Philosophy

Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 4

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 3 we introduced the four causes which give a complete explanation of a thing. In part 4 we introduce the concepts of being and goodness.

Metaphysics is the study of being, as such.  Act, potency, form, and matter are all aspects of being.  Edward Feser comments that “being is the most comprehensive concept we have, applying as it does to everything that exists, so that there is no way to subsume it under something more general.”

Being is an analogical notion, so it cannot be applied univocally to all beings.  “[M]aterial things and angels can both be said to have being, but material things are composites of matter and form while angels are forms without matter; created things and God both have being, but in created things essence and existence are distinct and in God they are not; and so forth.”

The good is convertible from being (they are both transcendentals).  According to Feser, “Something is good to the extent that it exists as, or has being as, an instance of its kind.”

As Aquinas says, “everything is perfect so far as it is actual. Therefore it is clear that a thing is perfect so far as it exists; for it is existence that makes all things actual.”

There is more, however, to the essence of goodness than existence.  A thing is good because it is in some way desirable or appetible.  Joseph Owens relates, “Goodness, accordingly, is being when considered in relation to appetite.  It adds nothing real to being, for it is merely being itself, now conceived as appetible.”

Aquinas summarizes, “Hence it is clear that goodness and being are the same really. But goodness presents the aspect of desirableness, which being does not present.”

A chair is good insofar as it accomplishes its purpose (i.e., final cause) of providing a place to sit.  In a metaphysical sense, the chair “desires” to provide a place to sit; that is why it was created.

A heart is good insofar as it accomplishes its purpose (i.e., final cause) of pumping blood.  In a metaphysical sense, the heart “desires” to pump blood; that is why it was created.

Note that these are not examples of moral goodness, though.  The transcendental notion of goodness contains more than human morality.  Morality is a subset of transcendental goodness, having to do specifically with the desirableness of human behavior.  In other words, human behavior is good in so far as it accomplishes the final causes for which human beings were brought into existence.

In part 5, we look at ultimate being: God.

Philosophy

Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 3

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 2 we introduced the metaphysical principles of form and matter. In part 3 we introduce the four causes.

Aristotle taught, and the Scholastics agreed, that there are four different causes, and that these four causes give a complete explanation of a thing. Modern English-speaking people tend to only use the word “cause” in a narrow sense, but the ancients thought of “cause” in at least four different ways: efficient, formal, material, and final.

If we take a wooden chair as an example, the material cause is the material – wood – out of which the chair is made; the formal cause, or the form, is the pattern or structure it exhibits – having legs and a seat; the efficient cause of the chair is that which actualizes a potency and brings the chair into existence – a carpenter; the final cause is the purpose for which the chair was made – to provide a place for a person to sit.

The material and formal causes of a thing are simply the form/matter composite (recall part 2) that constitute a substance.  Efficient and final causality give rise to other basic principles.  From efficient causality, or causing a thing to come into being, emerges the principle of causality. This principle states that whatever comes into existence must have a cause, and that cause cannot be the thing itself.  From final causality emerges the principle of finality, or the fact that every agent acts for an end.

According to Edward Feser, final causality exists “wherever some natural object or process has a tendency to produce some particular effect or range of effects.” In other words, wherever there is a regularity in nature, a pattern where a particular cause repeatedly produces a particular effect, final causality is present. Thus when the principle of finality refers to every agent acting toward an end, this includes “agents” that are both conscious and unconscious.

For example, if we think of the heart as an agent, the heart’s final cause is the pumping of blood, but we would not say that the heart is consciously pumping blood. Feser remarks that “the same directedness towards a certain specific effect or range of effects is evident in all causes operative in the natural world.”

In part 4 we will look at being and goodness.

Philosophy

Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 we introduced the metaphysical principles of act and potency. In part 2 we introduce the metaphysical principles of form and matter.

