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The Moral Landscape
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The Moral Landscape

How Science Can Determine Human Values

Sam Harris
Free Press, 2010
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Editorial Rating

7

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  • Innovative

Recommendation

Neuroscientist and best-selling author Sam Harris is controversial, argumentative, against religion, in favor of science, deeply moral and intensely rationalist. While he never uses one word if many more will do, Harris’s positions on science, morality, religion and brain function prove innovative, well researched, thought provoking, and, if you are of a religious bent, probably infuriating. Harris dissects the evolutionary and biological processes underlying reason, moral choices and faith. He poses scientific counterarguments for religious tenets and dreams of a world where science proves the worth of any moral choice. You may not agree with everything he has to say, but he expresses the point of view of rationalism with thorough conviction. 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.

Summary

Morality as Quantifiable Fact

Can scientific methods demonstrate a morally superior way of life? Rationalism answers “yes,” and states that questions about morals are always questions about values. Such queries address “the well-being of conscious creatures.” If “human well-being” can be quantified – and it can – then one way of life offers more well-being than another. Values that advocate people’s well-being are morally superior to values that degrade it, though some moral questions (such as, is it always bad to tell a lie?) may have ambiguous or multiple answers. To address moral questions with several possible answers, select the option with the greatest validity and potential for positive benefit. Answers that lower human well-being are less valid, and rational people should reject them in favor of those that raise well-being.

You believe in certain facts based on “rational inquiry,” but you also form beliefs about what is moral, what possesses ineffable worth, what your intentions are and why you exist. Such questions lead to lots of practical and moral confusion. Rationalism offers a simpler way. It says you can reduce moral questions to two premises. First, ...

About the Author

Neuroscientist Sam Harris wrote The End of Faith, Lying, Free Will and Letters to a Christian Nation.

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