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.