The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values [Hardcover]
Customer Review:
Sam Harris seems to have a knack of staying on the cutting edge of the religious debates. His first book "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" ignited the so-called New Atheist movement. Now after several years and after earning a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA Harris returns igniting a new debate, this time about the moral landscape of our world. People have been arguing back and forth whether there was anything new in the so-called New Atheist movement. But if this book counts as part of that movement then Harris does succeed in bringing something new to the table.
Theists like to remind atheists of the old days, the days of Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre, the so-called robust atheists of the past who didn't think there could be an objective morality for us all. With this book there is going to truly be a new atheism, one that affirms an objective morality based in the sciences. And it will be hotly contested by both sides.
In this book Sam Harris admirably attempts to steer between a moral absolutism that has answers to most moral questions and a cultural relativism that has nothing moral to say to other cultures. For him moral facts exist, but cultural relativism is false. For him the answers to moral questions do not come from religion, which can and does produce more harm than good, but from science, which helps us understand what makes for human flourishing. Science should be able to tell us in principle how we ought to live our lives.
Given that our experience is constrained by the laws of the universe, Harris argues there must be scientific answers to the question of how best to move up to the peaks of this moral landscape, toward greater happiness.
According to Harris there can be no such thing as Muslim algebra or Christian neuroscience so also there can be no religion specific morality.
While there are conflicting moral claims that might never be solved, most moral issues are not like this, he argues. For if we could eliminate "war, nuclear proliferation, malaria, chronic hunger, child abuse," etc. this would provide for human flourishing and be morally good for everyone.
He's argues that at bottom moral questions are about neurology, biology, psychology, sociology, and economics.
According to Harris: "It seems to me that the only way we are going to build a global civilization based on shared values--allowing us to converge on the same political, economic, and environmental goals--is to admit that questions about right and wrong and good and evil have answers, in the same way the questions about human health do."
I hope his argument succeeds.
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I'm the author of "Why I Became an Atheist" and editor of "The Christian Delusion," both books can be found here on Amazon.com.
Theists like to remind atheists of the old days, the days of Nietzsche, Camus and Sartre, the so-called robust atheists of the past who didn't think there could be an objective morality for us all. With this book there is going to truly be a new atheism, one that affirms an objective morality based in the sciences. And it will be hotly contested by both sides.
In this book Sam Harris admirably attempts to steer between a moral absolutism that has answers to most moral questions and a cultural relativism that has nothing moral to say to other cultures. For him moral facts exist, but cultural relativism is false. For him the answers to moral questions do not come from religion, which can and does produce more harm than good, but from science, which helps us understand what makes for human flourishing. Science should be able to tell us in principle how we ought to live our lives.
Given that our experience is constrained by the laws of the universe, Harris argues there must be scientific answers to the question of how best to move up to the peaks of this moral landscape, toward greater happiness.
According to Harris there can be no such thing as Muslim algebra or Christian neuroscience so also there can be no religion specific morality.
While there are conflicting moral claims that might never be solved, most moral issues are not like this, he argues. For if we could eliminate "war, nuclear proliferation, malaria, chronic hunger, child abuse," etc. this would provide for human flourishing and be morally good for everyone.
He's argues that at bottom moral questions are about neurology, biology, psychology, sociology, and economics.
According to Harris: "It seems to me that the only way we are going to build a global civilization based on shared values--allowing us to converge on the same political, economic, and environmental goals--is to admit that questions about right and wrong and good and evil have answers, in the same way the questions about human health do."
I hope his argument succeeds.
--------------
I'm the author of "Why I Became an Atheist" and editor of "The Christian Delusion," both books can be found here on Amazon.com.
++++
Sam Harris has written a simple, yet extraordinarily powerful book about the "science of morality" and it is quite a revelation. He cuts through the cloudy thinking of religion and relativism to get at the heart of the problem: How do we as human beings maximize our well being?
Harris provides no hard and fast answers, he is attempting to lay the foundations here. He is not, like Moses, stumbling off Mt. Sinai with stone tablets emblazoned with the "truth," he is merely sketching out how we might orient ourselves to best tackle the mountain ourselves.
Refreshing and brilliant.
Harris provides no hard and fast answers, he is attempting to lay the foundations here. He is not, like Moses, stumbling off Mt. Sinai with stone tablets emblazoned with the "truth," he is merely sketching out how we might orient ourselves to best tackle the mountain ourselves.
Refreshing and brilliant.
1 ความคิดเห็น:
Caught up in explaining philosophical complexities, he seems not to worry whether readers will totally understand all that he says. Even so, getAbstract suggests this interesting, impassioned, philosophical explanation of the rationalist worldview to those who wonder how and why ¿ and even if ¿ people make certain choices, and what their choices mean.
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