Science can answer moral questions Sam Harris

I’m going to speak today about the

relationship between science and human

values now it’s generally understood

that that questions of morality

questions of good and evil and right and

wrong are questions about which science

officially has no opinion it’s thought

that science can can help us get what we

value but it can never tell us what we

ought to value and consequently most

people I think most people probably here

think that science will never answer the

most important questions in human life

questions like what is worth living for

what is worth dying for what what

constitutes a good life so I’m going to

argue that this is an illusion of the

separation between science and human

values is an illusion and actually quite

a dangerous one at this point in human

history now it’s often said that science

cannot give us a foundation for morality

and human values because science deals

with facts and facts and values seem to

belong to different spheres it’s often

thought that there’s no description of

the way the world is that can tell us

how the world ought to be but I think

this is quite clearly untrue but values

are a certain kind of fact okay they are

facts about the well-being of conscious

creatures why is it that we don’t have

ethical obligations toward rocks

why don’t we feel compassion for rocks

so because we don’t think rocks can

suffer and if we’re more concerned about

our fellow primates than we are about

insects as indeed we are it’s because we

think they’re exposed to a greater range

of potential happiness and suffering now

the crucial thing to notice here is that

this is a factual claim this is

something we could be right or wrong

about if we’ve misconstrued the

relationship between biological

complexity and the possibilities of

experience well then we could be wrong

about the inner lives of insects okay

there is no notion no version of human

morality and human values that I’ve ever

come across that is not at some point

reducible to a concern about conscious

experience

and it’s possible changes even if you

get your values from religion even if

you think that good and evil ultimately

relate to conditions after death either

to an eternity of happiness with God or

an eternity of suffering in hell you are

still concerned about consciousness and

its changes and to say that such changes

can persist after death is itself a

factual claim which of course may or may

not be true now to speak about the

conditions of well-being in this life

for human beings we know that there is a

continuum of such facts we know that

it’s possible to live in a failed state

where everything that can go wrong does

go wrong where mothers cannot feed their

children we’re strangers cannot find the

basis for peaceful collaboration where

people are murdered indiscriminately and

we know that it’s possible to move along

this continuum towards something quite a

bit more idyllic that - a place where a

conference like this is even conceivable

and we know we know that there are right

and wrong answers to how to move in this

space and what would would adding

cholera to the water be a good idea Oh

probably not it would it be a good idea

for everyone to believe in the evil eye

so that when bad things happen to them

they immediately blame their neighbors

probably not there are truths to be

known about how human communities

flourish whether or not we understand

these truths and morality relates to

these truths so in talking about values

we are talking about facts now of course

our situation in the world can be

understood at many levels there’s the

from the level of the genome on up to

the level of economic systems and

political arrangements but if we’re

going to talk about human well-being

we are of necessity talking about the

human brain because we know that our

experience of the world and of ourselves

within it is realized in the brain

whatever happens after death even if the

suicide bomber does get 72 virgins in

the afterlife in this life

his personality is rather unfortunate

personality is the product of his brain

okay and so and the contributions of

culture if culture changes us as indeed

it does it changes us by changing our

brains and and so therefore the whatever

cultural variation there is and how

human beings flourish can at least in

principle be understood in the context

of a maturing science of the mind

neuroscience psychology etc so what I’m

arguing is that values reduce to facts

to facts about the conscious experience

of conscious beings and we can therefore

visualize a space of possible changes in

the experience of these beans and I

think this is a kind of moral landscape

with peaks and valleys that correspond

to differences in the well-being of

conscious creatures both personal and

collective and one thing to notice is

that perhaps there are states of human

well-being that we rarely access that

few people access and these await our

discovery perhaps some of these states

can be appropriately called mystical or

spiritual perhaps our other states that

we can’t access because of how our minds