Ordinary objects of our experience are composed of two metaphysical principles – form and matter.  Edward Feser explains these principles, again using a rubber ball:

The rubber ball of our example is composed of a certain kind of matter (namely rubber) and a certain kind of form (namely the form of a red, round, bouncy object). The matter by itself isn’t the ball, for the rubber could take on the form of a doorstop, an eraser, or any number of other things. The form by itself isn’t the ball either, for you can’t bounce redness, roundness, or even bounciness down the hallway, these being mere abstractions. It is only the form and matter together that constitute the ball.

The form thus determines what a thing is.  In this sense, the form of an object is sometimes called its essence or nature.  Feser explains that matter

will always have some substantial form or other, and thus count as a substance of some kind or other; . . . The notion of prime matter is just the notion of something in pure potentiality with respect to having any kind of form, and thus with respect to being any kind of thing at all. . . . [W]hat is purely potential has no actuality at all, and thus does not exist at all.

It should be noted that the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion of “form” is not the same as Plato’s notion.  Plato held that forms only exist in a realm wholly apart from the material world.  For Aquinas, the forms are instantiated in individual substances which exist in the world.  Apart from substances, forms are abstractions, but they are nonetheless real things, not mere human inventions.

Feser comments, “When we grasp [forms such as] ‘humanity,’ ‘triangularity,’ and the like, what we grasp are not mere inventions of the human mind, but are grounded in the natures of real human beings, triangles, or what have you.”

In part 3 we will look at the famous four causes.

Philosophy

Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Most Christians don’t care anything about metaphysics, and truth be told, don’t even know what it is. I hope to entice you, the reader, with a reason to learn about it. One very important reason for learning Christian metaphysics is because any Christian ethical system must be grounded in metaphysics.

You can’t generate a robust ethics without a robust metaphysics lying underneath. Philosopher David Oderberg explains that it is “impossible to know how the world ought to go, more specifically how one ought to act (or what makes a state of affairs or action good, or worthwhile, praiseworthy, etc.) without prior knowledge of how the world is.”

A realist moral theory (one that claims that there are real, objective moral values) must define/identify the source of moral values before it can get off the ground.  Metaphysics is the discipline that does the work of identifying the source of moral values, because metaphysics is the study of being, of existence.  If moral values really exist, then metaphysics must identify them.

Obviously there are other reasons for learning Christian metaphysics, but I will approach this introduction with the goal of providing a foundation to Christian ethics. What follows is largely taken from three books which I cannot recommend enough for anyone who wants to understand these issues. They are The Last Superstition and Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide, both by Edward Feser, and An Elementary Christian Metaphysics by Joseph Owens.

Let’s begin with the metaphysical principles of act and potency. In order to explain the way change of any kind is possible, Aristotle introduced the metaphysical principles of act and potency.  Edward Feser illustrates:

Take any object of our experience: a red rubber ball, for example. Among its features are the ways it actually is: solid, round, red, and bouncy. These are different aspects of its ‘being.’ There are also the ways it is not; for example, it is not a dog, or a car, or a computer. The ball’s ‘dogginess’ and so on, since they don’t exist, are different kinds of ‘non-being.’ But in addition to these features, we can distinguish the various ways the ball potentially is: blue (if you paint it), soft and gooey (if you melt it), and so forth.

Thus the red rubber ball is in act by way of actually being solid, red, round, and bouncy.  It actually is those things.  The ball is in potency by way of potentially being blue, soft, and gooey.  It could potentially become those things.  Change occurs when a potency is brought into act, or when a potentiality for being is made actual.  There is a potential for blueness in the ball, but this potential will not become actual unless an external influence acts upon the ball.  Thus the classical Aristotelian principle emerges: whatever is changed is changed by another.

All finite beings are composites of actuality and potentiality.  However, Edward Feser notes that “while actuality and potentiality are fully intelligible only in relation to each other, there is an asymmetry between them, with actuality having metaphysical priority,” for potentiality cannot exist without actuality.  “It is incoherent to speak of something both existing and being purely potential, with no actuality whatsoever.” However, it is perfectly coherent for pure actuality to exist without any potentiality.

