HE DID IT HE ACTUALLY DID IT, THE ABSOLUTE MAD MAN. HE SOLVED THE IS–OUGHT PROBLEM

It works so well that it would be crazy to think 1/3 is muslim.

Right? Oh wait.

1/3 of the world*

When is he going to solve the Islam problem?

>Harris contends that the only moral framework worth talking about is one where "morally good" things pertain to increases in the "well-being of conscious creatures". He then argues that, problems with philosophy of science and reason in general notwithstanding, 'moral questions' will have objectively right and wrong answers which are grounded in empirical facts about what causes people to flourish.

>Challenging the traditional philosophical notion that humans can never get an 'ought' from an 'is', Harris argues that moral questions are best pursued using not just philosophy, but the methods of science. Thus, "science can determine human values" translates to "science can tell us which values lead to human flourishing".

Remember when we made fun of that technocratic guy for using empty buzzwords to define what is good?
We found his teacher.

Harris finds new and increasingly stupid ways to disappoint me.

Sam Harris is truly the greatest intellectual of our age. I especially like it when he [inhales deeply through nose].

>using empty buzzwords

"science can determine human values" translates to "science can tell us which values lead to human flourishing".

Isn't this just telling us what is?

It doesn't seem to me that the "is, ought" problem is solved by creating a system in which objective statements can be made, as it still only tells us what is, (which value IS going to lead to human flourishing) but not why we ought care about human flourishing.

I personally don't think we should actually care whether something is objectively moral or not and that systems can show us what IS advantageous to us, thus being useful in that way, but I don't pretend this 'solves' the is ought problem, it just disregards it.

I haven't read Harris' books, so this isn't necessarily aimed at him, just the argument presented in that post.

Not to mention "human flourishing" is no more clear than just saying "the good" or whatever. It's just kicking the can further down the road.

>Remember when we made fun of that technocratic guy for using empty buzzwords to define what is good?
Shit, I remember that thread. And yeah, Sam Harris is basically that guy, but even more smug.

Sam Harris might actually really be the guy that technocratic guy got his idea from. He is a very present public intellectual in the Anglosphere. For example, he visited just about every English philosophy podcast I can think of (and was very charismatic in the instances I heard him), and his book sells well.

Are you seriously suggesting that 1/5 (Islam is ~20% of world population, not 33%) of the world is muslim because Qu'ran is just so convincing? Not because of tradition and social conditioning like all other religions?

Is Sam Harris the biggest joke of the new atheist mouvement?

>Utilitarianism sucking some science cock
>Solving something

Pick one.

the is-ought problem was solved by the person who coined the term

well its convincing among stupid people.

Yes, and that's quite an accomplishment given the stiff competition

That would be PZ Myers.

Will he go nuclear?

I like Sam Harris, but I'm very open to him being wrong, although I never hear anybody address his points. When people criticize him on the Internet him it's only the "look at him and laughs" type of responses.

>SCIENCE IS GOD

I don't really see what the problem is. Morality based on wellbeing seems to make the most sense. We should act in ways that promote health, freedom, and peace.

>health, freedom, and peace
How did we arrive at these?

>should

They are aspects of wellbeing.

Guess what, all morality is about what we "should" do, it's literally the purpose of the field.

And why not act in ways that promote justice, wealth, and security instead?

You can find an almost infinite number of things that the vast majority of the population would agree are good things.

However, pursuit of one usually requires the sacrifice of another.

I'm not exactly an expert on the is-ought problem but this doesn't sound like a solution to the is-ought problem at all.

How that? It's exactly a solution to the is-ought problem.

The way I understood it that "wellbeing" refers to a nutritional and physiological health for individuals, and a society that is free from undue psychological stress factors. For instance some of the examples he uses is imagine two societies that are identical except for one of them practices female genital mutilation for seemingly no benefit. We can identify this is an detractor of wellbeing, so that society would be less moral than the other.

>he way I understood it that "wellbeing" refers to a nutritional and physiological health for individuals, and a society that is free from undue psychological stress factors.

