Science and morals

[PaulSacramento]

http://biologos.org/blog/science-and-sc ... f-morality

The idea that all current mysteries will eventually be solved using the scientific method has been called scientism. Stephen Barr describes scientism as the notion that “all objectively meaningful questions can be reduced to scientific ones, and only natural explanations are rational.” In biology, a subcategory of scientism is evolutionism, the concept that all biological questions (including those concerning the nature of humankind) are reducible to explanations derived from the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection.

One of the more outspoken proponents of this view is Sam Harris, a leading figure among the New Atheists, and a fierce antitheist. Harris has written a book and given talks on the idea that morality—broadly, the act of discerning good from bad—can be derived from science.

On the face of it, this seems strange, since the scientific consensus, especially in evolutionary biology, has always been that nature is morally neutral. We know, as scientists, that sharks are not “bad” any more than dolphins are “good.” The true evolutionary view (I always thought) was that fitness is related to success, not goodness.

The problem is that as human beings, we know that goodness exists, so it must be accounted for, and if one is a staunch believer in scientism, it must be accounted for scientifically. In some situations, this accounting seems to be possible. There is a large literature on kin selection as the basis for some kinds of altruism, and Dawkins has made the case that what he calls “misfiring of genes” for kin altruism are responsible for human goodness.

Harris claims that moral values can be based on scientific principles, and that no kind of cultural context, especially faith-based context, is necessary for humans to have a code of morals. He bases this argument on the idea that moral values are based on facts, and that these facts can be tested for their truthfulness. To some extent, this is an old idea. Murder, adultery, theft and lying—some of the best-recognized universal moral prohibitions, all tend to destabilize the coherence of social groups and would therefore be selected against in all societies.

But Harris goes much further, using arguments and examples that are anything but scientific. Since Harris is a leader of the antitheistic movement, and is interested in finding examples of religious practices that he believes can be scientifically proven to be immoral. He cites the abusive treatment of women in Islamic societies as a main example, and he mentions corporal punishment of children as a slap at Christianity.

So how does Harris prove scientifically that forcing women to cover their bodies, and hitting school children with rulers are morally wrong? He doesn’t. Here is what he actually says:

But we can ask the obvious question: 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 good behavior? Is there any doubt that this question has an answer, and that it matters?

Harris clearly believes the answer to that question is no, and I agree with him. But where is the science here? Has he data to show that children who were subjected to corporal punishment had worse emotional development and behavior than children who did not undergo such punishment? No. He has no such data, and in fact while he considers the wrongness of corporal punishment to be an obvious fact, there are millions of people who consider it to be just the reverse. There is no science here; there is simply a basic underlying moral idea, which Harris shares with others.

Harris touts the evils of Islamic fundamentalism as morally indefensible from a scientific point of view. But what kind of fact is it to say that making women cover their bodies is wrong, other than the “fact” that Harris thinks it is? Is there a science for determining the optimal way to treat women? If there is, it isn’t mentioned by Harris.

While it may seem obvious that the oppression of women is morally wrong, proving scientifically that its disadvantageous to the thriving of our species is more tricky. In fact, the moral values of Harris, which are typical Western Judeo-Christian values, are largely counter-evolutionary. What we see when we look at history or sociology, is a background of true selection-positive behavior—indiscriminate killing of enemies, sexual aggression, concentration of power in a dominant faction—on which has been superimposed a moral code, followed and enforced despite its anti-evolutionary tendency. The real question to ask is: How is it that humans obey any of these moral codes that do not help them survive as individuals or as members of a culture?

In truth, there is no science at all behind Harris’s grand claim of factual moral values, (beyond such obvious things as it isn’t a good idea to add cholera germs to the water supply). He even admits this by stating:

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.

Of course that is correct, because both Harris, and the people whom he calls “religious demagogues,” have formulated moral codes that they hold to in the absence of any “scientific” data.

The argument that morality is outside the scope of science is not a hard one to make, but it isn’t only morality that must be excluded from the domain of science. The more important argument is that very few of the ideas of evolutionism are based on anything remotely scientific. This is because the evolutionism paradigm includes many distortions of Darwin’s great theory, and too many of these distortions have become accepted by an antitheistic academic culture without proper rigorous analysis.

Like Steven Jay Gould, I see no evidence that the biological mechanisms of evolution by natural selection can be extrapolated beyond the bounds of biology. Gould devotes several chapters in The Richness of Life to attacking the “adaptationist paradigm,” which is a central part of evolutionism. In responding to Daniel Dennet’s assertion that adaptation and selection explain just about everything, Gould says:

The fallacy of Dennet’s argument undermines his other imperialist hope that the universal acid of natural selection might reduce human cultural change to the Darwinian algorithm as well … The chief strategy proposed by evolutionary psychologists for identifying adaptation is untestable and therefore unscientific.

Cunningham has also explored this issue in Darwin’s Pious Idea. Social Darwinism, eugenics, evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, mimetics and other nonbiological applications of Darwin’s theory are not rationally consistent with the fundamental properties of evolution by natural selection.