In part 2 we will look at the metaphysical principles of form and matter. Remember that we are building a metaphysical base for Christian ethics, but you won’t be able to see how all of these metaphysical principles work together until we get to the end, so stick with me!

Trinity

. . . Of One Essence With The Father?

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Post Author: Darrell

(This post originally appeared on Darrell’s Thoughts and Reflections on Aug. 5, 2013 and is being reposted here for Tough Questions Answered readers.)

I was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – aka The Mormon Church – for several years prior to converting to Christianity and becoming Orthodox.  One of the significant gulfs between Mormon and Christian theology involves the Doctrine of the Trinity as codified at Nicea in 325 AD.  Traditional Christians affirm the Doctrine of the Trinity, believing it to be the correct understanding of the Godhead, while Mormons repudiate it.  The Church to which I belong – The Eastern Orthodox Church – holds the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed to be The Symbol of our Faith.  It is the standard confession of every Orthodox Christian, being recited at ones baptism and reaffirmed every week before Holy Communion in the Divine Liturgy.

One of the major sticking points of the Trinitarian confession for the Mormon Church is the declaration that the three Persons of the Holy Trinity – the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – are one in Essence or Nature.  The Nicene Creed says, in part:

“We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father. . . “

Considering this aspect of the Doctrine of the Trinity, in the October 2007 General Conference, LDS Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland said:

“Our first and foremost article of faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is ‘We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.’ . . I think it is accurate to say we believe They are one in every significant and eternal aspect imaginable except believing Them to be three persons combined in one substance. . .”

In the April 1995 General Conference, LDS Apostle Dallin H. Oaks spoke even more directly when he declared that the rejection of the understanding of God contained in the historic Christian Creeds is “one of the distinguishing features of the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . .”

Over the last few years, I have spoken to several Mormons regarding their Church’s rejection of this aspect of Trinitarian Theology.  One of the things I have discovered is that very few of them seem to understand what we mean when we declare the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be one in essence.  Some believe it means that the three are one person with three separate personalities, others believe it means that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are separate expressions of God, and still others say rather directly that they have no idea what it means, they just believe it to be false.

In my opinion, one of the best ways to understand what the Nicene Creed means by “one in essence” is to look to the writings of those in the early Church.  The Third Ecumenical Council of the Church met at Ephesus in 431 AD to address the Nestorian Heresy.  After the Council’s completion John of Antioch wrote a letter to Saint Cyril of Alexandria, seeking to restore greater communion within the Church.  In this letter, he gives great insight into the Church’s understanding of what is means to declare Christ to be of one essence, or consubstantial, with the Father.  It says, in part:

“We confess, therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, perfect God, and perfect man of a reasonable soul and flesh consisting; begotten before the ages of the Father according to His divinity, and in the last days, for us and for our salvation, [was born] of the Virgin Mary according to His humanity; that He is consubstantial with the Father according to divinity and consubstantial with us according to humanity, for in Him there is a perfect unity of two natures. [emphasis mine]”

The Early Church Fathers believed that Christ was consubstantial, or one in essence, with us as well as the Father.  In fact, this understanding was central to the Church’s soteriology, the belief being that it was through becoming consubstantial with humanity in the incarnation that Christ redeemed the human nature, uniting it to God through His Person.

So this leads to the question, if Christ is one in essence with humanity as man in the same way that He is one in essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit as God, how are we to understand this oneness in essence?  How is Christ “one with humanity” in essence?  We can say for sure that He is not one with us by being an “expression” of humanity or by being a “personality” of humanity.  Our human experience shows us otherwise.  The simple answer is that He is one with us because He shares our human nature.  You, me, Christ, and all the rest of us are human.  We each share in the oneness of human nature or essence, but we still remain separate persons within the human species.

