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The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

Sam Harris

Start date: February 1, 2012

Finish date: February 29, 2012

Discussion: Book Club 2012

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Book Club 2012

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What Members Thought

Jan 11, 2011 David Rubenstein rated it it was amazing

Shelves: religion, philosophy, science

This book starts out rather slow, with a heavy dose of philosophy. It does pick up after the first couple of chapters, as the book shows how the mind treats facts and values in a similar manner. The author shows that the goal of morality should be to maximize the "well-being" of as many individuals as possible, in the present life (not the after-life, which is not verified by objective evidence). While it is not always obvious what constitutes "well-being" (it can be a very gray area), it is cle ...more

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Mar 28, 2021 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1audio, 2non-fiction, science

While I agree with him almost entirely, I'm a bit put off by the repetition or what I see as repetition, anyway. Since I agree, I don't need all of minor details hashed out so thoroughly. The problem is that moral relativism & the subject - the basics of moral behavior - are both so slippery & ill defined so he comes at them from quite a few angles with specific examples.

He defines moral relativism in its worst form - those who believe anything dictated by the local culture, mores, & religion ar While I agree with him almost entirely, I'm a bit put off by the repetition or what I see as repetition, anyway. Since I agree, I don't need all of minor details hashed out so thoroughly. The problem is that moral relativism & the subject - the basics of moral behavior - are both so slippery & ill defined so he comes at them from quite a few angles with specific examples.

He defines moral relativism in its worst form - those who believe anything dictated by the local culture, mores, & religion are sacrosanct. They shouldn't be. There is no justification for mutilating people due to the strictures of old myths & science can point many of these out. Unfortunately, most of the science is pretty soft (e.g., psychiatry) & the mores are deeply embedded in their societies with many roots. One example is the sexual mutilation & suppression of women in many cultures. Our fledgling sciences can prove that worst of such actions aren't moral in any rational sense & this is where we need to start pushing science into a realm that conventional wisdom says belongs to religion.

He also points out that there are few absolutes & this is where he has to spend so much time separating out moral relativism from our lack of rigid sciences dealing with societies. There are many gray areas that we just can't answer or can answer in many ways without a certainty of being correct. Is it moral to restrict individual freedom if doing so will make some others safe? How many others? A large majority certainly, but what about one in a million? Where do we draw the line?

He also makes a great case that just because we can't definitely answer these questions at this time & that we may never be able to, it's no reason not to pose them, study them, & build a better science around them. It's past time to keep treating horrendous behavior as if it is sacrosanct & to make better decisions about the even thornier problems that are constantly arising as resources dwindle, our population climbs, & our technology opens up new vistas. ...more

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Jan 07, 2012 David S. T. rated it it was ok

Shelves: religion, science

I've read several books from the so called 'new atheists'. I've found that on books concerning religious matters, I mostly hate their books. Its not that I even care that they're atheist or not, I'm all for reading atheist arguments. I recently read Sagan's agnostic lecture book and loved it, but I have a problem with they way the present their material, they take the most absurd extreme examples of religion and throw them out as the norm. Most of these examples would infuriate the vast majority I've read several books from the so called 'new atheists'. I've found that on books concerning religious matters, I mostly hate their books. Its not that I even care that they're atheist or not, I'm all for reading atheist arguments. I recently read Sagan's agnostic lecture book and loved it, but I have a problem with they way the present their material, they take the most absurd extreme examples of religion and throw them out as the norm. Most of these examples would infuriate the vast majority of religious people, I often feel that their arguments are more polemics and anti religious propaganda than actual thought out reasons of whether there is or isn't a deity. Sadly it seems the more I read their book reviews on sites like amazon, it seems that many of their followers take the same intolerant stances. With that being said, for the most part I like Dawkin's evolution books, so I figured that its worth a shot reading Harris's book on using science to determine morality. Sadly it seems the 'science' part of the book is pretty sparse and its just more of the same.

I think I sort of agreed with the idea of this book before I started reading, basically that we should use science to help determine our morals and actions. I wouldn't be exclusive to science though, but if something can be tested and proved to be useful then I'm all for it. I actually don't think that religious values should be the norm for our laws, for example even though you could argue that Paul (see Romans in the bible) and orthodox Christianity are reasons for requiring marriage to be between a man and a woman, but if you remove the religious aspect of it, I think that most people with an open mind would allow gay marriage (I wonder if one day we'll look back on these things the same way we look back on racial issues). I think issues such as stem cell research or abortion should be discussed and both sides presented. I also think we're getting overpopulated and so I'm all for things like using condoms for birth control.

