Jul 21 2012: And, just to be clear, since we're not having this discussion in person, I'm not in any way "barking" this response at you as seems to be the default attitude in the majority of online forums. Rather, I'm cordially stating that when I read your message it sounded as if you headed off in a direction that was unintended by Harris' presentation.
Based on what you've written here, I think you've missed a large part of what Harris was attempting to say. You mention "the human factor" and then follow that up with the notion of a "Ministry of Truth." Human beings don't in any way influence the truth of a matter. The truth is going to be whatever it is regardless of what we think about it. If people believed the Earth was flat, the Earth wouldn't somehow flatten itself out to conform to our belief, we'd simply be wrong. If you're using Ministry of Truth figuratively, simly as a way of demonstrating a group "who defines what's right and wrong," again, you're missing Harris' point. He's clearly saying that right/wrong will be (and are) defined by how human brains operate. How could that not be true? Human brains are what's doing the assessing when we make ethical assessments/moral considerations. That being the case, understanding how our brains weigh such considerations (i.e. neuroethics) is what defines the spectrum of our concepts of right/wrong action...because that's essentially what ethics/morality is doing - assigning values to human actions, and very specific ones at that. Not all human actions carry moral weight/consequence. So, he's arguing that the answers we get to questions such as "What is the brain doing when we consider such actions?" will help us better understand our starting points for our decisions...because, regardless of our ignorance about the processes going on in our skulls at any given moment, something very specific IS happening. Our task is to find out what that is when we think/talk about ethics.
Jul 21 2012: Reading a religious text from cover to cover is of little use if you know nothing about the culture and worldview that gave birth to it. Most religious folk don't burn the kinds of calories it takes to have a genuine understanding of whatever text is in question. Without context, there simply is no understanding, because an idea can't be divorced from its worldview. The people who wrote those texts (as is true for authors, artists, thinkers of any sort) are reacting to very specific elements in their environment. If we don't understand that environment, then we won't grasp the meaning of their message. Context is the closest thing we have to a time machine, because it asks us to consider the words/language, ideas, symbols at their point of origin, not within our modernized perceptions of them. This is why advanced religious studies require mastery of ancient languages and proficiency of elements within cultural anthropology.
Jul 21 2012: Historically, there are many answers to this question, Thomas. For example, one of the explanations referred to as "common-sense" morality states that, contrary to radical ethical egoism, it makes sense to have concern for others because we benefit from doing so ourselves. If you had to do everything yourself, life would be far more difficult. That's why people such as Rousseau argued in favor of the "civil will" which subordinates individual will; the point being that it's better to do what's in the interest of society, as a whole, than what's best for any given individual (if we're made to pick between the two), because if society falls apart, things become worse for everyone. That's at least one explanation for your question.
@Mark: Actually, it's false to say "morality is thoroughly contingent, not inherent in anything in any way." It's inherent in human behaviors. The fact that there's no one-one relationship between question and answer doesn't make it any less inherent, because you can talk about properties that are inherent within a given range of possibilities. Ethical behaviors are a subset of social behaviors. It's also grounded in the biological facts about how the human brain works (or brains in general, if you like). In fact, there's an entire field of ethics devoted to that called neuroethics, which has two main concerns as its object of study: 1) the ethics of performing brain research, and 2) how the brain weighs/assesses ethical considerations and moral values.
Jul 11 2012: Additionally, asking for a synthesis between opposites is another error based on the assumption that existence is a generic term. It's what Gilbert Ryle referred to as a category-mistake. There's nothing to synthesize between tall and short, because these things only exist as matters of description. You don't have to find an average between short and tall (because you can't). What has actual existence is human beings (the object). Short and tall are just descriptions we give to the objects, similar to how there's no such object as a "crowd." "Crowd" is just a term we use to describe a collection of individuals, but the only actually existing objects are individual human beings. So, "crowd" is concpetual...which takes us back to the previously mentioned distinction about the fundamental categories of existence: 1) objects and 2) concepts.