This is how we are to understand the Oneness of the Holy Trinity.  Each of the Persons of the Trinity are separate individuals.  There exists a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit.  However, each of the members of the Holy Trinity are God, and they are united in essence by each of them being fully God.  Christ is unique among the members of the Holy Trinity in that He became one with humanity in the incarnation – becoming one in essence with us.  However, He did not lose any of His God Nature in this process.  He still remains fully God.

One thing to bear in mind is that the fall caused an unnatural division in the human nature.  As a result, our oneness in essence is broken.  Part of Christ’s mission to save humanity was to heal this brokenness by recapitulating our nature, bringing it back into Communion with God.  However, the Oneness of the Holy Trinity is perfect.  It has never suffered a fall and, as a result, the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit transcends our understanding in a rather profound and significant manner.

Surprisingly, when I have shared this understanding with Mormons, I have often found them to have no issues with it.  When they are able to see that holding the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be one in essence does not do away with them being separate Persons, their points of disagreement seem to fade into the background.  Don’t get me wrong, there are still several points of disagreement between Mormon and Orthodox Theology, and those points are quite significant and profound.  However, this particular point may be one that is more a product of misunderstanding than true substance (no pun intended 🙂  ).

Atheism, Morality, Philosophy

How Does Sam Harris’s Metaphysical View Undermine His Moral Landscape? Part 3

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 3 we continue our analysis of Sam Harris’s “moral landscape” in view of his metaphysical naturalism, a worldview which denies the existence of anything that is timeless or transcendent in any sense.

We note that even after identifying moral values with well-being, Harris concedes that his moral landscape may not be good after all.  He explains:

It is also conceivable that a science of human flourishing could be possible, and yet people could be made equally happy by very different ‘moral’ impulses. Perhaps there is no connection between being good and feeling good— and, therefore, no connection between moral behavior (as generally conceived) and subjective well-being.  In this case, rapists, liars, and thieves would experience the same depth of happiness as the saints.  This scenario stands the greatest chance of being true, while still seeming quite far-fetched. . . .

However, if evil turned out to be as reliable a path to happiness as goodness is, my argument about the moral landscape would still stand, as would the likely utility of neuroscience for investigating it.  It would no longer be an especially ‘moral’ landscape; rather it would be a continuum of well-being, upon which saints and sinners would occupy equivalent peaks.

Harris is quick to suggest that because of human evolution and the fact that we all live in the same physical world, this scenario is highly implausible. However, his allowance for the possibility that the good of rapists, liars, and thieves is equivalent to the good of saints, as mapped on his moral landscape, surely indicates that his metaphysics is a disaster for his moral theory.

In this single passage, Harris has completely undermined his identification of the good with human well-being. William Lane Craig revealed this inconsistency during his debate with Harris.  Craig argued that “by granting that it’s possible that the continuum of well-being is not identical to the moral landscape, Dr. Harris’s view becomes logically incoherent.”

Since Harris’ metaphysics fail to provide him a source of moral values which transcends all conscious creatures, another problem surfaces for his moral landscape.  Harris considers the following scenario posed by Robert Nozick: “Nozick . . . asks if it would be ethical for our species to be sacrificed for the unimaginably vast happiness of some superbeings.”

Incredibly, Harris answers,

I think the answer is clearly ‘yes.’  There seems no reason to suppose that we must occupy the highest peak on the moral landscape. If there are beings who stand in relation to us as we do to bacteria, it should be easy to admit that their interests must trump our own, and to a degree that we cannot possibly conceive.

Because there is nothing ontologically greater than the physical brain states of conscious creatures, Harris simply must admit that as soon as a greater conscious creature arrives on the scene, then that creature’s well-being becomes identified with the good, and the well-being of human beings falls by the wayside.

