Specify Books Toward The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
| Original Title: | The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values |
| ISBN: | 1439171211 (ISBN13: 9781439171219) |
| Edition Language: | English URL http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/the-moral-landscape/ |
Sam Harris
Hardcover | Pages: 291 pages Rating: 3.91 | 19533 Users | 1073 Reviews
Particularize Out Of Books The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
| Title | : | The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values |
| Author | : | Sam Harris |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 291 pages |
| Published | : | October 5th 2010 by Free Press (first published 2010) |
| Categories | : | Philosophy. Science. Nonfiction. Religion. Psychology. Atheism |
Narration During Books The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Sam Harris' first book, The End of Faith, ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people - from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists - agree on one point: science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, our failure to address questions of meaning and morality through science has now become the most common justification for religious faith. It is also the primary reason why so many secularists and religious moderates feel obligated to "respect" the hardened superstitions of their more devout neighbors. In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape." Because there are definite facts to be known about where we fall on this landscape, Harris foresees a time when science will no longer limit itself to merely describing what people do in the name of "morality"; in principle, science should be able to tell us what we ought to do to live the best lives possible. Bringing a fresh perspective to age-old questions of right and wrong and good and evil, Harris demonstrates that we already know enough about the human brain and its relationship to events in the world to say that there are right and wrong answers to the most pressing questions of human life. Because such answers exist, moral relativism is simply false - and comes at increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality. Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our "culture wars," Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation.Rating Out Of Books The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Ratings: 3.91 From 19533 Users | 1073 ReviewsComment On Out Of Books The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Why am I sitting here reviewing another Sam Harris book? People keep telling me that I have to have to have to read them, and they seem to generally be what's called in military jargon "target-rich environments."Harris sets out to hunt two of his bugbears: Moral relativism and fundamentalist forms of religion, the former being equated with the political left and the latter with the right. These seem to be the only moral-political systems that exist in his world beside the one he goes on toWhy am I sitting here reviewing another Sam Harris book? People keep telling me that I have to have to have to read them, and they seem to generally be what's called in military jargon "target-rich environments."Harris sets out to hunt two of his bugbears: Moral relativism and fundamentalist forms of religion, the former being equated with the political left and the latter with the right. These seem to be the only moral-political systems that exist in his world beside the one he goes on to
I thought that this book was a brilliant follow up to End of Faith. I've always thought that End of Faith was somewhat of a misnamed book and that with a slightly different focus could have been truly masterful. What I really appreciated about that book was the nuanced exploration of the nature of belief, belief formation, and the role belief plays in behavior and how all of this relates to and affects our states of consciousness. This book was a continuation of that theme in the moral sphere.
Preaching to the converted in my case, I guess. After pegging morality to the neural phenomena of well-being and suggesting that our beliefs about right and wrong are falsifiable, it has convinced me beyond down that I am a moral realist and it is time to get my head out of the post-modern fugue of moral relativity. It doesn't matter if there are no absolute truths, values or morals. The fact is I dont want to live my life that way. I prefer to live in a world where the well-being of everyone is
Ironically, Harris's latest can best be described as a sermon that will appeal only to the choir. Its angry tirades will only convince those who haven't already committed themselves to every jot and tittle of his world view that Harris has spent his entire conscious life seeking to justify his own visceral hatred anything and anybody religious--without realizing that his efforts to do so have only led him to invent his own peculiar religion. (I think calling Harris's uncompromising "New Atheism"
Since at least World War II, the social sciences have followed the hard sciences in insisting that facts can be known while values cannot be known. Indeed, following Max Weber and others, values have long been considered to be merely subjective preferences that cannot be demonstrated to be true or false (or valid or invalid) by either philosophy (inductive and deductive reasoning) or science. This view necessarily implies moral or cultural relativism. A few twentieth-century scholars in the
Terrific. The main concept is that although moral questions are often very difficult to answer, and there are usually many satisfactory answers to each one, we can use the principles of science to eliminate the obviously bad answers to those questions.
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