And what makes those factors more important than other factors, such as personal safety, a socially reinforcing environment, the ability for people with talent to make use of it? Or anything else I can come up with out of my ass?

>. For instance some of the examples he uses is imagine two societies that are identical except for one of them practices female genital mutilation for seemingly no benefit.

And if you asked someone from that society why they practiced female genital mutilation, I'm sure they'd have a reason, probably to do with sexual purity and female promiscuity that he or she would consider extremely important.

To claim that this is wrong requires you to make a value judgment concerning the nature of your morals, based on nutritional and physiological health, against that other person's morals, based on whatever notions they have. What basis are you using to assert the primacy of your system, other than a collection of statements about what is, and not what ought to be, that your system promotes things like bodily health?

> We can identify this is an detractor of wellbeing, so that society would be less moral than the other.

But you've only identified this as a detractor of well-being by asserting that you consider things like nutritional and physiological health as your primary goals, and not why those goals should be more important than other goals.

You gotta start somewhere, wellbeing based on psychical properties of real human existence seems like a good place to start.

>To claim that this is wrong requires you to make a value judgment concerning the nature of your morals
No. You can argue that a way to maximize human flourishing is better or worse than another. This is an empirical question.

>You gotta start somewhere, wellbeing based on psychical properties of real human existence seems like a good place to start.

Again, why? I could say that the well being of humans based on social properties is more important than physical properties, and draw an entirely different set of conclusions based on the different axioms.

He gets away from the Is-Ought problem by insisting that his moral framework is "the only one worth talking about", and then working from there, because what he views as the most important factors are pretty objectively measurable.

Like the other user upthread said, that's not solving the problem, it's just ignoring it.

> You can argue that a way to maximize human flourishing is better or worse than another. This is an empirical question.

No it isn't. I can argue that "human flourishing" requires a necessary stepping away from carnal pleasure otherwise life will degenerate into one big unproductive orgy, bad for all sorts of reasons. All humans should undergo genital mutilation to reduce sexual pleasure and thus sexual temptation.

I have just made an argument towards maximization of human flourishing which requires genital mutilation, by adopting a different definition of "human flourishing" than you did, because your definition is simply asserted on a primacy of physiolgical health, which you can't defend without resorting to "ought" statements.

It's not even an argument I believe in, but for fuck's sake, can you really be this blind to your own argumentative structure? You haven't solved the Is-Ought problem at all. You've axiomatically accepted a series of assumptions about what "ought" is the correct one, and then worked from that, nothing more.

Basically he's saying that while Hume claims we can't have any moral knowledge because of the is-ought problem, Harris is claiming that we CAN have moral knowledge because we can base the answers to moral questions on scientific studies which measure what moral systems cause humanity to prosper the most.

However I don't think that method necessarily applies to everything. There are some moral decisions that might have the same outcome but are different in principle.

>Isn't this just telling us what is?
I think the idea is that we can use what is, and various theoretical scenarios describing what might be, combined with a scientific method to deduce which scenario is the most profitable, and thus decide what ought to be.

And if you reject utilitarianism?

SCIENCE IS GOD SCIENCE IS GOD SCIENCE IS GOD

Well then according to him you're wrong, because any other moral system is "not worth considering". Which seems to be a flaw in the argument, unless he has some reasoning to support that.

Nice shitpost m8

Without God, there is no objective basis for morality.

Knowing that, this atheist has placed Science as the objective basis for morality in stead of God.

SCIENCE IS GOD SCIENCE IS GOD SCIENCE IS GOD

This is as simple as A=B, A=C, therefore A=C.

>And this is proof even simple shit can be fucked up.

>I could say that the well being of humans based on social properties is more important than physical properties

People die without food.

You sound extremely butthurt

lol what is this shit

fuck off retard

It's wry commentary on the sad state of people who will believe folks so dense they can't figure out there's a God.

>Without God, there is no objective basis for morality.
proofs?

The "solution" this atheist proposes is to place Science as the objective basis for morality in place of God.

SCIENCE IS GOD SCIENCE IS GOD SCIENCE IS GOD is my way of mocking him.

