Michael Shermer on morality

by Massimo Pigliucci
edge.org
Originally published on January 21, 2013

Oh my, I thought I was done for a while chastising skeptics like Sam Harris on the relationship between philosophy, science and morality, and I just found out that my friend Michael Shermer has incurred a similar (though not quite as egregious as Harris’) bit of questionable thinking. As I explained in my review of Harris’ book for Skeptic, one learns precisely nothing about morality by reading The Moral Landscape. Indeed, one’s time on that topic is much better spent by leafing through Michael Sandel’s On Justice, for example. Anyway, apologies for the repetition, but here we go again. (For a fuller explanation of how I think moral philosophy works, see here; on science and philosophy here and here. For how the whole philosophy-science-morality shebang hangs in, take a look at chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 of Answers for Aristotle.)

Michael begins his piece by complaining that scientists have “conceded the high ground of determining human values, morals, and ethics to philosophers,” and arguing that this was a mistake. Indeed, Shermer says that such concession (when did it happen, by the way? Did the National Academy of Science pass a resolution under pressure from the American Philosophical Association?) comes at the worst time because new scientific tools and discoveries are gonna finally tell us from where we ought to get our values.

What are these tools? They include evolutionary ethics and neuroethics, among other fields. Now imagine that Michael had been talking about math instead of ethics. The idea would run something like this: “Scientists have conceded the high ground of resolving mathematical problems to mathematicians, just when the new disciplines of evolutionary mathematics and neuro-mathematics are coming on line.” My point is, I hasten to say, not that ethics is like math, but rather that evolutionary math and neuro-math would be giving us answers to different questions. An evolutionary approach to understanding our ability to reason mathematically could give us clues as to why we are capable of abstract thinking to begin with, which is interesting. “Neuro-mathematics” could then provide answers to the question of how the brain works when it engages in mathematical (and other types of abstract) thinking. But if you want to know how to prove Pythagoras' theorem, neither evolutionary biologists nor neurobiologists are the right kind of experts. You need a mathematician.

The entire blog post is here.

The Is-Ought Fallacy Of Science And Morality

By Michael Shermer
Publisher, Skeptic magazine; monthly columnist, Scientific American
edge.org
Originally published February 18, 2013

Ever since the philosophers David Hume and G. E. Moore identified the "Is-Ought problem" between descriptive statements (the way something "is") and prescriptive statements (the way something "ought to be"), most scientists have conceded the high ground of determining human values, morals, and ethics to philosophers, agreeing that science can only describe the way things are but never tell us how they ought to be. This is a mistake.

We should be worried that scientists have given up the search for determining right and wrong and which values lead to human flourishing just as the research tools for doing so are coming online through such fields as evolutionary ethics, experimental ethics, neuroethics, and related fields. The Is-Ought problem (sometimes rendered as the "naturalistic fallacy") is itself a fallacy. Morals and values must be based on the way things are in order to establish the best conditions for human flourishing. Before we abandon the ship just as it leaves port, let's give science a chance to steer a course toward a destination where scientists at least have a voice in the conversation on how best we should live.

The entire story is here.