are structured but other Minds possibly

could access them now let me be clear

about what I’m not saying I’m not saying

that science is guaranteed to map this

space or that we will have scientific

answers to every conceivable moral

question I don’t think for instance that

you will one day consult a supercomputer

to learn whether you should have a

second child or whether we should bomb

Iran’s nuclear facilities or whether you

can deduct the full cost of Ted as a

business expense

but if questions affect human wellbeing

then they do have answers whether or not

we can find them and just admitting this

just admitting that there are right and

wrong answers to the question of how

humans flourish will change the way we

talk about morality and will change our

expectations of human cooperation in the

future and for instance there are 21

states in our country where corporal

punishment in the classroom is legal

where it is legal for a teacher to beat

a child with a wooden board heart under

raising large bruises and blisters and

even breaking the skin and a hundreds of

thousands of children instantly are

subjected to this every year the

locations of these enlightened districts

I think will fail to surprise you we’re

not talking about Connecticut and the

rationale for this behavior is

explicitly religious the creator of the

universe himself has told us not to

spare the rod less we spoil the child

this is in proverbs 13 and 20 and I

believe 23 but we can ask the obvious

question okay is is it a good idea

generally speaking to subject children

to pain and violence and public

humiliation as a way of encouraging

healthy emotional development and and

good behavior okay is there any doubt

that this question has an answer and

that it matters now many of you might

worry that the notion of well-being is

truly undefined and seemingly

perpetually open to be reconstructing

their be a an objective notion of

well-being well consider by analogy the

concept of physical health

the concept of physical health is

undefined as we just heard from Michael

Spector it has changed over the years

when this statue was carved the average

life expectancy was probably thirty he

is now around 80 in the developed world

there may come a time when we meddle

with our genomes in such a way that that

not being able to run a marathon at age

200 will be considered a profound

disability you know people send you

donations when you’re in that

notice that that the fact that the

concept of health is open genuinely open

for revision does not make it vacuous

the distinction between a healthy person

and a dead one is about as clear and

consequential as any we make in science

now another thing to notice is there may

be many peaks on the moral landscape

there may be equivalent ways to thrive

there may be equivalent ways to organize

a human society so as to maximize human

flourishing now why wouldn’t this

undermine a an objective morality well

think of how we talk about food I would

never be tempted to argue to you that

there must be one right food to eat it’s

clearly a range of materials that

constitute healthy food but there’s

nevertheless a clear distinction between

food and poison okay the fact that there

are many right answers to the question

what is food does not make the decisions

not tempt us to say that there are no

truths to be known about human nutrition

now many people worry that that a

universal Mara morality would would

require moral precepts that

that admit of no exceptions so for

instance if it’s really wrong to lie it

must always be wrong to lie and if you

can find an exception well then there’s

no such thing as moral truth now why

would we think this consider by analogy

the game chess now if you’re going to

play good chess a principle like don’t

lose your queen is very good to follow

okay but it clearly admits of exceptions

with their moments we’re losing your

queen is a brilliant thing to do there

are moments where is the only good thing

you can do and yet the chess is a domain

of perfect objectivity the fact that

there are exceptions here does not does

not change that at all now this brings

us to the sorts of moves that people are

apt to make in the moral sphere okay

consider the great problem of women’s

bodies what to do about them well this

is one thing you can do about them you

can cover them up

now it is the position generally

speaking of our intellectual community

that well we might not like this we

might think of this as wrong in Boston

or Palo Alto who are we to say that the

proud denizens of an ancient culture are

wrong to force their wives and daughters

to live in cloth bags who are we to say

even that they’re wrong to beat them

with lengths of steel cable or throw

battery acid in their faces if they

decline the privilege of being smothered

in this way okay who are we not to say

this who are we to pretend that we know

so little about human well-being that we

have to be non-judgmental about a

practice like this I’m not talking about

voluntary wearing of a veil and women

should be able to wear whatever they

want as far as I’m concerned but what

does voluntary mean in a community where

