I have found, and Harris alludes to this, that there exists basically two schools of thought on morality – that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions (and that those answers come from god) and that there are no absolute right and wrong answers to moral questions.  This has always troubled me.  I remember talking about this in philosophy class in college.  At that time I was not religious, but the idea that there are no moral absolutes just did not fit with my understanding of the world.

During the time I was a Christian, I found that I liked the idea of having answers to moral questions that were grounded in some sort of authority, but I didn’t always find that the answers themselves were what I would consider right and I didn’t like the fact that the answers came from a culture that existed thousands of years ago.  It always seemed that, with all of our advancements in the last 2,000 years, we must know something that isn’t in the Bible.

Sam Harris is saying that there is a third option – that there are answers to questions about values, even if we don’t have those answers (ie. from religion), and that we can find those answers the way we find answers to other questions.

He starts by saying that the separation between science and values is an illusion.  Most people think science does not have anything to say about values because science deals in facts, and facts and values are in different spheres.  Values are a certain kind of fact; they are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.  There are truths to be known about the way human beings flourish, even if we don’t know those answers.  In order to find those answers, we have to admit that these questions have answers.  He adds that admitting that there are right and wrong answers about how human beings will flourish will change the way we talk about morality.

He likens finding the answers to moral questions to finding the answers to scientific questions, in that there are experts in science and there are opinions that are and should be disregarded when discussing scientific questions (ie. answers from non-scientists).  Moral questions should be approached the same way, in that (1) they have answers and (2) there are experts as well as people whose opinions should be disregarded.

I think he is really on to something that could totally change the way we talk about morality, as he says.  I think that anyone who is not religious can clearly see the problems with religious answers to moral questions, such as Islam’s treatment of women or fundamentalist Christianity’s treatment of gays (and sometimes women).  Yet, it is impossible to have a conversation about these issues without admitting that moral questions do have answers.  After all, how can their answers be wrong unless there are right and wrong answers?  If we could take that step, then we could use the knowledge that we have to determine the best answers to those questions.

If we would talk more about moral questions having answers, how to arrive at those answers, and what those answers might be, it would take that discussion out of the realm of religion.  Because right now, that is where those answers are found.  Religion is where people turn when they need answers, but those answers are often wrong and, sometimes, even dangerous.

I know there are already experts out there in the realm of finding answers to moral questions outside of a religious framework.  I searched high and low for those experts when I was first deconverting from Christianity.  That information needs to be easier to find and a more prominent part of the public discussion about morality, not tucked away in the atheism section of the bookstore or on Point of Inquiry podcasts.

Maybe, with someone as visible as Sam Harris talking about this, that will happen sooner, rather than later.

Captured Lightning

Incredible!

Telegraph has an amazing photo gallery.  That is where the photo above comes from.

The sculptures are available to buy from Bert Hickman’s website.  There, you can also see a video of the process: Captured Lightning. Very cool stuff.