Our recent discussions, particularly on the thread about Jonathan Haidt's response to Sam Harris's challenge, left me thinking about the various scopes of objective facts. In retrospect, it's a bit obvious to me now that a key question in moral philosophy is, if morality is objective, at what scope is it objective? Haidt used the … Continue reading The scope of objective facts and morality
Tag: Morality
Why I think Sam Harris is wrong about morality | The Righteous Mind
Several commenters have said I should not just critique the excessive certainty of the New Atheists. I should respond directly to Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape Challenge. I should say why I think the argument he makes about a science of morality are wrong. (Harris argues that what is right and wrong can be determined scientifically, … Continue reading Why I think Sam Harris is wrong about morality | The Righteous Mind
This View of Life: Why Sam Harris is Unlikely to Change his Mind
The New Atheist Sam Harris recently offered to pay $10,000 to anyone who can disprove his arguments about morality. Jonathan Haidt analyzes the nature of reasoning, and the ease with which reason becomes a servant of the passions. He bets $10,000 that Harris will not change his mind. via This View of Life: Why Sam … Continue reading This View of Life: Why Sam Harris is Unlikely to Change his Mind
The foundations of morality
Last week, I made a post on the fact that we have desires, urges, impulses, motivations, that are inherently not rooted in reason or logic, that while reason and logic are extremely useful, they are tools of these desires, these instincts. And that while reason can have an effect on how we resolve conflicts between … Continue reading The foundations of morality
Moral values aren’t absolute, but aren’t arbitrary either
I'm working on another post with details about foundational moral instincts, but after some discussion on the 'Morality arises from instincts' post, I realized that I failed to make a couple of things clear. So, I'm inserting this additional post to do that. First, let me clarify that, in these posts, I'm being descriptive, not … Continue reading Moral values aren’t absolute, but aren’t arbitrary either
Morality arises from instincts
What is morality? Look it up on Wikipedia or most dictionaries, and you'll get something about whether acts or intentions are right or wrong. But what is right and wrong? Right and wrong for what? The usual answer is right and wrong for values. But what are values? Look that up, and after glossing over … Continue reading Morality arises from instincts
The path to moral behavior | Machines Like Us
The brakes of your car fail suddenly and on your path are five people who will certainly be hit and killed. You can steer, but if you do another pedestrian will find himself on your course. Just one. What do you do: do you take action and kill one person or do you do nothing … Continue reading The path to moral behavior | Machines Like Us
This View of Life: The Evolution of Fairness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOtlN4pNArk Brosnan and de Waal’s finding of fairness in the capuchin monkey has settled the long-standing question of whether animals have a sense of fairness and further blurred the line between humans and other animals in a new territory: the sphere of morality. *** The questions now are how fairness works and why it evolved. … Continue reading This View of Life: The Evolution of Fairness
Evolution and altruism
In this episode, a question that haunted Charles Darwin: if natural selection boils down to survival of the fittest, how do you explain why one creature might stick its neck out for another? The standard view of evolution is that living things are shaped by cold-hearted competition. And there is no doubt that today\'s plants … Continue reading Evolution and altruism
Big Gods: An interesting read
A while back, I read Ara Norenzayan's book, 'Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict'. I'm posting this review somewhat from memory, but I've had a couple of conversations about it lately and I think it might be good to move the discussion here. In the book, Norenzayan asks an interesting question. How did … Continue reading Big Gods: An interesting read
SelfAwarePatterns 