when a girl gets raped her father’s

first impulse rather often is to murder

her out of shame but just let that fact

detonate in your brain for a minute your

daughter gets raped and what you want to

do is kill her

what what are the chances that

represents a peak of human flourishing

now to say this it’s not to say that we

have got the the perfect solution in our

own society commit for instance this is

what it’s like to go to a newsstand

almost anywhere in the civilized world

now granted for many men it may require

a degree in philosophy to see something

wrong with these images but if we are in

a reflective mood we can ask is this the

perfect expression of psychological

balance with respect to variables like

youth and beauty and women’s bodies is

this the optimal environment in which to

raise our children probably not okay so

so perhaps our someplace on the spectrum

between these two extremes that

represents a place of a better balance

perhaps perhaps there are many such

places again we’re given other changes

in human culture there may be many peaks

on the moral landscape but the thing to

notice is that there’ll be many more

ways not to be on a peak now the irony

from my perspective is that the only

people who seem to generally agree with

me and who think that there are right

and wrong answers to moral questions are

religious demagogues of one form or

another and of course they think they

have right answers to moral questions

because they got these answers from a

voice in a whirlwind okay not because

they made an intelligent analysis of the

causes and condition of human and animal

well-being and in fact the the endurance

of religion as a as a lens through which

most people view moral questions has

separated most moral talk from real

questions of human and animal suffering

this is why we spend our time talking

about things like gay marriage and not

about genocide or nuclear proliferation

or poverty or any other hugely

consequential issue but the demagogues

are right about one thing we need a

universal conception of human values now

what stands in the way of this well one

thing to notice is that we we do

something different when talking about

morality especially secular academic

scientist types when talking about

morality we value differences of opinion

in a way that we don’t in any other area

of our lives so for instance the Dalai

Lama gets up every morning meditating on

compassion and he thinks that helping

other human beings is an integral

component of human happiness yeah on the

other hand we have someone like Ted

Bundy Ted Bundy was very fond of

abducting and raping and torturing and

killing young women okay so we appear to

have a genuine difference of opinion

about how to profitably use one’s time

most Western intellectuals look at this

situation and say well there’s nothing

for the Dalai Lama to be really right

about really right about or for Ted

Bundy to be really wrong about that

admits of a of a real argument that

potentially falls within the purview of

science okay that we you know he likes

chocolate

he likes vanilla there’s there’s no

there’s nothing that one should be able

to say to the other that should persuade

the other now notice that we don’t do

this in science on the left you have

Edward Witten

he’s a string theorist if you ask the

smartest physicists around who’s the

smartest physicist around in my

experience half of them will say ed

Witten the other half will tell you they

don’t like the question so what would

happen if I showed up at a physics

conference and said string theory is

bogus you know it doesn’t resonate with

me it’s not how I choose to view the

universe the smallest scale I’m not a

fan

well well nothing would happen because

I’m not a physicist I don’t understand

string theory I’m the Ted Bundy of

string theory

I wouldn’t want to belong to any string

theory club that would have me as a

member okay but this is just the point

okay whenever we are talking about facts

certain opinions must be excluded that

is what it is to have a domain of

expertise that is what it is for

knowledge to count how have we convinced

ourselves that in the moral sphere there

is no such thing as moral expertise or

moral talent or moral genius even how

have we convinced ourselves that every

opinion has to count how have we

convinced ourselves that every culture

has a point of view on these subjects

worth considering does the Taliban have

a point of view on physics that is worth

considering no okay how is how is their

ignorance how is their ignorance any

less obvious on the subject of human

well-being

so so this I think is what the world

needs now it needs people like ourselves

to admit that there are right and wrong

answers to questions of human

flourishing and morality relates to that

domain of facts it is possible for

individuals and even for whole cultures

to care about the wrong things which is

to say it’s possible for them to have

beliefs and desires that reliably lead

to needless human suffering just

admitting this will transform our

discourse about morality okay we live in

it in a in a world in which the