My first surprise with this book is just how sparse the references to scientific studies are, I guess at this time there just aren't that many or Harris didn't want to mention them because it might quickly outdate his book. There are a few studies mentioned every now and then, but for the most part its more of him trying to show how religion is a bad way to determine morality, how there can be objective morality and that science can reach it (although few examples of what he means). For the most part I was okay with this, I didn't agree with everything he presented and don't think that some issues aren't easy to agree on, but I didn't hate the book up to this point.

Then came the chapter on religion which basically made me want to put the book down (had this been earlier in the book, I would have stopped reading, but by then I was already too committed to stop). Harris didn't grow up religious and I think he fails just to understand what its like for a believer to believe. Take for example, at one part of the book he mocks belief in Jesus, one of his comments mocks the idea that Jesus can hear a billion prayers at once. Logically if Jesus was only a man then this is a pretty good argument. Now regardless of what you actually believe, pretend you're a christian who believes that all things were created through Jesus (meaning that a billion billion galaxies were created by him, see John 1:1-3), then its not hard to see why a Christian would have no problem believing that Jesus could hear a billion prayers at once, its relatively a simple task compared to creating the universe. Obviously mocking someone for accepting prayer to a being like this is pretty absurd. Of course if you believe that Jesus was just a man then he couldn't hear just one prayer let alone billions.

Later he comes to a rant against Francis Collins, the person appointed by Obama as the director of the National Institutes of Health. Basically, he's pissed that Collins, someone that hold religious convictions is appointed to such a high position, and he basis this on religious grounds. He admits that Collins holds the same position as him on issues like evolution or stem cell research, but he can't stand the fact that Collins prayed before taking this position. Now here is my point, I hope that one day we can get to a point of racial, ethnic and religious tolerance for all people. For example a place where the next president candidate is elected on his views and past voting precedent and not on something like his religious stance. I think it is wrong that if someone is an open atheist/agnostic, he doesn't stand a chance of being the president regardless of his credentials. I'm not sure Harris would agrees on the opposite, I think if he had his way only atheists would be qualified. Take Collins, Harris seems to attack someone whom does seem to be qualified for the position almost solely on his religious beliefs.

Harris's comments about Collins seems to have pissed off some fellow atheists, and Harris goes on to reprint their letters / newspaper columns. These remarks from the others seem logical to me (more so than the majority of the book), they think Harris should back down, not attack someone based on Christianity, that Harris and the new atheists are doing more harm than good on issues like evolution (I've seen this first hand where someone will deny evolution because it makes you an atheist like Dawkins). Harris ignores this because truthfully his goal isn't getting things like modern science / evolution accepted but its to remove religion. Which brings me to my final point, who is the audience of this book? Harris seems to try to piss everyone off, religious, philosophers, and fellow scientists. It seems the audience is the very limited to his new atheist followers. This is the biggest problem with the book, if you want to see change happen you have to convince a much broader audience, we live in a democracy and a majority of the population does still believe in a deity and Harris tries to be elite and attack the masses and expects real change to happen, but the only thing which will happen is they'll further oppose his view. This major thing makes the book pretty pointless, Harris is just trying to convince his small (relatively) audience and no one else.

With everything being said, I'm done reading these new atheist books for now, I'll get my atheist / agnostic arguments elsewhere. I don't have time to read intolerant Christian fundamentalists, I don't have time to read their atheist counterparts either. ...more

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May 20, 2013 loafingcactus rated it did not like it

Shelves: read-2013

Reviewer Nebuchadnezzar labeled this neuro-utilitarianism, which about sums it up. The author flings aside any criticism with the idea that he is providing "answers in principle" even if they don't work as "answers in practice." Because an unusable ethics is just what we were all looking for. To support the unusable ethics, he calls in every big name (except John Stuart Mill, the utilitarian- "utilitarianism" as a word does not seem to appear anywhere in the book, I can say for certain it is not ...more

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Sep 06, 2010 David rated it it was amazing

I've read each of Sam Harris' books, The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, and now The Moral Landscape. I have to say I enjoyed this one the most.

While Sam is considered to be a leader in the New Atheist movement, he does not actually apply the terms atheist and atheism to himself and his work. It is an empty term in his mind. You do not go around saying a not-astrologer. Sam is however a scientist and has great faith in what science can teach us. This new book explains why science ca ...more

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Mar 17, 2011 Amanda rated it liked it

Shelves: pop-sci, atheism, philosophy

Well, that certainly was an interesting read. Of course I didn't agree with Harris on a number of points, but I did find the text engaging and it actually changed my mind on at least one philosophical issue (hooray for strict determinism!). Definitely recommended if you're looking for a good bit of thinking, although you will be bored with shitty fMRI studies by the end of it. ...more

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