According to Sam Harris, “All we need is science”

It sounds like the cue for a song, but it is actually another atheist trying to demonstrate that morality can be derived from science. Read the whole thing here (my emphasis):

How could we ever say, as a matter of scientific fact, that one way of life is better, or more moral, than another? Whose definition of “better” or “moral” would we use? While many scientists now study the evolution of morality, the purpose of their research is to describe how human beings think and behave. No one expects science to tell us how we ought to think and behave. Controversies about human values are controversies about which science officially has no opinion.

However, questions about values are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Values, therefore, translate into facts that can be scientifically understood….

The highlighted section above is itself a value statement that cannot be derived from science; it assumes that the well-being of conscious creatures is “better” than their non well-being. Everything that follows from Sam Harris is grounded on this value, a value that is not based on science: Sam Harris’s claim that his values can be deduced from science is false. Even worse, his foundation is thoroughly antithetical to scientific method, since a concious creature’s longing for well-being is the ultimate expression of subjectivity – at least a theist’s attempt at finding meaning for the word “better” is one which assumes an objective moral reality that was created by a Person who exists independently of “concious creatures”.

One thought on “According to Sam Harris, “All we need is science”

  1. The paradox in their thinking seems so obvious and yet they simply cannot see it.

    By the way, when I saw the title: “All we need is science”, cue the music or what!

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