Contrary to Harris, it surely is not easy to admit, nor is it intuitive, nor is it even remotely plausible that the wanton destruction of human beings by a superior alien race would ever be good.  Instead of abandoning his naturalistic metaphysics, Harris arrives at the totally counter-intuitive idea that human well-being is good only until a superior conscious creature appears.  I pray that when the aliens ask to be taken to our leader, Harris is nowhere around.

It should be abundantly clear that Harris’ naturalistic metaphysics leads him to a completely inadequate account of the source of moral values.  The well-being of conscious creatures fails to provide an unchanging, transcendent ground for the good.  The good is apt to be different for each person, depending on what gives him feelings of well-being. For Harris, cruelty and generosity could both be good; saints and sinners can both occupy peaks on the “moral landscape.” The fact of the matter is that nothing in Harris’ metaphysics guarantees what seems completely obvious to all of us: moral values are timeless and transcendent.

Atheism, Morality, Philosophy

How Does Sam Harris’s Metaphysical View Undermine His Moral Landscape? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 we looked at some serious difficulties that Sam Harris’s metaphysical views cause his “moral landscape” to have. We continue with that analysis in part 2.

Recall that we ended part 1 by noting that Harris’s identification of the moral good with that which brings individual human flourishing and well-being is inadequate. Harris admits that the well-being and flourishing of a psychopath such as Ted Bundy is not morally good, but he can’t know this based on his identification of the good, so he is appealing to moral knowledge outside his own metaphysics.

Harris’s emphasis on the well-being of the community over Bundy still does not save his definition of the good.  What if someone like Ted Bundy lived in a community that generally valued rape and the occasional killing of women as fulfilling?  Harris, himself, sees this problem.  He asks:

But what if advances in neuroscience eventually allow us to change the way every brain responds to morally relevant experiences?  What if we could program the entire species to hate fairness, to admire cheating, to love cruelty, to despise compassion, etc.  Would this be morally good? . . . Is this really a world of equivalent and genuine well-being, where the concept of ‘well-being’ is susceptible to ongoing examination and refinement as it is in our world?  If so, so be it.

Harris concedes that what constitutes well-being could very well change in the future, and that the good could, conceivably, be identified with cheating and cruelty. If you’re scratching your head, join the club.

Surely Harris has misidentified the source of moral values if his source allows for cheating and cruelty to become moral values.  Moral values are, after all, timeless.  We routinely morally judge people who lived centuries ago because we know that moral values do not change over time; they transcend time.

Harris, himself, seems to take for granted that moral values are timeless as he refers to moral progress: “Despite our perennial bad behavior, our moral progress seems to me unmistakable. Our powers of empathy are clearly growing. Today, we are surely more likely to act for the benefit of humanity as a whole than at any point in the past.” Moral progress without timeless moral values would be simply incoherent, yet Harris’ metaphysics leave no room for timeless values.

As a metaphysical naturalist, Harris cannot identify the good with a timeless source that transcends the subjective feelings of individual human beings currently living. Thus metaphysical naturalism acts as universal acid which eats away the foundation of Harris’s moral landscape. In part 3, we will continue to watch the acid do its work.

Atheism, Morality, Philosophy

How Does Sam Harris’s Metaphysical View Undermine His Moral Landscape? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Given Sam Harris’s metaphysical naturalism, how is it that Harris will identify the good? How is the good defined given his metaphysics?

Harris, in line with other moral consequentialists, defines “good” as “that which supports well-being.” Harris further claims that “it makes no sense at all to ask whether maximizing well-being is ‘good.’” The good, according to Harris, simply is that which is conducive to well-being, and nothing else.

Thus moral values are “the set of attitudes, choices, and behaviors that potentially affect our well-being, as well as that of other conscious minds. . . . Given that change in the well-being of conscious creatures is bound to be a product of natural laws, we must expect that this space of possibilities— the moral landscape— will increasingly be illuminated by science.”

