The argument seems to fail at: “I believe that neither morality nor values at the very core depend on minds being conscious or experiencing pleasure or suffering.” The author evidently believes that, but fails to substantiate it. And anyway, Harris’ criterion isn’t about pleasure vs. suffering, but well being vs. suffering.
The idea that animals can have an ethic seems nonsensical to me. Only conscious, reflective, language-using beings can have an ethic or morality, because an ethic is by definition a self-consciously-held code of conduct, and a morality is by definition a self-consciously-shared code of conduct, which can obviously only be held, read, understood and shared by self-conscious language-users.
Criticisms of Harris usually boil down to, “But what about Hume’s is/ought, eh, EH??!!” Oddly, this article seems to commit that very fallacy : obviously, just because genetically-mandated behaviour is, doesn’t mean it ought to be. The error is as old as Social Darwinism, and it’s surprising to find someone falling for it in this day and age.
In trying to refute The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, in the way that the linked blog does, I believe that it’s quite unimportant whether or not
only conscious minds can experience well-being,
Sam Harris himself believes that only conscious minds can experience well-being, or
well-being is the same thing as pleasure.
What the linked Darwinian response criticises Harris for, among other things, is that he doesn’t formulate a rightness criterion, despite that he claims that science implies some kind of impartial hedonism. But if there really is an implication it should be possible to formulate what is implied! Of course Harris should tell us more exactly which values he says science can determine. It’s hard not to suspect that Harris, in order to evade legitimate criticism questioning the existence of any implication, wants to avoid being more precise. The linked Darwinian response also claims that the strongest version of impartial hedonism is classical hedonistic utilitarianism (although not at all supporting that moral theory). The intrinsic value of hedonistic utilitarianism can be formulated in terms of pleasure over suffering, or in terms of well-being.
Richard Dawkins has actually been criticised for claiming that genes emotionally are selfish! Can genes be any more selfish than atoms can be jealous or biscuits can be generous? Yes, actually, to their effect. ‘The ethic of animals’, as described in the Darwinian response, is, as I read it, clearly not a moral theory which all animals consciously and reflectively understand and share through language, but rather the moral theory which animals closer than any other moral theory over time unconsciously tend to practice. They do that due to the ultimate biological cause of their behaviour, namely natural selection. Personally, I don’t find it any more nonsensical than the selfishness of genes, that the formulation of the ethic of animals is deduced from, not what animals reflectively think, since they hardly do, but, what they actually tend to do.
Reading the Darwinian response it’s also clear to me that it doesn’t violate Hume’s law. It nowhere claims that it’s right in any higher meaning to behave according to ethical fitnessism solely because animals behave according to it, which they, by the way, don’t really do, even though natural selection tends to make them come quite close.
I disagree that any of those three points are unimportant, they’re central parts of Harris’ argument and they are part of what has to be refuted.
The idea that there has to be a “rightness criterion” (or an “intrinsic” criterion as per the article) is very much what Harris’ view questions, and his position has very little to do with hedonism (hedonism is just a partially-intersecting sub-set of what he’s talking about).
To violate Hume’s distinction, you don’t need to say there’s a “higher meaning” in fitnessism, you just need to say that a “rightness criterion” can be based on “what is” (how animals actually behave).
It’s like this: Hume’s distinction, while valid, is (contrary to his belief and popular belief) irrelevant to morality. A reason has to be given why the “ought” of morality cannot be instrumental all the way down (or rather up and down), why morality has to have an “intrinsic” or “absolute” criterion at all.
Essentially, all that’s happened is that people formerly thought that moral behaviour had to be mandated or commanded by a God. God is dead, but people from the time of the Enlightenment on still had a vague feeling that there has to be some kind of “ought” that’s not instrumental, that grounds morality—as it were, the ghost of a mandate, a mandate-shaped hole at the root of morality.
What Harris is saying (and I agree) is that no mandate or command is required for morality, there is no other kind of “ought” than the instrumental, there just seems to be; and it’s the instrumental “ought” that’s at work in morality just as it is in, e.g., technology, from the basic level (which everyone agrees on—i.e. science helps with the nitty gritty) to the high level (at the level of the “if” of the “if .. then”, where there’s doubt, where people think there has to be this other kind of mysterious “ought”). The trick is to see how.
