossible for it to break the laws of consciousness and seek to intentionally create overall chaoticness? When consciousness increases entropy, it's because its being manipulated by something that is not conscious. A persons consciousness may control their brain but their consciousness will only act on what information it has. Therefore, a persons brain, can manipulate the persons consciousness, and considering it only cares about balancing emotions, why wouldn't it? Selflessness, only comes from consciousness, and selfishness is simply a lack of consciousness. We have freewill because we have a purely selfish brain that's manipulates our purely selfless consciousness and vice versa. People can do wicked things when they have a weak soul and a corrupt brain, but their soul is still pure good, and their brain pure ungood. They can't exist without each other.

This doesn't mean we should all become pacifists by avoiding chaos in order to be good. For example, long term it may be far less chaotic fighting for your rights, despite the immediate chaos. When is war ever the right thing? Simply when its the most peaceful option long term which is very rare. Self defence, protect the oppressed etc may justify it but never personal gain or money.

How it relates to morality and the justice system

As for morality, as described in the article, I think people just need to think about the differences between justice and revenge. Killing or locking up a murderer is an act of revenge, if you do it because you think they deserve it. However, of course they should at least be locked up but for logical reasons, not emotional ones. There are two reasons. One, they can't kill innocent people behind bars, and two, to reduce the likely hood of other people committing murders. How we should treat those that do wrong can't be described by science because the extent you should go to depends largely on variables, such as how effective is the punishment and how much it deters others from doing the same. You also have to consider the well being of those that are punished and decide what is better for everyone as a whole. For something very serious like child rape, their well being becomes insignificant. It's logical to make them suffer for their entire life if it reduces the chance of others doing the same but for minor crimes like shoplifting, its not so clear. Surely it's better a shop goes out of business from losing money due to shoplifting, than to eliminate it eliminate theft by making thieves afraid to be tortured. When the fear of making mistakes is worse than the consequences to everyone of making those mistakes, you're doing more harm than good.

How does it relate to religion?

It doesn't if you take things literally. You have to think in metaphors. Why would God create the devil? Consciousness can't exists without a physical universe otherwise there would be nothing to be conscious of. Good creates evil so that good can exist. Since consciousness seeks to reduce entropy, it has to exist to be able to reduce entropy. It doesn't need to exist at the time of the big bang though. The zero point energy field interacts with everything past, present and future through quantum fluctuations. All it would take for quantum fluctuations to create our universe so precisely, is the ability to make nothingness fluctuate and a brain to make the calculations with. Outside of space time, cause doesn't come before effect. Before and after become irrelevant and you are just left with infinite possibilities. It might sound paradoxical an all knowing consciousness using it's brain so that it can create a brain to figure out if and how it should create a universe to evolve into a brain, but it's not because no laws of physics are broken. It just needs two things to be possible. For nothingness to be able to fluctuate, (quantum fluctuations) and to use the information from quantum fluctuations. The former is a necessity for evolution to occur. Evolution requires fluctuations. The latter only needs to be possible to be possible. If it's possible to be possible, then the universe can exist to make it possible to exist and decide that it should exist, provided it will do what it takes to make it possible and no laws of physics are broken, it's a possibility. It gives everything a purpose because for the universe to function as a brain, it requires to stars to be alive, which requires living planets, such as Earth. Earth is only alive because it has life on it. Our purpose could be to spread life to other planets.

Dan Bray
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  • You have an opinion on what is good and bad. OK. Loads of people have. Those opinions are based on your emotions. "exclude emotions and opinions from determining what is good and evil." Apparently not. – Lennart Regebro Sep 19 '21 at 05:09
  • @LennartRegebro The fact that I am arguing that my answer is scientific and logical, does that not mean I am either right or wrong? I know using what I believe is logical to backup my points isn't enough. I need both evidence and to dispute any criticisms with fact. I wish to do so but at the moment that's not possible. I am trying to encourage debate, and the first step to proving any theory, is thinking of the theory. Can you be more constructive in your criticism? In what way am I using emotions and opinions for my answer? Do you have any logical arguments against any of my points? – Dan Bray Sep 22 '21 at 14:57
  • @LennartRegebro Did you just read the short answer? The short answer is not based on emotion, it is based on my theory that is explained in the long answer. – Dan Bray Sep 22 '21 at 16:26
  • I read them both, they are just a pile of opinion, with no logical basis or even internal consistency. Nowhere do you scientifically determine what is good or evil. You would have to start with things that are incontestable facts, and from that derive a morality. You instead start with defining good and evil. You can't do that. You must scientifically derive them. – Lennart Regebro Sep 22 '21 at 16:55
  • @LennartRegebro I had to start with defining good and evil because it is literally impossible to answer the question without doing so. It means my answers can only be correct according the definitions I've given but unfortunately, that's an unavoidable limitation. If my science is correct, does it not fit with the definitions I've given? I know I haven't proven the science is correct but surely that is not a matter of opinion, as it's either correct, incorrect, or partly correct. The main reason I'm answering the question is because I want proof and to start a debate to seek the needed proof. – Dan Bray Oct 02 '21 at 18:28
  • A definition is not a scientific determination. The question is "Is it possible to scientifically determine good and evil?" You did not do that. The reason you did not do that is because it's impossible. If you wonder why it is impossible, I suggest you ask that as a question. Meanwhile, I repeat: You defining good and evil according to your opinion is NOT a scientific determination. – Lennart Regebro Oct 03 '21 at 19:28
  • @DanBray your answer here, and other questions and answers you have posted, rely upon incorrect meanings for logic, science, and mathematics. You would be well served by reading philosophy textbooks for a philosophy of science class, a logic class, and a philosophy of mathematics class. – Dcleve Nov 28 '22 at 00:19