Harris’ metaphysical naturalism, then, draws strict boundaries around where he can locate moral values.  Brain states, the physical world around us, and the laws of nature as described by physics, chemistry, and biology exhaust Harris’ ontological resources.

Is Harris’ account of equating moral values, and thus the good, with that which supports well-being, adequate?  The answer is negative as Harris’s metaphysics undermines his moral theory in several different ways.

First, although Harris, in his book, claims to have dealt with G. E. Moore’s “open question argument,” he has not.  Moore argues that, on metaphysical naturalism, properties of the natural world cannot be equated with the good, because it is always an open question whether that property is always good.

Moore argues, “We must not, therefore, be frightened by the assertion that a thing is natural into the admission that it is good; good does not, by definition, mean anything that is natural; and it is therefore always an open question whether anything that is natural is good.” To assert that because something is natural, or part of the natural world, that it is therefore good, is the naturalistic fallacy.

Although human well-being (described in terms of physical brain states) is a property of the natural world, Harris claims that he nonetheless avoids Moore’s open question argument.  But does he?  It is not at all clear that the well-being of a particular conscious creature is always good.

What about a psychopath?  Some psychopaths gain tremendous pleasure, and thus well-being, from torturing other human beings.  Can we say that the psychopath’s behavior is then morally good?  Harris considers this exact scenario, using serial killer Ted Bundy as an example.

Harris complains that Bundy’s “raping and killing young women was a poor guide to the proper goals of morality (i.e., living a fulfilling life with others).” But notice that now Harris has shifted his definition of the good from Bundy’s personal well-being to Bundy “living a fulfilling life with others,” a tacit admission that moral values cannot be identified with the mere well-being of a conscious creature (e.g., Bundy). It seems that the well-being of some creatures are more important than others. This is a classic thorn in the side of all consequentialist moral theories that Harris has not escaped.

Think about this. Bundy would have said that he was flourishing and living a fulfilling life while raping and killing young women, which would seem to make his behavior good and moral under Harris’s system. In order to save his identification of the moral good, Harris calls an audible and de-emphasizes Bundy’s well-being and instead says that Bundy must live a fulfilling life with others in order to be moral.

Here is the problem. Harris wants to sell us a vision of science studying human well-being as a way of determining what is moral. But when we ask science to study Ted Bundy, Harris concedes that Bundy is a poor guide to morality. So obviously studying the well-being of a conscious creature does not always yield moral guidelines. But how does Harris know this? It seems he is invoking a higher source of the moral good by which to make that call, but he denies that there is a higher source! Something is amiss.

Bottom line: Harris has not escaped the naturalistic fallacy. What is natural (e.g., the well-being of a conscious creature) is not always good. What produced well-being for Ted Bundy was not good at all.

In part 2, we will continue to see how Harris’s metaphysical naturalism fails to ground his moral theory.

Atheism, Morality, Philosophy

What Are Sam Harris’s Metaphysical Presuppositions?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

It is impossible to ground a theory about the source of objective moral values and duties without recourse to metaphysics. Philosopher David Oderberg reminds us that it is “impossible to know how the world ought to go, more specifically how one ought to act (or what makes a state of affairs or action good, or worthwhile, praiseworthy, etc.) without prior knowledge of how the world is.” Metaphysics tells us how the world is.

So what are Sam Harris’s metaphysics? How is the world, according to Sam Harris?

Rather than argue for his metaphysical view, Harris, for the most part in his book The Moral Landscape, merely presupposes that his ontology is correct.  Harris’s worldview can be best described as metaphysical naturalism, which is roughly the view that what exists is that which can be described by physics, chemistry, and biology.  Harris reveals that he is a metaphysical naturalist in several ways.

First, recall his thesis summary statement: “Conscious minds and their states are natural phenomena, of course, fully constrained by the laws of Nature (whatever these turn out to be in the end).” Second, Harris claims that the well-being of conscious creatures “must lawfully depend upon events in the world and upon states of the human brain.”

