Does anyone own "The Moral Landscape"?

[I_am_not_mafia]

Is Sam Harris talking about something he knows nothing about again?

Does he refer to brain scans? Or is he reaching further than his own field?

[Angrboda]

You have the gas pedal, faster, and the break pedal, slower, on the floor by your feet.  Dur.

Wait, I was asking how you can drop to a lower gear when wanting to accelerate faster. A gas pedal won't do that. It will put you into a higher gear when you go faster.

If I'm not mistaken, flooring it actually puts you into a lower gear. But I'm open to evidence either way. (If I'm not mistaken, putting it into a higher gear would reduce the ratio of power to wheel rotation resulting in you going slower. It is the increase of that ratio which causes you to speed up. But then, I could just be pulling this all from my ass.)

[I_am_not_mafia]

Wait, I was asking how you can drop to a lower gear when wanting to accelerate faster. A gas pedal won't do that. It will put you into a higher gear when you go faster.

If I'm not mistaken, flooring it actually puts you into a lower gear.  But I'm open to evidence either way.

Was just googling this myself. It's called kick down apparently. Still doesn't help with snow and long slopes downwards though, although admittedly those are rare situations depending on where you live.

And I think this is what it comes down to. If you have large open roads and a very low speed limit I can imagine that an automatic makes things easier. Driving around the windy roads of the highlands of Scotland though is a different matter. It can be a lot of fun until you get stuck behind a slow tourist in an automatic cruising along at 40-50mph. And there is absolutely no way to overtake them either.

[robvalue]

That sounds about right. It appears he just announces morality to be exactly what he says it is, and then hand-waves away all other possibilities (including Hume's guillotine), with next to no explanation. It appears to serve no practical purpose whatsoever, as he covers nothing more nuanced than, "Be nice or kill people". It's a really long-winded way to arrive at a conclusion most people agree with anyway. Moral dilemmas don't seem to be addressed at all.

I think that people put far too much stock into moral dilemmas, as though their existence is indicative of a flaw in a moral system.  All sufficiently complex value systems will necessitate dilemma.  If my entire schema was I like chocolate - I would never have any dilemma at the ice cream isle.  The moment I add just one other flavor...well. 

I was reading a few summaries and some criticism of the book and he does mention that even within his own utilitarian hedonism..there is more than one way to flourish..some of them at odds with each other.  

What problems do you see arising from the is-ought issue?

The dilemmas show that you can't simply "use science" to decide answers. It's a matter of assigning weight to competing outcomes and undesirable but necessary effects.

Well, I think Hume is totally correct that you can't get an "ought" from an "is". Every attempt I've ever seen is circular at best, and applies only to the person attempting the bridge the gap (and anyone who happens to agree with them on every moral issue). There's no universal "ought" available, without simply announcing it as a result of personal or group values.

Is Sam Harris talking about something he knows nothing about again?

Does he refer to brain scans? Or is he reaching further than his own field?

Yes, and yes. From the video, he apparently talks a lot about neuroscience and seems to put an awful lot of stock in it as far as morality goes. This causes a lot of problems which he doesn't seem to address. Due to his consequentialism, the method by which you go about things, and your intent, don't seem to matter.

[FatAndFaithless]

I read the Moral Landscape a while back so i could be forgetting some things, but I think it's pretty disingenuous to say Harris' position is "simply use science" to answer moral questions, as if it's a panacea that will reveal moral truths. It's more that the wall between objective facts and moral values is not some impenetrable magic barrier and that the two are not a pair of non-overlapping magisteria (to steal a phrase from Gould).

[The Grand Nudger]

I think that people put far too much stock into moral dilemmas, as though their existence is indicative of a flaw in a moral system.  All sufficiently complex value systems will necessitate dilemma.  If my entire schema was I like chocolate - I would never have any dilemma at the ice cream isle.  The moment I add just one other flavor...well. 