Evolutionism has been used to “explain” all sorts of dynamics in culture, using evolutionary concepts. But, while the evolution of devices that play music (as an example) might bear a resemblance to the evolution of carnivores, it is a superficial resemblance. Devices do not replicate themselves, so they cannot be the target of selection.

Scientism is a failed philosophical approach to the pursuit of universal truth. Its failure should be evident especially to scientists who, more than most, understand the limits of their fields of study, as well as the enormous effort it takes to wrest nuggets of pure truth from nature. We must, as previous generations of enlightened thinkers have done, admit that issues of morality, beauty, thought, love, art, and culture are not approachable by scientific methodology or tools, or we risk losing a huge part of our human endowment of special (if not divine) genius.

[Ivellious]

I have long said (and I believe I have said so on this website) that those who try to take Darwinian evolution and its general concepts and start applying them to the realms of psychology, sociology, morality, and etc. are not doing proper science. The only thing that comes close to this is the study of altruism in nature, which does in fact have evolutionarily viable explanations. It's a fascinating subject, but not the point of this article...

The idea that all current mysteries will eventually be solved using the scientific method has been called scientism. Stephen Barr describes scientism as the notion that “all objectively meaningful questions can be reduced to scientific ones, and only natural explanations are rational.”

While I don't doubt that some scientists and non-scientists would believe this is true, it's not as much of an epidemic as you might think. Rather, I think most scientists understand that there is a distinction between scientific questions (i.e. how did we get here? How do we explain the history of Earth? etc.) and non-scientific questions (i.e. Does God exist? Does any specific religion's God exist? What is the meaning of life? etc). And that distinction violates this description of scientism.

On the other hand, within the realm of science, naturalism is how science progresses and learns. Science can't presume, measure, predict, or describe things outside of the natural world. It is unscientific to see a question and fill in supernatural explanations to answer it. While science can't answer all questions, there are many questions that, in theory, science can answer, no supernatural explanation required. I would dare say the vast majority of scientists understand why methodological naturalism is how science works, and its distinction from scientism.

The problem is that as human beings, we know that goodness exists, so it must be accounted for, and if one is a staunch believer in scientism, it must be accounted for scientifically.

I actually disagree with this. I don't think that humans are separate from other animals simply because we know "goodness". Especially since the definition of "goodness" in human society has drastically changed over time and in different places. We are not alone in having social customs and rules, either. Many other social animals clearly demonstrate systems and structures of rules that serve the good of the population. They are clearly more simplistic and instinctual than ours, but it boils down to the same things: An individual shouldn't do things to harm the survival of the group, and in some cases acting altruistically can be just as effective at passing on your genes as acting out of self-interest.

Harris claims that moral values can be based on scientific principles, and that no kind of cultural context, especially faith-based context, is necessary for humans to have a code of morals. He bases this argument on the idea that moral values are based on facts, and that these facts can be tested for their truthfulness. To some extent, this is an old idea. Murder, adultery, theft and lying—some of the best-recognized universal moral prohibitions, all tend to destabilize the coherence of social groups and would therefore be selected against in all societies.

In theory, these kinds of hypothetical explanations for human morality could be viable. The problem is what comes next. This is pure speculation, not even really based on evidence at all. There is no fossil record to find or genetic mapping to be done that can track the history of human morality. While his opinion might be logical on certain levels, it's just an opinion. It's not a scientific hypothesis as much as it is a possibility that we can't actually study as of now. That's why I think this field is no good, as I said before.

...I'm out of time for the moment, but I might write more on this later.

[La Volpe]

You cannot have absolute moral values, with science alone. In order to have perfect morality you need someone/thing with perfect moral values. If there was nothing perfect to set forth moral values then you could not logically deduce what perfect morality is. You cannot use the scientific method to prove morality.

CS Lewis often spoke of the concept of universal morality, the fact that atheists have no logical reason to feel guilty about anything and yet they do. Most atheists would probably agree that The Holocaust was a bad thing, but in their way of thinking they really have no reason to say it's bad, do they?

[StMonicaGuideMe]

CS Lewis often spoke of the concept of universal morality, the fact that atheists have no logical reason to feel guilty about anything and yet they do. Most atheists would probably agree that The Holocaust was a bad thing, but in their way of thinking they really have no reason to say it's bad, do they?

Not that I'm aware of at least. I attempted to apply naturalism's view to any large-scale violence in human history, and the best I could come up with (loose as it is) was it's "fitness at work". Again, lack-lustre, hole-ridden and ultimately flat. If there's another plausible explanation, I'd like to hear it.

In regards to guilt, or really, any other feeling, I've never found the arguments for the existence of feelings as being a product of the biological brain compelling. What science is able to measure is the body's reaction to the feeling. At best, we can see where in brain of the specific emotion came from (anger, sadness, happiness, jealousy, etc), yet we cannot measure the "inception" of the feeling. We know that serotonin is released with happiness/love/bonding, yet it is a reaction. We know testosterone is released with anger and jealousy, yet it is a reaction. Thus I speculate that guilt also has an immeasurable inception point like all other emotions, and like you mentioned, it has even less of a reason to exist than any other, by their reasoning.