Hi Steven, Sam Harris knocks religion like other "educated liberal types" and like them is apparently oblivious to the fact that his concerns about "nuclear proliferation, climate change, the crisis in education, poverty across the world" and similar liberal ain't-it-awful afflictions spring straight out of Western religious teachings. In fact, I'm always amused by the responses I get from this group when I asked them to express their moral principles. Invariably their answers reflect religious concepts such as love thy neighbor, treat others as you would be treated, and help others "in need." Little attention is paid to Pirsig's penetrating truth that: "If you eliminate suffering from this world you eliminate life. There's no evolution. Those species that don't suffer don't survive. Suffering is the negative face of the Quality that drives the whole process." (Lila, 29)
Maybe Harris has something of value to offer about morality. But unless he sees it as fundamental to physics and biology as well as to society, and recognizes suffering as a necessary teaching experience, I doubt it. Platt On Wed, Oct 13, 2010 at 10:27 AM, Steven Peterson <[email protected]>wrote: > Hi All, > > I finished reading Harris's The Moral Landscape, and I highly > recommend it to all MOQers. It is clear that Harris's project in his > latest book is the same as Pirsig's in Lila--to demonstrate that > morality is open to rational inquiry and that is it possible to know > truths about morality in the sense that we say we know truths about > science. > > Harris in an interview for The Onion's A/V Club > "But this new book did come out of a “eureka” moment—that came out of > my experience since September 11—in criticizing religion publicly and > discovering that more or less everyone agrees on one point. People > agree—whether they’re fundamentalist Christians who think the universe > is 6,000 years old or atheist scientists like myself—everyone seems to > agree that you can’t talk about moral truth in the context of science. > Religious people think you can’t talk about moral truth in the context > of science because the truths have to come from a voice in a whirlwind > that has been codified in our holy books. Secularists and more > educated liberal types, by and large, think that there’s just no such > thing as moral truth; morality is either purely a product of culture, > or we make it up, or it has just been drummed into us by evolution and > there’s nothing about our intuitions of right and wrong and good and > evil that actually connects to reality in any scientific sense. > > I really perceive this to be an intellectual emergency, because the > only people who are sure that there are right answers to moral > questions are, for the most part, religious demagogues. I consistently > encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists > who feel that you can’t say that anyone is wrong in any deep sense > about morality, or with regard to what they value in life. I think > this doubt about the application of science and reason to questions of > value is really quite dangerous. Essentially what we’re saying is: > When we try to talk honestly and rigorously about the nature of > reality—when we try to get our biases out of the way, when we rely on > careful observation and clear reason—these efforts have absolutely no > application into the most important questions in human life. And > that’s just on its face ridiculous. But I think it’s dangerous because > these decisions get made based on people’s dogmatism and their > reliance on Iron Age philosophy. So now we’re a culture that debates > gay marriage while not really addressing problems like nuclear > proliferation, climate change, the crisis in education, poverty across > the world, etc. " > > http://www.avclub.com/articles/sam-harris,46226/ > > Best, > Steve > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