Yes.

The complete and utter lack of objective substitutes and the absolute failure of subjective ones.

really, just fuck off

Which is again an assertion that physiological well-being is primary.

Suppose we have a societal breakdown. There is no law, real Mad Max stuff. A traveling warband comes over to your house and announces that they've enslaved you. If you resist, they'll kill you, no get the fuck to work on fixing their engines or they'll kill you.

Is it explicitly immoral to refuse to be enslaved at the cost of your life? Because a necessary corollary of your argument seems to be that this is the case.

Do you have any proofs of that stuff?

This is a user belonging to a group known as 'christcucks' having an autistic fit. Just look at it in all its splendor. Look at the user as he uses bad sarcasm and namecalling to 'demonstrate' how 'foolish' the viewpoint he opposes is and how 'brilliant' his specific interpretation of a subset of a certain religion is.

Why, yes, user. People wearing an unfashionable hat totally means your worldview is right about everything. Tell us more, and please, do it in the most cringe inducing, anti social fashion possible

Divine Command theory is just one system of morality, and it's fairly broken in light of awareness of wider religious practices. The ancient Greeks rejected it before Christianity even existed.

This is true, but you need to base your scientific inquiry on whichever values you care to uphold. Please read and

What if I define "morally good" to be things that pertain to a decrease in the suffering of conscious creatures? I can now justify things like wealth redistribution and chemical/surgical suppression of negative emotions as moral.

What if I define "my dick" into "your mom's mouth"

>This is as simple as A=B, A=C, therefore A=C.
And yet you people hold stupid crap like the trinity as dogma.

I think the majority of modern ethicists would like to have a word with you.

>Harris argues that moral questions are best pursued using not just philosophy, but the methods of science.
I like the idea.. I'm up for it.
>science can tell us which values lead to human flourishing".
Stopped right there.. FFS, this bullshit pisses me off.
Morality is relative to the relationship between people. There's no fucking "Human morality"; it's bullshit globalism and progressivism.
>Lead to human flourishing
Hence the "progressive" part.

“Persuade thyself that imperfection and inconvenience are the natural lot of mortals, and there will be no room for discontent, neither for despair.”
―Tokugawa Ieyasu

Anything "progressive" is just a byproduct of anxieties created by imposed conditions like capitalism, statism, laws, etc.

Does he define "human flourishing"? Does he explain how to gain the information, whether it be history, statistics etc.?

Sounds like you got deep brain memes, user.

Why is humanity flourishing inherently a good? I'm not an anti-natalist by any stretch, but it seems to be an unsupported premise.

Hardly. He at least tries to engage in philosophy and sees some value to spiritualism.

No, that would be Richard "Godfather of Memes" Dawkins. Sam is pretty based.

I haven't read the book, but maybe he makes a better supporting case for it within the book itself.

Then my mother's mouth would be your penis, and conversely your penis my mother's mouth. She has to eat through a straw, and you have a horizontal vagina.

How can one man be so based?

Remove the "objective" shit and keep the "science can tell us about morality" bits. Just stop pretending that you have the objectively right answer. There will always be room for improvement.

I think Hitchens is the best and the worst simultaneously.
Dennet is just a kook and most scientist's see him as such. Dawkins has done some quality work on introductory science pieces.

Sam is just a boring intellectual light weight whose ideas have been peddled hundreds of times and they have been wrong just as many times when it comes to philosophy at least. The irony of his philosophical positions is they rely on things like pre-existing moral criteria, free-will and concrete definitions, all unfounded assertions that if you take for granted you might as well just believe a god did it, it's just as unfounded and stupid.

His views on politics are laughable to the extreme. When someone tells me "George W. Bush's intention was to make Iraq/afghan like Nebraska." I cant help but laugh, everyone at the Pentagon basically admits its a war for oil, creating a defensive stronghold against the rest of the middle east and forcing most of the world to use our currency to buy "our" resources from their state. The only person who still believes in the good intentions of George W. is Sam.

Honestly 10/10 post OP.

