I am trying hard to let questions of epistemology rest for the time being in this space. However, responsibility demands that I link to Sam Harris's expanded thoughts on the subject of his TED talk.
I find his essay, while significantly more useful than his TED talk, to be something of a mess-- really unfold the logic of his supposed untangling of the problem of knowing a psychopath is wrong, even for a few minutes-- but again, I'm trying to let things rest. I'll just bring up one point: here, as in the TED talk, Harris insists on talking about moral questions of the highest possible emotional baggage. He also talks almost exclusively about issues which, whatever the larger epistemological questions, in the pragmatic context of our own lives, very few of us see as morally challenging. For someone so insistent on transcendent logic, I am deeply confused as to why he would make so many arguments that amount to a naked appeal to emotion. Harris is logician enough to know that saying "look into the eyes of a girl blinded by acid" is not logically compelling, and that harping again and again on emotionally charged issues is not the way to dispassionately pursue truth. (Capital T or otherwise.)
Probity and practicality would both suggest, it seems to me, that Harris concern himself with issues of actual moral controversy, ones that we have a great deal of trouble untangling-- abortion, euthanasia, torture in wartime, etc. The fact that he doesn't is troubling.
6 comments:
Freddie,
I'm not quite sure how, but somehow throughout this extended multi-party exchange, I had missed that what we were talking about was he question of "science"'s or "reason"'s ability to get to moral Truth. I would have been a much more vocal defender of yours in all this had I understood that. I am of the view that, allowing for and accepting the formalistic limitations on the accessibility of reality to science through representation, man's current understanding of the nature of the world around him is actually pretty close to accurate. On the other hand, on the question of man's ability to access moral Truth through science or scientific methodology, I am in what you might call the camp of those who skepticism of that idea borders on the realm of barely-contained, potentially (non-physically) violent hostility. (This stems mainly from a view that, unlike the question of whether there is an ultimate Reality that legitimate science seeks to describe, however separated from it is must in the best case remain, where I think such reality is a near certainty, my view on whether any such Absolutes exist in the moral realm is rather as confident in the other direction.) I would have leapt quite forcefully to your defense in all of this had I understood the initial claims and context to which you reacted better. I regret not having done so.
Ah, don't sweat it, Michael, though I appreciate your saying so.
There is nothing 'troubling' about Harris leaving abortion, torture and euthanasia unmentioned. You are forgetting what Harris has written in his book 'The End of Faith' (if you have looked at it at all). There, he certainly tackles torture, abortion (at least as regards embryonic stem cell research), and the ethics of war in some detail, and is no doubt wanting to cover new ground in his new book/talks. He even goes through the Dershowitz/ticking time-bomb/24 scenario, finds that it justifies torture, and is then horrified by his own conclusion.
To your point about issues that we have trouble untangling, it would seem from leftish public opinion that we have a great deal of trouble with this issue. Take a look at the UK papers the Times or the Guardian, and you will find a lot of writers who seem unable to offer a proper condemnation of suicide bombing, acid attacks, forced marriages and child betrothal, genital mutilation etc.
As for the acid attack photos, looks to me like he's issuing a challenge to anyone who would argue that there is no way to decide is one moral system is better than another.
I don't think you're addressing the issue: appeals to emotion and argument through assertion are fallacious. If you're the kind of guy moved by appeals to logic, like Harris is, that seems like a problem. Surely, in this essay, Harris has the opportunity to consider a deeply morally troubling issue and see whether people will agree that it proves that there is an objective morality, in the same way he is trying to bully his way into doing with acid in the face. I doubt it.
You hit the epistemological nail through the board here, Freddie.
What your observation highlights is the lack of explanatory power furnished by Harris' misapplication of the scientific method to excavating moral foundations. For any moral problem involving conflicting justifiable beliefs or interests, it is toothless.
The urge to apply reductionist tools where reductionism is likely to generate an underpowered heuristic is understandable, if mistaken. That's why Harris' parade of emotionally freighted but analytically trivial vignettes as a way of dressing up that mistake in a lab coat is such a disservice to his audience.
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