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| 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
Identify Containing 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 | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 291 pages |
| Published | : | October 5th 2010 by Free Press (first published 2010) |
| Categories | : | Philosophy. Science. Nonfiction. Religion. Psychology. Atheism |
Interpretation Concering 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 Containing Books The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Ratings: 3.91 From 19533 Users | 1073 ReviewsAppraise Containing Books The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
Let's ask a simple question: "Is it wrong to torture children?" The only possible answer, it seems, is yes, of course it is. And yet, as Harris argues, link such torture with the "cultural traditions" of a particular religion , and the respondent will hum and haw about the relativity of morals and freedom of religion. My example is not that outlandish; consider how hesitant many are to criticize the practice of female genital mutilation: an unequivocally barbaric practice, yet not universallyThe fact that millions of people use the term "morality" as a synonym for religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, or other failures of insight and compassion should not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time. Sam Harris, The Moral LandscapeI've avoided Sam Harris probably from a bit of prejudice. Although I've always enjoyed Christopher Hitchens, I've thought others of the New Atheists a bit shrill. I just assumed Sam Harris was going to be more hammer and less scalpel.
The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris Sam Harris is fast becoming one of my favorite authors and that is with just three books under his belt. In the Moral Landscape, Sam Harris makes a much needed statement for our time: Morality should be put under the scrutiny of science. Sam Harris a neuroscientist himself, states "that once we understand ourselves at the level of the brain, the more we will see there are right and wrong answers to questions of human values." I couldn't agree more. This book is
I've had a good go at reading this without any knee-jerk reactions, but generally I find Harris' views instinctively abhorrent -- despite his championing of reason and science, I don't think he avoids knee-jerk reactions more than anyone else. Particularly when it comes to religion.The basis thesis that there are optimal states of well-being for humans, I accept. That science will be able to improve our understanding of that, I don't doubt. That Sam Harris could be the person that executes this
The Moral Landscape is an easy book to criticize. Its thesis is both less controversial than it thinks it is, but still sufficiently worth stating that there is a lot more to say about it than Harris manages to say. Structurally each chapter feels disconnected from the overall argument and varies wildly in quality. No one will be surprised to hear that Harris devotes an entire chapter to religion-bashing. Some of this does bear on his point, but there's a strong sense that the dog wearing
Presumably the last Sam Harris book I will ever readWhat's wrong? Harris is a Platonic idealist in drag. He also engages in scientism. And, his Islamophobia seems to largely come straight from the neoconservative playbook.Read on for the details!Sam Harris tries to draw a hard-and-fast dichotomy between science-based morals and ethics and religious-based morals and ethics in this book.However, this is the real world, not a Platonic idea (Harris comes off as quasi-Platonic in more than one way in
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