I was reading a few summaries and some criticism of the book and he does mention that even within his own utilitarian hedonism..there is more than one way to flourish..some of them at odds with each other.  

What problems do you see arising from the is-ought issue?

The dilemmas show that you can't simply "use science" to decide answers.

Not at all.  If I called the many answers to the question "How is flight achieved" dilemmas..would that demonstrate that one can't use science to decide answers?  

It's a matter of assigning weight to competing outcomes and undesirable but necessary effects.

Sure.  I think that this is what Harris thinks science can help us to determine.

Well, I think Hume is totally correct that you can't get an "ought" from an "is". Every attempt I've ever seen is circular at best, and applies only to the person attempting the bridge the gap (and anyone who happens to agree with them on every moral issue). There's no universal "ought" available, without simply announcing it as a result of personal or group values.

The is ought problem is not that you can't get from one to the other, Hume contended that one required an evaluative premise to do so. This is one of the places I think Harris communicated poorly. He has one, he talks about it alot, but he never comes out and says "if" your goal (or the goal of morality) is x.....then one can take how something is, in reference to that x, and derive an ought. It's implicit in his contention, though.

(it's kindof his gimmick all the time, from the discussions we've had about the guy on the boards, and his arguments. He stacks the necessary assumptions into the first move, and having agreed with them..the rest follows, even if it follows in an unsatisfying way)

[I_am_not_mafia]

In terms of brain scans I am not sure what their worth would be in determining morality. All they can tell is what parts of the brain are receiving more blood flow and therefore are more active. While each part of the brain performs a different function, this can still only tell us what is normal for our species.

You need a principle such as to minimise suffering before you can use science to determine how to most effectively go about that. And then if you did that I am sure you'd end up with some unintended consequences such as destroying all life on Earth.

Science is a tool that we can use to gather information and tell us how to achieve things. I am not sure it should be making our decisions for us. Once you get into doing that, you're running into the same problems that we fear can come from Artificial Intelligence.

[robvalue]

I accept all the criticisms of my evaluations of the book. It's very weedy of me to be throwing out judgements based on some other guy's video, without having read the book. This sounded like a much better idea in my head!

[Mister Agenda]

I've read it, and I may still have it around someplace if I haven't given it away. I makes many interesting and sound points, it's chief failing in my opinion, is that Harris seems to set out to derive 'an ought from an is', and does not succeed at that. He provides some interesting insights on how to leverage an 'ought' to an 'is' with the aid of another 'is'.

[The Grand Nudger]

In terms of brain scans I am not sure what their worth would be in determining morality. All they can tell is what parts of the brain are receiving more blood flow and therefore are more active. While each part of the brain performs a different function, this can still only tell us what is normal for our species.

You need a principle such as to minimise suffering before you can use science to determine how to most effectively go about that. And then if you did that I am sure you'd end up with some unintended consequences such as destroying all life on Earth.

Science is a tool that we can use to gather information and tell us how to achieve things. I am not sure it should be making our decisions for us. Once you get into doing that, you're running into the same problems that we fear can come from Artificial Intelligence.

Right, and that's nestled in Harris position, that's the principle he's using, that's his evaluative premise.  It's how he goes from an is to an ought, and what he intends to measure.

If a person agrees to that (they may think there are other considerations, but as long as they agree that this is among those considerations) then we can use science to determine which behaviors have the best outcomes, and that this can form the basis of a more rational and lucid approach to normative ethics.  

Destroying all life on earth is to inflict the greatest possible suffering on the maximum amount of beings.  Harris, and he makes this argument alot, lol...considers this the very definition of bad.  If this is not bad, then nothing is bad. I think the best criticism of his position, one that sticks far beyond poor wording....comes in the form of a compliment,lol. He's great at the good and the bad, not so much at the right and the wrong.

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He provides some interesting insights on how to leverage an 'ought' to an 'is' with the aid of another 'is'.

is-ought bad.

is-if-if-ought good.