Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris spoke last night alongside Professor Richard Dawkins to a packed Sheldonian theatre in Oxford about the argument made in his new book The Moral Landscape. The event, co-hosted by the BHA, was chaired by Stephen Law (CFI UK).
In cool tones and clear language, Harris worked hard to undermine the conventional assumption that science has nothing to say about right and wrong. Using human health as an analogy, Dr. Harris argued that in the same way we can speak reasonably about a healthy person or an unhealthy person using scientific discourse, it is possible to use scientific evidence and established facts to determine moral and immoral actions. We can do this, Harris argued, by reference to whether such actions contribute to or detract from human wellbeing, questions which are ‘objective’ and open to science because they have real and measurable answers.
It is our wellbeing and our suffering, the highs and lows of human life, that form the peaks and troughs of “the moral landscape”. Facts are not so distinct from values, as Hume argued, and science can map the moral landscape, just as it does the landscape of our health – another value-laden concept, after all.
The talk was followed by discussion with BHA Vice President Professor Richard Dawkins. In their first joint public appearance the pair delved into the ideas of the book in greater detail and discussed, amongst other things, the scientific tools and methods that may be used in determining moral values. The 800-strong crowed was then given the opportunity to grill the speaker in the Q&A session. Many of the questions, while hugely sympathetic to the empirical approach in general, were sceptical of the possibility of entirely doing away with moral philosophy and the fact-value distinction, tending to focus on questions of principle which, perhaps, science per se could not resolve alone.
The event was co-hosted by the British Humanist Association, the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, the Centre for Inquiry, UK, Oxford Atheists, Humanists, and Secularists, Project Reason and Blackwell Bookshops.
The whole talk is available as a podcast via BHA partners The Pod Delusion.