This is a continuation of yesterday’s commentary. I wandered very far away from the point I set out to make yesterday (gee, how rare) and so today I am going to take another crack at it.

In his TED talk, Harris examines the question of the relationship between science and morality, and I certainly agree with him that they are far, far from being mutually exclusive and that the notion that somehow science cannot answer moral questions is just another bit of superstitious anti-science nonsense like the idea that some areas of knowledge are “sacred” and therefore not to be tread upon by the hobnailed boots of science and reason.

Repeatedly, people try to wall off certain subjects to protect them from reason. The very act of doing so betrays a dark suspicion that one’s beliefs are not literally “true”. We are still a long way from widespread acceptance of the materialist truth of human existence : that there is no special category between ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ where something can be real without having to follow the rules of reality, and that all we are is matter and energy, with no special exceptions.

This said, I think Harris does not quite hit the mark. He is making a vitally important point, that we can, will, and must use science to find the best answers to our moral questions, but in doing so he misses a very vital distinction in what science can and cannot do, and it is this distinction that I wish to make today.

It is true that science can, will, and must be used to find the best solutions to moral problems. Take this example :

A father is home alone with his toddler son when the son manages to find and drink something highly poisonous before the father can stop him. Luckily for the kid, his father is a chemical engineer, and in a flash comes up with a concoction made from household chemicals that neutralized the poison and saved the boy’s life.

Clearly, the father used science (his knowledge of chemistry) in the pursuit of a moral goal (saving a child’s life). Very few people would argue that the father should have left science out of his morality and let his child die.

So it is clear that science can, indeed, find answers to moral problems. But the distinction I am making today is that while science can find the answers, it can’t ask the questions.

Not at a fundamental level. The very basis of all morality is the assumption that it matters what happens to human beings, and that is a logically unsupportable assumption. In the light of so-called “pure reason”, there is no basis to prefer people living to people dying, people experiencing pleasure over people experiencing pain, or people experiencing joy over people experiencing despair. As human beings, we care about what happens to humans both because are humans ourselves and because as humans, we have a strong instinct towards altruism and mutual care.

But from the point of view of logic, there is no reason to care what happens to human beings at all. Logic alone could not ask the question of how to save the boy, because it could not provide a reason to act at all. The impetus to action had to come from the emotional core of the father who desperately wanted to save his son.

So what is the role of science in morality? Its role is that of the most powerful servant morality has ever had. Reason is and has always been the servant of emotion. Science is simply the codification of reason into a very powerful system whereby knowledge can be generated, tested, communicated, and most importantly of all, accumulated. The scientific method gives reason a way to add knowledge to an ever-growing model of reality that can then be used to make predictions about the future.

And prediction is the ultimate test for all forms of knowledge. Whether it is predicting the next solar eclipse or knowing what will happen if you mix two chemical together, science is the most potent engine for influencing the universe we know.

And influencing the universe is precisely what morality seeks to do. The goal of morality is always to make the world a more morally acceptable place. Reducing suffering, increasing public safety, protecting people from outside threats… these are all moral problems which have practical, scientific, logical solutions.

Some people do not like that approach. They prefer to think of morality as some sort of special sphere that is not suitable for the pure clean light of reason, and claim that the powerful pragmatism of science is far too crude and thoughtless an instrument for something as special and delicate as morality.

But what these people really fear is that science will force them to change their mind about something. The data won’t match their assumptions and they will be forced to either change their minds or start denying science. They would much prefer that science just stayed out of it so people who never liked math or science in the first place can keep their pet theories.

And what people really don’t like about science interfering in the moral realm is that science might lead to conclusions that don’t feel right. A lot of people are going through the world today with only the basic package of human morality installed, the things we all share. The package that boils down to “be nice and only do nice things”.

And this is a very effective package for the say to day running of a human life. You can be a highly moral person who feels passionately about the welfare of one’s fellow human beings and never have to leave this basic mode of morality.

But true morality is not about doing what feels good. It is about doing what is right regardless of how we feel. It is more important to get the best solutions we possibly can, even ones that do not pass a moral “sniff test”, than to preserve our feeling of being a super nice person.