In one particularly telling passage, Harris asks the reader to imagine a world where only two people existed, a fictional Adam and Eve.  How might the moral landscape look in that situation?

In fact, there are, by definition, paths that lead to the worst misery and paths that lead to the greatest fulfillment possible for these two people— given the structure of their respective brains, the immediate facts of their environment, and the laws of Nature. The underlying facts here are the facts of physics, chemistry, and biology as they bear on the experience of the only two people in existence.

For Harris, the ontological foundation of ethics consists in brain states, the physical world surrounding human beings, and the natural laws which constrain the physical world.  Again, all of these aspects of reality fit comfortably under the label of metaphysical naturalism.

Might Harris allow other aspects of being into his metaphysics?  How about the notion of a Creator-God?  Harris rules out the existence of God almost immediately in his book as he explains that one of his primary goals is to provide a moral theory which has no need of God.

What about immaterial human souls?  For Harris, the existence of a soul, which is “metaphysically independent of the brain, seems untenable given that damage to the relevant neural circuits obliterates these capacities in a living person.” In other words, neuroscience has shown that the “soul,” and thus consciousness, really just is neural circuits.

How about the existence of metaphysical principles such as nature, form, or essence?  Harris seems to disavow the existence of essences when he says, “I am certainly not claiming that moral truths exist independent of the experience of conscious beings— like the Platonic Form of the Good— or that certain actions are intrinsically wrong.”

It seems that Harris’s ontology allows nothing beyond what physics, chemistry, and biology reveal.  It remains to be seen whether Harris’ metaphysical views can provide an adequate ground for the good.

Atheism, Morality

What Is Sam Harris’s Moral Theory?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

New atheist Sam Harris made a splash with his book The Moral Landscape. In it, Harris claims to have solved the millenia-old debate about the source of objective moral values. Harris is no relativist about moral values. In fact, he reserves some of his harshest criticism for atheists who deny the objectivity of morality.

So what exactly is his thesis? How has he solved the perennial problem of how to ground objective moral values and duties? Here is Harris in his own words:

Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds— and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe. Conscious minds and their states are natural phenomena, of course, fully constrained by the laws of Nature (whatever these turn out to be in the end). Therefore, there must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.

Harris bases his moral theory on the well-being of conscious minds.  These are the two key foundational ideas for him.  For Harris, morality only makes sense given the existence of conscious creatures, since nothing can be valued if there is no conscious creature to do the valuing.  Rocks do not value anything.

Given the importance of conscious creatures, Harris elaborates that “the concept of ‘well-being’ captures all that we can intelligibly value. And ‘morality’— whatever people’s associations with this term happen to be— really relates to the intentions and behaviors that affect the well-being of conscious creatures.” Again, Harris is clear that “meaning, values, morality, and the good life must relate to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures— and, in our case, must lawfully depend upon events in the world and upon states of the human brain.”

Harris’ next move is to make the explicit connection between the well-being of conscious creatures and science.  How exactly does science determine human values?

Questions about values— about meaning, morality, and life’s larger purpose— are really questions about the well-being of conscious creatures. Values, therefore, translate into facts that can be scientifically understood: regarding positive and negative social emotions, retributive impulses, the effects of specific laws and social institutions on human relationships, the neurophysiology of happiness and suffering, etc.

Science, broadly defined as empirical observation and experimentation, can be employed, according to Harris, to determine which thoughts, actions, and behaviors, contribute to the well-being, or flourishing, of human beings.  As human beings flourish, they climb to peaks on a “moral landscape.” The valleys on the landscape represent the misery and suffering of human beings. Harris encourages his readers to allow science to take humanity to the peaks of the moral landscape, and out of the valleys.

Now that we have a basic understanding of Harris’s “moral landscape,” we next need to understand his metaphysical presuppositions. That will come in a future post.

A Christian Apologetics Blog