I apologize in advance if this isn’t the longest or most nuanced post I’ve ever written but I believe it’s important enough that I want to record some thoughts while they are still fresh in my mind. I also apologize for the fact that I am offering critique of a book I have not yet had a chance to read but being in grad school and in the midst of a thesis somewhat limits my available time and brain power. So those disclaimers aside, I want to talk about Sam Harris’ new book The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.

Sam Harris is a well known author, neuroscientist and atheist who has gained prominence for his criticism of faith and organized religion. I am more familiar with who he is than the specifics of what he has said in the past so that is part of why I’m wanting to tread carefully with this topic. Anyway, his latest book is essentially an argument that we can use math and science to empirically prove human rights and moral values. This has long been a field which theology and philosophy have had exclusive domain over with science being relegated to field on which moral judgments are imposed rather than one they are derived from. Does that make sense? Harris’ point is that there are value judgements which have in the past been made based on theoretical philosophical or theological arguments which can be made instead based on empirical scientific fact. For example, murder is wrong because people have value as economic, scientific and creative agents in society and when we remove them (by killing them) it harms the good of society as a whole. Dead people don’t spend money, do research, or create great works of art.

Where I think this argument falls apart–and where I’m sure Harris’ argument gets more nuanced in his book and why I need to and would like to read it–is when you start applying this logic to more difficult situations. Saying that murder, rape, theft, etc. are wrong is a fairly easy argument to make. But the problem with introducing empirical values to things like ethics and morality is that you must begin to make mathematical judgements about the relative values of those things. If we base our system of ethics and morality in an empirical values system it becomes not just possible but necessary to then say thing x is better or more valuable than thing y. Adults have more rights and value than children because children are incapable–or at least less capable–of contributing to society. Disabled persons are of less value than non-disabled persons because they can never repay society for the extra resources they require. Do you see my point?

One of the examples Harris does give of a more nuanced situation where we can say something is empirically “bad” is the Taliban. Their treatment of women, strict rule through Sharia law and the often brutal justice metered out on those who break the law are “bad” for humanity. My question for Harris though is what are we morally allowed to do in opposition to them? Just War theory, flawed as it may be, is an attempt–ideally–to say that while murder and violence are wrong, sometimes there are situations in which we must commit moral wrongs in order to stop greater wrongs from taking place. While this works in a theological and philosophical framework that allows for imperfection and gray areas, I don’t know if the same argument holds true in a scientific system. In an empirical, mathematic, scientific system shouldn’t questions of morality have definitive answers? I believe Harris even says as much that even those things we don’t have an answer for do have an answer out there waiting to be discovered. So if I can prove scientifically that my killing another being is for the betterment of society, am I not justified in doing so?

So those are some thoughts I’ve been thinking the last few days. I by no means have the answers to these questions. Humans have been struggling with right and wrong for thousands of years–these are difficult and nuanced issues and people on both sides have good points to make. At a more personal level, I am saddened when Harris paints what I feel are unfairly broad strokes about issues of morality and justice in organized religion. When he calls out the Catholic church for being more concerned for dogma than people I think there are probably some examples where that is the case, but it also misses a rich tradition of people of faith fighting for justice and human rights. I myself am deeply motivated by my faith to seek justice. To the end that Harris is raising the debate over inherent human worth and moral values and pushing it into the public light I applaud him and think this is something very important that we need to be talking about. But if his goal is to use an empirical morality to tear down people of faith who are doing good, just work but are motivated by something Harris finds reprehensible, I am saddened.

What do you think? Do you believe we can scientifically “prove” morality? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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Here’s a link to the book on Amazon and a small interview with Harris on the same page: The Moral Landscape

Filed under: life by Jonathan