Group items tagged

 This post attempts to dig up the roots of wild and crazy public policies.

Kant (1724-1804) kicked it off.  Boiled down, he said we cannot know the thing-in-itself apart from our mind interpreting it.

We can have no knowledge of things as they are in themselves, existing independently in a physical world. (p. 283)

All moral values must ultimately be grounded in human nature, and in my book The Science of Good and Evil (Times Books, 2004), I build a scientific case for the evolutionary origins of the moral sentiments and for the ways in which science can inform moral decisions. As a species of social primates, we have evolved a deep sense of right and wrong to accentuate and reward reciprocity and cooperation and to attenuate and punish excessive selfishness and free riding. On the constitution of human nature are built the constitutions of human societies.

rafted onto this evolutionary ethics is a new field called neuroethics, whose latest champion is the steely-eyed skeptic and cogent writer Sam Harris, a neuroscientist who in his book The Moral Landscape (Free Press, 2010) wields a sledgehammer to the is-ought wall. Harris’s is a first-principle argument, backed by copious empirical evidence woven through a tightly reasoned narrative. The first principle is the well-being of conscious creatures, from which we can build a science-based system of moral values by quantifying whether or not X increases or decreases well-being.

Harris’s program of a science-based morality is a courageous one that I wholeheartedly endorse, but how do we resolve conflicts over such hotly contested issues as taxes? Harris’s moral landscape allows the possibility of many peaks and valleys—more than one right or wrong answer to moral dilemmas—so perhaps liberals, conservatives, libertarians, Tea partiers, Green partiers and others can coexist on different peaks. Live and let live I say, but what happens when the majority of residents on multiple moral peaks pass laws that force those in the minority on other peaks to help pay for their programs of social well-being for everyone? More scientific data are unlikely to eliminate the conflict. I asked Harris about this potential problem. “‘Live and let live’ is often a wise strategy for minimizing human conflict,” he agreed. “But it only applies when the stakes are not very high or when the likely consequences of our behavior are unclear. To say that ‘more scientific data are unlikely to eliminate the conflict’ is simply to say that nothing will: because the only alternative is to argue without recourse to facts. I agree that we find ourselves in this situation from time to time, often on economic questions, but this says nothing about whether right answers to such questions exist.”

We are not yet, and I suppose men and women never will be, completely rational. Perhaps, if we were, we should not have all the pleasures that we have at present; but I think complete rationality is so distant a prospect that we need not be much alarmed by it, and the nearest approach that we are likely to get is sure to be all to the good. I certainly find that there is a very great deal of irrationality still about in the world.