>Harris contends that the only moral framework worth talking about is one where "morally good" things pertain to increases in the "well-being of conscious creatures".

Wow he invented utilitarianism

I think this is what irritates me about him the most. He clearly doesn't know shit about philosophy, and always thinks he invents some idea of thought, and it's always a very shallow form of the line of thought.

>Dennet is just a kook
Dennet has actually made some legit contributions to philosophy, albeit in other areas.

Harris (and probably Hitchens too, you're right) are the worse, because unlike Dennet and Dawkins who have at least done some quality work in other fields, he's never produced anything but shit.

>Isn't this just telling us what is?

Yes but for Harris "what is" is equivalent to "what makes us flourish". Since he contends that human flourishing is the only moral framework worth considering, it follows that the "what ought we to do" is directly related to "what is" in a why that lets us quantize it and analyse our progress towards "moral good" (human flourishing) with empirical methods (seeing "what is" and comparing it to "what was" a year or more ago)

>not why we ought care about human flourishing.

You're a human. You don't think your own flourishing is worth considering?

>For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from [is statements], which are entirely different from it.

>your own flourishing
What does that have to do with "human flourishing"?

You are a human.

How isn't OP banned? This is blatant shitposting, nothing more nor nothing else. I've been banned for war lighter things.

He's a hack, he has a bachelor in philosophy and a ph.d. in neuroscience, he knows exactly what he's talking about, but his audience aren't the one who knows shit about philosophy and as thus can call him out on it.

Yeah, so what? That's just selfishness, which is the exact thing that "morality" is supposed to transcend. Why should I care about other humans?

At some point a hand is a hand. If you can't accept that being a human means you /ought/ to be concerned with human flourishing then you're just a sophist.

You're arguing that 99% of people who ever lived are sophists.

Almost nobody cares in the abstract about "human flourishing", as opposed to caring about themselves and people they know.

If you are a human and you wish to flourish, how do you go about that? You could stick to whatever traditional method you happen to have been born into, but wouldn't it make more sense to first establish some kind of empirical basis for what, exactly, causes humans to flourish "in the abstract"?

>what, exactly, causes humans to flourish "in the abstract"
Yes, and having done that, why "ought" I to apply it to every human, and not just to myself?

Because one of the most factors in your flourishing is the state of the society you live in. If everyone just kills everyone who looks at the cock-eyed, that's going to limit your potential flourishing.

>Because one of the most factors in your flourishing is the state of the society you live in.
Yes, and for my own flourishing, I want people around me to be nice and happy, and I want people far away to be suffering horribly to make me things.

And you don't think things like Islamic terrorism and the loss of jobs to China ultimately limit your own potential flourishing? You don't think that you would be better off if third world shitholes were improved to the point where they don't spew out endless waves of shitskin immigrants and terrorists?

>And you don't think things like Islamic terrorism and the loss of jobs to China ultimately limit your own potential flourishing?
So your version of "morality" is "don't be too evil or you might be personally affected by a global uprising"?

Boy, that sure is some great Morality (TM).

>So your version of "morality" is "don't be too evil or you might be personally affected by a global uprising"?

Firstly, this is Sam Harris's view I'm trying to present, not my own. Secondly, you are the one who insisted in framing it in purely egotistic terms, and now you try to criticise me for it? This is shamelessly dishonest.

>shamelessly dishonest
Are you SURE you're not Sam Harris?

And the whole point of "morality", if it means anything at all, is to be something above egoism. When your morality just ends up being some Hyper-Enlightened egoism, you have achieved nothing at all.

If you're just going to double down on your dishonesty this discussion is over.

>This is as simple as A=B, A=C, therefore A=C.

Not saying anything about God or Atheism, but do you even understand propositional logic?

There is no '=' function for one, and your points translates to:

(1). S (SCIENCE IS GOD)

(2). A (the Atheist placing Science as the obj. bas. for morality in stead of God)

Conclusion (3) . ~G -> O (W/out GOD there is no obj. bas. for morality)

I don't even know how to present it charitably in your case.

Seriously, look up Plantinga or something.