April 2, 2011
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Is Steven Pinker right that Sam Harris is wrong about science's ability to discover moral reasons?
I'm somewhat curious as to Pinker's account of the motivation behind human sacrifice to the gods, but it is plausible and we'll move on.
Spoiler alert: Despite the pretenses of disagreement the only difference between Harris and Pinker's position is a semantic one over what we mean by science (which Pinker discusses at the end of his talk).
Pinker claims that science can't discover that we should be consistent with our values and hold our own suffering and well being in principle as of the same value as the suffering and well being of others (including cats). Yet Pinker clearly believes that we should and that this is a better moral conviction. Pinker wants to split the realms of scientific discovery and reason as though Harris wasn't already putting reason in the pot of a general scientific frame of mind. But why is it a "reason" if it does not appeal to some fact of the world? Why should I be consistent with my values if that doesn't relate to the actual consequences of my own mental states?
What if we evaluate the factual claim about two different people. One lives a life of double standards and the other universal reciprocity. On their own terms of seeking choice mental states which is clearly what each is attempting to do, who is making out better? And yet we all know that reciprocity tends to bring in the better dividends. That's a fact of the world that science can discover (or even overturn) that is just as on par with the first half of Pinker's talk that goes through example after example where science clarified some factual dispute that fixed our moral picture. It can't even be a meaningful "a-scientific reason" unless that is so.
There are many different ways to play out the criminal justice system. What if we are missing out on some benefit by only relying on the most minimal of deterrence? What if some manner of vindictive eye for an eye punishment actually stands to make the world a better place? Either Pinker is going to appeal to some discoverable fact about the world of the well-being of conscious creatures or he is stuck with making some uninteresting and unmotivating appeal to nonsense. There's no other option. And that's exactly what Pinker unwittingly appeals to! He speaks of there being good reason to calibrate the criminal justice system so as to make sure it is not incentivizing the worst possible scenarios where a shop-lifter is compelled to murder in order to ensure the lesser probability of getting caught and supremely punished. Hence, we tone down the punishments so that only lesser crimes are committed by the most common and trivial criminal motivations.
But what is defining the worst possible scenarios? Well clearly having living shop keepers with access to all the choice mental states that implies (or not having to recover from a gun shot wound) is already exactly what Harris' theory predicts Pinker will have to refer to to make a convincing moral argument. We can say that "science" discovered it, but only in the basic sense that we observed it and thought about it. That's just part of the overall scientific method or mindset Harris is referring to even if a particular question doesn't necessarily need to be taken to the super-evaluated lab coat level.
Pinker admits by the end of his talk that he is merely making a semantic distinction that Harris doesn't make. Science means "knowledge," right? So no, all those domains of knowledge are not "honorary" science. They are real science if they represent actual knowledge that represents a testable and possibly defeasible conclusion. Hence, there's no disagreement of substance between Harris and Pinker, just a preference of terms to congeal with unhealthy pop-cultural notions of where science begins and ends. At least, that's a great deal more self awareness than the others on the panel had.
Outro:
Bravo to Pinker for not totally stifling the conversation. We don't have to heap him on the pile of why philosophers suck at making important issues accessible for progressive public consumption.
Ben