The argument seems to fail at: “I believe that neither morality nor values at the very core depend on minds being conscious or experiencing pleasure or suffering.” The author evidently believes that, but fails to substantiate it. And anyway, Harris’ criterion isn’t about pleasure vs. suffering, but well being vs. suffering.
The idea that animals can have an ethic seems nonsensical to me. Only conscious, reflective, language-using beings can have an ethic or morality, because an ethic is by definition a self-consciously-held code of conduct, and a morality is by definition a self-consciously-shared code of conduct, which can obviously only be held, read, understood and shared by self-conscious language-users.
Criticisms of Harris usually boil down to, “But what about Hume’s is/ought, eh, EH??!!” Oddly, this article seems to commit that very fallacy : obviously, just because genetically-mandated behaviour is, doesn’t mean it ought to be. The error is as old as Social Darwinism, and it’s surprising to find someone falling for it in this day and age.
In trying to refute The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, in the way that the linked blog does, I believe that it’s quite unimportant whether or not
only conscious minds can experience well-being,
Sam Harris himself believes that only conscious minds can experience well-being, or
well-being is the same thing as pleasure.
What the linked Darwinian response criticises Harris for, among other things, is that he doesn’t formulate a rightness criterion, despite that he claims that science implies some kind of impartial hedonism. But if there really is an implication it should be possible to formulate what is implied! Of course Harris should tell us more exactly which values he says science can determine. It’s hard not to suspect that Harris, in order to evade legitimate criticism questioning the existence of any implication, wants to avoid being more precise. The linked Darwinian response also claims that the strongest version of impartial hedonism is classical hedonistic utilitarianism (although not at all supporting that moral theory). The intrinsic value of hedonistic utilitarianism can be formulated in terms of pleasure over suffering, or in terms of well-being.
Richard Dawkins has actually been criticised for claiming that genes emotionally are selfish! Can genes be any more selfish than atoms can be jealous or biscuits can be generous? Yes, actually, to their effect. ‘The ethic of animals’, as described in the Darwinian response, is, as I read it, clearly not a moral theory which all animals consciously and reflectively understand and share through language, but rather the moral theory which animals closer than any other moral theory over time unconsciously tend to practice. They do that due to the ultimate biological cause of their behaviour, namely natural selection. Personally, I don’t find it any more nonsensical than the selfishness of genes, that the formulation of the ethic of animals is deduced from, not what animals reflectively think, since they hardly do, but, what they actually tend to do.
Reading the Darwinian response it’s also clear to me that it doesn’t violate Hume’s law. It nowhere claims that it’s right in any higher meaning to behave according to ethical fitnessism solely because animals behave according to it, which they, by the way, don’t really do, even though natural selection tends to make them come quite close.
I disagree that any of those three points are unimportant, they’re central parts of Harris’ argument and they are part of what has to be refuted.
The idea that there has to be a “rightness criterion” (or an “intrinsic” criterion as per the article) is very much what Harris’ view questions, and his position has very little to do with hedonism (hedonism is just a partially-intersecting sub-set of what he’s talking about).
To violate Hume’s distinction, you don’t need to say there’s a “higher meaning” in fitnessism, you just need to say that a “rightness criterion” can be based on “what is” (how animals actually behave).
It’s like this: Hume’s distinction, while valid, is (contrary to his belief and popular belief) irrelevant to morality. A reason has to be given why the “ought” of morality cannot be instrumental all the way down (or rather up and down), why morality has to have an “intrinsic” or “absolute” criterion at all.
Essentially, all that’s happened is that people formerly thought that moral behaviour had to be mandated or commanded by a God. God is dead, but people from the time of the Enlightenment on still had a vague feeling that there has to be some kind of “ought” that’s not instrumental, that grounds morality—as it were, the ghost of a mandate, a mandate-shaped hole at the root of morality.
What Harris is saying (and I agree) is that no mandate or command is required for morality, there is no other kind of “ought” than the instrumental, there just seems to be; and it’s the instrumental “ought” that’s at work in morality just as it is in, e.g., technology, from the basic level (which everyone agrees on—i.e. science helps with the nitty gritty) to the high level (at the level of the “if” of the “if .. then”, where there’s doubt, where people think there has to be this other kind of mysterious “ought”). The trick is to see how.