boundaries between nations mean less and

less and they will one day mean nothing

we live in a world filled with

destructive technology and this

technology cannot be uninvented it will

always be easier to break things than to

fix them it seems to me therefore

patently obvious that we can no more

respect and tolerate vast differences in

in notions of human wellbeing then then

we can respect or tolerate vast

differences in the notions about how

disease spreads or in the in the safety

standards of buildings and airplanes we

simply must converge on the answers we

give to the most important questions in

human life and to do that we have to

admit that these questions have answers

thank you very much

thank you

go ahead of us sir

so some combustible material there yeah

whether in this audience or people

elsewhere in the world hearing some of

this they’ve all be doing the screaming

with rage thing all right there as well

some of them language seems to be is

really important here you do when you

talk about the veil you’re talking about

women dressed in cloth bags you know

I’ve lived in the Muslim world spoken

with a lot of Muslim women and some of

them would say something else they would

say no you know this is a celebration of

female specialness it helps build that

and it’s an expression it’s a result of

the fact that and is arguably a

sophisticated psychological view that

male lust is not to be trusted

ROH I mean can you engage in a

conversation with that kind of woman

without seeing kind of cultural

imperialist yeah well I think this is I

tried to broach this in a sentence

watching the clock ticking but the the

question is what is voluntary in a

context where men have certain

expectations and certain and you’re

guaranteed to be treated in a certain

way if you don’t veil yourself and so if

anyone in this room wanted to wear a

veil or a very funny hat or tattoo their

faces or do I think we should be free to

voluntarily do whatever we want but we

have to be honest about the constraints

that these women are placed under and

and so I think we shouldn’t be so eager

to always take their word for it

especially and when it’s 120 degrees out

and you’re you’re wearing a full burqa a

lot of people you know want to believe

in this this concept of moral progress

but can you reconcile that I think I

understood you to say that you could

reconcile that with the world that

doesn’t become one-dimensional well we

all have to think the same paint your

picture of what you know rolling the

clock 50 years forward 100 years forward

how you would like to think of the world

balancing moral progress with richness

well I think once you admit that we are

on path toward understanding our minds

at the level of the brain in some

important detail then

you have to admit that that we are going

to understand all of the positive and

negative qualities of ourselves in much

greater detail so we’re going to

understand positive social emotion like

empathy and compassion and we’re going

to understand the factors that encourage

it whether they’re genetic whether

they’re how people talk to one another

whether they’re economic systems and

insofar as we begin to shine light on

that we are inevitably going to converge

on on that fact space so everything is

not going to be up for grabs it’s not

going to be like you know veiling my

daughter from birth is just as good as

as teaching her to be confident and and

well-educated in the context of men who

do desire women you know so it’s it’s

it’s we oh I don’t think we need an NSF

grant to know that veiling compulsory

veiling is a bad idea but at a certain

point we’re going to be able to scan the

brains of everyone involved and actually

interrogate them you know I mean do

people love their daughters just as much

in these in these systems and I think I

think they’re right clearly right

answers to that and if the results come

out that actually they do are you

prepared to shift your instinctive

current judgment on some of these issues

well yeah modulo one obvious fact that

you can love someone in the context of a

truly delusional belief system so that

you can say like because I I knew my gay

son was going to go to hell if he if he

found a boyfriend I chopped his head off

and that was the most compassionate

thing I can do if you get all those

parts aligned yes I think you could

probably be feeling the emotion of love

but again then we have to talk about

well-being in a larger context you know

it’s all of us in this together it’s not

one man feeling ecstasy and then blowing

himself up on a bus some this is a

conversation I would actually love to

continue for hours we don’t have that

layout if you know the time thank you

that means that really an archaic

what does a machine know about itself

can it know when it needs to be repaired

and when it doesn’t in industries like

manufacturing and energy they’re using

predictive analytics to detect signs of

trouble helping some companies save

millions on maintenance because machines

seek help before they’re broken and

don’t when they’re not that’s what I’m

working on I’m an IBM er let’s build a

smarter planet