Science can answer moral questions

nice appeal to popularity friend

i studied philosophy for almost 6 years. you didn't address my argument, you're just a sensitive cuckold who can't and won't face reality

lol what a cuck, i knew something was up with is bromance with majid.

You studied philosophy for 6 years yet you a) counter an argument with "hurr durr muh logical fallacies" and b) you think 2000 years worth of moral philosophy can be destroyed with "the starting point is arbitrary."

I'm not saying my stance is right *because* of the authority. I'm saying that maybe there's a lot more to this puzzle than you think if most experts vehemently disagree.

Before you go about shouting the "I'm an atheist, debate me" meme, did you even try clicking a link? If you're genuinely concerned about uncovering the truth behind this argument, maybe you should read up on the topic from a reputable source rather than trying to debate someone on an image board where the argument will inevitably spiral out of control because of miscommunication leading to you marching out feeling convinced of your success in defeating all of moral philosophy.

Go ahead, read the encyclopedia entry. Follow the citations. Dig deeper than skimming the index. But if you think a topic who's *summary* is dozens of pages long can be explained in a back and forth on Veeky Forums, then I sincerely doubt your honesty in trying to learn more about this issue.

the issue is incredibly simple and "most experts" (which is accurate but only by a small margin: philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl) only accept moral realism out of emotional disregard for logic.

the truth about morality can be explained in a single Veeky Forums post, yes. And "most" philosophers just can't accept it, hence thousands of years of semantic argumentation and internal deceit. I read the entirety of The Moral Landscape years ago and came to the conclusion that Sam Harris is a shallow thinker.

"most philosphers think [x] so it must be worthwhile" is not an argument and it isn't even really true, not by a substantial margin anyway.

>collection of atoms scrutinizing "morality"

Ponder over how ridiculous this sounds.

> "most experts" only accept moral realism out of emotional disregard for logic

Now I'm starting to think that you're trolling. You're attributing an entire field's majority opinion (which is significant in philosophy where there's rarely any agreement over 30%) to a "disregard for logic™" You're not even reading the arguments. I don't understand why you're so resistant to having your world view challenged. Do you feel threatened by answers coming from someplace other than science?

>the truth about morality can be explained in a single Veeky Forums post, yes

Again, disregarding an entire field you know nothing about. The hubris is actually a little silly here. Physicists have no business talking about economic theory, biologists have no business speaking about geology and you have no business ignoring all of moral philosophical work.

>I read the entirety of The Moral Landscape years ago and came to the conclusion that Sam Harris is a shallow thinker

This honestly made me laugh a bit. Is this really where you're stealing your claim? Is this your basis for feeling informed enough to throw away all of moral philosophy? Since you're so well versed in moral philosophy you must already know that Harris' work is laughed at my philosophers. Almost no one takes his work seriously. If that came as a surprise to you than maybe you'll start to realize that you don't know what you're talking about. Read up on the issue that you so fervently claim to have solved before ignoring thousands of years of philosophical progress.

>frogposter
>implying he knows anything about moral judgment
gud wan

>haha i'm laughing at you what are you stupid or something
not an argument

"Is X good?" (however you define 'good')
"I dunno, let's think about it using evidence"

either address my initial arguments as they are or go back to your low IQ Veeky Forums hugbox, all you've done is claim "morality is too big and important to be explained in a few paragraphs!" and "most philosophers disagree with you!".

Complexity =/= accuracy. Most of the "big questions" in philosophy are dead simple if you're any older than 16 and you're the hubristic one to assume otherwise. if you're still pondering ethics after more than 2 years of philosophical study you're either doing it wrong or you're a moron.

>there's zero motivational fuel for morality without god

I think morality persists because humans who cooperated with each other back in the day were more successful, and it's just an extension of a survival thing. Like, they say even babies exhibit favoritism toward pro-social behavior (bringing up as a question if we're born with morality); I'm gonna guess some legit motivational fuel for morality is not having everyone say "fuck that guy, he doesn't do anything for us".

Moral realists are pussies who can't live with the fact that every moral judgement relies on an assertion of values.

>however you define 'good'
This is the sticking point. You cannot define "good" scientifically. He believes, ridiculously, that you can.

jeez I don't even want to know if that's really true, it's just depressing to think about someone believing that

> why should I care?

> Cheat on wife
> wife finds out
> no more wife

Huh, just doesn't make sense without god

>Cheat on wife
>Wife doesn't find out
>Have a great wife and extra pussy on the side

the moral choice rarely makes sense for personal happiness

>the problem is, it's an arbitrary distinction and doesn't even pretend to solve the is/ought fallacy.
>he thinks God does

If we want to know the truth, then certain things become valuable, such as concern for evidence, logical consistency of arguments, etc. There is no way to say that we "ought" to value truth based on what is the case concerning the universe. Likewise for a field like medicine, we aren't deriving an ought from an is when we think that we ought to use medicine to make people healthy instead of unhealthy. We assume oughts all the time. If we didn't we would never do anything. Harris merely states that this is also true of the wellbeing of conscious creatures. We can't help but value our own wellbeing, and most of us value the wellbeing of those around us. If we accept that we do value these things, then science can tell us what will help us have wellbeing and what won't. In other words, science tells us what we should value if we want to be happy.

But what if you would be happier not cheating on your wife? Getting what we desire often doesn't lead to happiness.

But can't all morals be independantly derived using statistics?

The golden rule is the only moral compass that is needed. Everything else is mental masturbation trying to make overly complex moral systems for the sake of doing it.

Science can and should inform the answers to moral questions. But moral systems are ideological constructs, there are potentially infinite amounts of possible moral systems that you could come up with. Some work better, some worse. Based on whatever criteria you choose to judge them on. But there is no objective morality and science only deals in objectivity.