Human Values In Sam Harris's Ted Talk

Sam Harris in his Ted Talk “Science can Answer Moral Questions” makes the claim that human values, our sense of morality, can be defined scientifically. In other words, the intuitive rules of our morals that seems ambiguous are not out of the realm of scientific insight. He begins by stating that “values are a certain type of facts, they are the well-being of a certain type of conscious creatures.” This seems to be a direct attack on Naturalistic Fallacy, the philosophical belief that values cannot be derived based upon what is – or in other words: because x is, does not mean x ought to be. He argues this by drawing upon the audience to ask themselves under what circumstances they might feel morally obligated. He asks why humans don’t have …show more content…
Mathematical theorems are objective truths – things that cannot be changed or debated based upon subjectivity, but mathematical theorems could not truly be called sensible facts. Yet, Harris’ main point is to state how science can solve questions of morality. He goes on to state a couple of scenarios that could be solved by moral empirical facts based upon what we as humans might find inherently and objectively true in regard to human well-being. He purposes the scenario of corporal punishment in American Schools – asking if it is a good idea to subject children to beatings to improve their performance. Of course, the immediate gut reaction – the moral intuitive response – is to say no. However, by forming the idea that morality can be based in science, can find meaning in an empirical fact – Harris is inadvertently purposing a different question: what if science found that corporal punishment did have a measurably good effect on child performance? According to Harris, such a revelation would mean that corporal punishment was moral since it found value in human well-being. Except, that this seems to violate the means principle of morality as well as Kant’s Categorical Imperative – corporal punishment being therefore an action imposed on children as a means of inducing a net benefit to society. We know intuitively that this is morally …show more content…
It does, for the most part, seem good not to beat your children and therefore the moral assertion is: do not beat your children. Humans do moral reasoning with their brains – this much seems true, however, this does not mean that biology and neurobiology should be the moral dictators of right and wrong. Nor does it mean that things that benefit the public good or even the individual good are morally right for the same reason that eugenics might benefit humanity but is morally abhorrent. A better line of inquiry might not be to state that morality finds a firm basis in science, but to ask how science might justify and assist the advancements of morality already done in