Jul 11 2012: You're taking Plato's theory of the forms out of context a bit. Forms don't have to manifest in a single being to validate their existence. In fact, you'd never find that, because they ARE abstractions. Take a look at how Socrates words his objections in the dialogs. When there's a call for definition, which happens at the outset of nearly every dialog, such as "What is justice?" in the Crito or again in the Republic, the secondary character begins by listing examples of things we consider just. Socrates then redirects by stating he's not interested in the examples. What he's asking is, if we were to make an exhaustive list of every last example of just things, what would be the common criteria among all of them that made us include them on this list? In other words, what is justice in the abstract sense? You'd never find the Forms manifested in material objects, because that's the distinction between universals (the Forms themselves) and particulars (specific objects that populate the universe). There's also a difference between moral absolutes and a "moral axiom." Be careful with your language here. An axiom is a self-evident truth and just because something may be absolute (i.e. universal) in no way implies that it's also self-evident. Yes, what you note about mathematics is true, but that's because mathematical truths, themselves, are definitional truths. As such, what's important is the relationships between the values and the symbols. Where you start is irrelevant as long as the same relationships hold. When you say "merely an idea," what is that meant to imply? Don't ideas exist? Ideas are, at the very least, brain energy and energy certainly exists. Existence isn't a generic term, meaning things don't simply exist in one manner of speaking. There are two basic ways things can exist, as either an object or as a concept. But concepts exist nonetheless. They aren't, in some way, "less real," because what does that mean?
Jul 11 2012: Hi, Alec. Your starting point with this explanation assumes that there are no such thing as moral absolutes, but that needn't be the case, even though, as you note, it certainly seems that way because of a lack of agreement. However, consider this example I pose to my own students as a possible explanation in favor of moral absolutes. I'm not claiming it's true; rather, I just use this as a tool to counter the "it's all relative" mindset students always have when they enter the class each semester. Let's use the analogy of xrays. There was a time when we knew nothing of the existence of xrays. It was only after we developed certain technologies that we knew of their existence, but we wouldn't make the claim that when we created the technology we, at the same time, somehow invented xrays. Rather, they were always there and we simply knew nothing of their existence. Similarly, couldn't one argue (as did people like Socrates and Plato) that moral absolutes are merely one more thing we haven't yet discovered about the universe? There's no logical contradiction there, regardless of how implausible that explanation "seems" to us. Our initial reaction is to state "That makes no sense. How could values exist in the abstract sense?" What might this tell us. Does it follow that simply because human being operate based on common-sense, therefore, so does the universe? Common-sense is a by-product based on our expectations about how things work, which doesn't in any way influence the truth about how things do work. It may turn out that we're right, and ethics/morals are always relative to a given frame of reference. However, claiming as much may also turn out to one day be proven otherwise. Or maybe (worst-case scenario) moral absolutes exist but are forever beyond our ability to discover them. Something's existence in no way is hinged upon our ability or inability to discover it.
Jul 11 2012: Exactly, Brian. Ethics could easily be characterized as the most practical branch of philosophy, because it addresses social behaviors, which is a subset of human behaviors.
Jul 11 2012: Ethical theory can definitely be taught. I spend every day of the week doing it. The idea that something can't be taught simply because there are no strict answers, as one expects to find in sciences and other disciplines, is mistaken. Philosophy is about abstract critical thinking, not memorizing empirical facts. They're just two different ways to approach knowledge, and each has its own purpose, function, and merits. And ethics is always about what we ought to do, if you're talking about what we "can" do, then you're no longer talking about ethics. That's the difference between normative (evaluative) and non-normative (purely descriptive) statements. Ethical considerations are always normative, because they attempt to assess or evaluate. For example, one theory (often mistaken as an ethical theory) is psychological egoism, which simply states we observe that humans tend to act in self-serving ways. That's a purely descriptive statement, it doesn't attempt to prescribe anything. Its "sister" theory is ethical egoism, which states that if we do, in fact, observe people to behave as such, then people "ought" to do so, because they're simply acting on human nature. The latter of these two statements is normative, because it's prescribing what one ought to do...that's the realm of ethics.
Jul 11 2012: Hi, Brian. Yes, ethics should definitely be taught as part of medical school. I'm a professor of philosophy and ethics, and I'm currently pursuing a second degree specifically in bioethics. People often approach ethics with the attitude that studying it is of no real value. As someone who has spent the past 20 years doing just that, I can assure you that's not the case. Philosophy, and by extension ethics, is just like anything else - the more you do it, the better you become at it. Not all explanations are created equal.