Well that is all for today folks. I think I hit the mark today. Mu basic point is that Harris is correct that science has a very big role to play in answering moral questions.

It just can’t ask the questions itself.

I will talk to all of you nice people again tomorrow.

This is one of my fave Ted talks ever, and that’s saying something.

I’d seen it twice before today, but I was happy to watch it again as part of my coursework for that online philosophy course that I mentioned in yesterday’s post. ^[1]

However, when I watched it this time, I notices a flaw on Harris’ reasoning, or at least an area that can be clarified, and so I thought I would tackle it today while I am still feeling all smart and academic.

Repeatedly throughout the talk, Harris asks where we get this idea that all opinions should be treated equally when it comes to ethics. I realize the question was rhetorical, but I think it needs addressing regardless.

This notion of active moral relativism did not come about in a vacuum. Instead, it is something that naturally occurred out of the rise of pluralism. In the 20th century, one of the most important lessons was tolerance. We learned to live and let live.

This is not a new concept. It is, in fact, how all great empires and large cities have been forced to evolve. The more diversity a city or nation has, the more it must learn to let people have their own customs and beliefs and only get the government and the law involved in things which involve multiple cultures.

As far back as Babylon, there were peoples of radically different cosmologies (and to a certain extent, moralities) living side by side who all had to learn the basic lesson of tolerance : that tolerance for me and my kind comes at the price of tolerance for everyone else’s kind. You only get the tolerance you give.

Groups that could not learn that soon found themselves driven out. Cities that could not achieve this were rent asunder by inner divisions. Nations that could not learn this did not last.

So what Harris is really lamenting is that we have passed the point where the very good and necessary virtue of tolerance spills over into the total abdication of intellectual responsibility on the part of the media, the politicians, and to a certain extent the populace themselves for not demanding more.

The tricky part is negotiating the difference between respecting people’s right to their own opinions and people’s right to have those opinions remain unchallenged. Allowing people to have their own opinions does not need to mean that everyone can say whatever fool thing they want and nobody is allowed to object or point out flaws.

The freedom of speech that protects your right to state an opinion always protects my right to criticize it.

This is the gulf we must cross in this modern Internet-soaked era. We must learn to stand up to those who try to shield themselves from criticism by claiming freedom of speech and tell them, powerfully and simply, that if they put their opinions into a public forum, they are opening them to criticism, and that applies equally and fairly to everyone.

This is the soul of the marketplace of ideas, and said marketplace is vital to every democracy. It is the crucible in which the future of a democratic nation is forged, the laboratory in which new ideas are tested to their limits. It is always the nation with the most lively marketplace of ideas that produces the ideas that will lead the world into the future.

And it is always the side of the argument that cries “no fair, you shouldn’t be allowed to say that!” who inevitably loses. To say so is a tacit admission that your ideas cannot stand up to rational challenges and the only way to preserve them (and, more importantly, your belief in them) is if nobody is allowed to disagree with you and shatter your fragile illusions.

You’d think today’s pro-capitalism would understand this, because the marketplace of ideas is exactly like the marketplace of capitalism. The strong ideas that can withstand competition survive, and the rest die.

It is no coincidence that it is the Internet that has brought this issue to light. With the explosion of the Internet in the last 20 years, the marketplace of ideas, like the marketplace for goods and services, has gone global, and ideas that sold well in small local markets now face stiff competition from ideas from all around the world.

It has never been easier to share your opinion with the world, and for the world to share its opinion right back at you. Sure, you and your weird group of friends can keep on believing that the biggest threat to world peace is a secret army of well trained and heavily armed turkeys, but sooner or later you are going to want to let the rest of the world in on what they need to do to survive (random guess : cranberry sauce?) and then your ideas will be in the marketplace. ^[2]

So to answer Harris’ question : We got the idea that all opinions are equally due respect from the very trend towards tolerance that has been a vital portion of the forging of modern society and all this cooperation we have with one another.

This does not detract from Harris’ main point, which is that science can and will be used to answer moral questions.

But once more, I have run out of words, and will have to return to this topic another day.

I will talk to all you nice people again tomorrow.