That being said, the current trends in spirituality and medicine (where spirituality isn't defined as exclusively "religious" but merely as whatever is at the core of one's source of meaning in life...family, appreciation of nature, altruistic acts, etc.) begin from the idea of treating patients as a person (i.e. a being with a set of beliefs, values, ideals, hopes, concerns, personality traits, etc.) rather than merely treating an illness or a symptom. Ethics is about how we weigh values, often in relation to a conflicting sense of duty. If we can consider such things in advance, it makes it easier to know what to look for, think about, and consider before we have to do so when we're interacting with people when it really matters. Two things I tell my own students at the beginning of every semester are that if we're going to even attempt to do philosophy well, we need to always keep in mind 1) make no assumptions (or as few as possible) and 2) just because you've heard something all your life doesn't make it true. Most of the students in my current graduate courses are medical students and my program is in the school of medicine, not philosophy; and they all the time make assuptions that philosophers wouldn't simply because of their background. If we combine the two disciplines, everyone benefits. Philosophers who attempt bioethics without any medical science are at an equal disadvantage as doctors who have no exposure to ethics.
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A reply on Talk: Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions
A reply on Talk: Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions
Based on what you've written here, I think you've missed a large part of what Harris was attempting to say. You mention "the human factor" and then follow that up with the notion of a "Ministry of Truth." Human beings don't in any way influence the truth of a matter. The truth is going to be whatever it is regardless of what we think about it. If people believed the Earth was flat, the Earth wouldn't somehow flatten itself out to conform to our belief, we'd simply be wrong. If you're using Ministry of Truth figuratively, simly as a way of demonstrating a group "who defines what's right and wrong," again, you're missing Harris' point. He's clearly saying that right/wrong will be (and are) defined by how human brains operate. How could that not be true? Human brains are what's doing the assessing when we make ethical assessments/moral considerations. That being the case, understanding how our brains weigh such considerations (i.e. neuroethics) is what defines the spectrum of our concepts of right/wrong action...because that's essentially what ethics/morality is doing - assigning values to human actions, and very specific ones at that. Not all human actions carry moral weight/consequence. So, he's arguing that the answers we get to questions such as "What is the brain doing when we consider such actions?" will help us better understand our starting points for our decisions...because, regardless of our ignorance about the processes going on in our skulls at any given moment, something very specific IS happening. Our task is to find out what that is when we think/talk about ethics.
A reply on Talk: Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions
A reply on Talk: Sam Harris: Science can answer moral questions
@Mark: Actually, it's false to say "morality is thoroughly contingent, not inherent in anything in any way." It's inherent in human behaviors. The fact that there's no one-one relationship between question and answer doesn't make it any less inherent, because you can talk about properties that are inherent within a given range of possibilities. Ethical behaviors are a subset of social behaviors. It's also grounded in the biological facts about how the human brain works (or brains in general, if you like). In fact, there's an entire field of ethics devoted to that called neuroethics, which has two main concerns as its object of study: 1) the ethics of performing brain research, and 2) how the brain weighs/assesses ethical considerations and moral values.
A reply on Conversation: Should medical ethics be taught in medical school?
A reply on Conversation: Should medical ethics be taught in medical school?
A reply on Conversation: Should medical ethics be taught in medical school?
A reply on Conversation: Should medical ethics be taught in medical school?
A reply on Conversation: Should medical ethics be taught in medical school?
A comment on Conversation: Should medical ethics be taught in medical school?
That being said, the current trends in spirituality and medicine (where spirituality isn't defined as exclusively "religious" but merely as whatever is at the core of one's source of meaning in life...family, appreciation of nature, altruistic acts, etc.) begin from the idea of treating patients as a person (i.e. a being with a set of beliefs, values, ideals, hopes, concerns, personality traits, etc.) rather than merely treating an illness or a symptom. Ethics is about how we weigh values, often in relation to a conflicting sense of duty. If we can consider such things in advance, it makes it easier to know what to look for, think about, and consider before we have to do so when we're interacting with people when it really matters. Two things I tell my own students at the beginning of every semester are that if we're going to even attempt to do philosophy well, we need to always keep in mind 1) make no assumptions (or as few as possible) and 2) just because you've heard something all your life doesn't make it true. Most of the students in my current graduate courses are medical students and my program is in the school of medicine, not philosophy; and they all the time make assuptions that philosophers wouldn't simply because of their background. If we combine the two disciplines, everyone benefits. Philosophers who attempt bioethics without any medical science are at an equal disadvantage as doctors who have no exposure to ethics.