Sam Harris and William Lane Craig at Notre Dame

Discussion in 'Spirituality & Religion' started by Ombak, Apr 8, 2011.

  1. Ombak Moderator

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  2. benztown Member

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    I do like that kinda stuff, but usually, I can barely stand to listen to William Lane Craig, he always makes me cringe. He just throws out so much BS that it's impossible to refute everything in a debate.
    Especially his love for the cosmological argument for god is tedious. He always throws out quotes by physicists that he carefully mined and took out of context that would each probably take an entire hour to explain to the audience and to show how WLC is misusing it.

    I always thought that he should debate a proper physicist once so that he'd finally get his a$$ handed to him and he recently did debate Lawrence Krauss, you can listen to it here:
    http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2011/03/william-lane-craig-vs-lawrence-krauss.html

    Unfortunately the topic was once again too broad so that Krauss couldn't tear down the wall of BS that WLC built around his argument.
    I mean WLC is obviously a very effective debater, no question about it, but if you have an understanding for what he's actually talking about, then you realize that it's nothing but hot air.

    I really felt sorry for Krauss, who as a scientist has the natural disadvantage of not being used to employ language in a way that's full of absolute statements and absolute self-assurendness. All of WLC's logical statements were fallacious, but Krauss had no chance of dealing with all of them as he basically had to give a mini lecture on physics before being able to tackle any specific point. Anyway, better than the debate itself was Krauss' blogpost on it a couple of days later:
    http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/04/lawrence_krauss_vs_william_lan.php


    Contrary to that, the debate between WLC and Sam Harris was much better, mainly because the topic was very narrow, so that WLC couldn't constantly throw more BS at Harris, plus it didn't give WLC any room to once again milk his fallacious cosmological argument.
  3. Ombak Moderator

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    Well Sam also didn't go for any BS and instead of refuting nonsense simply pointed out it was nonsense.

    The best part was the psychopath analogy that Sam Harris came up with, it clearly disturbed WLC and he was flustered from then on. Again, it's a great example of science and empirical evidence trumping nonsensical philosophy (in this case theology).
  4. StiltonFC The clone replacing you

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    first of all, Harris employs absurd examples, things that don't actually exist in the real world, as the foundation of most of his arguments.

    "imagine a world where the reality is the greatest amount of suffering possible for everyone...would that be bad?"

    well it would be bad if and only if every inhabitant did not deserve the greatest possible amount of suffering based upon their actions. later Harris, in his rebuttal, asks whether being placed in the Christian hell would be bad. he assumes that it would be bad, but he misuses the term. it would be unpleasant, but it might be a completely just and reasonable outcome, given the possibility that other factors are true.

    Harris snipes at religion at every turn. he also snipes at people whose view disagrees with his. his presentation is more humorous than WLC, but he clearly didn't win the debate, based on debate format standards.
  5. Ombak Moderator

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    Yes well... I don't believe the debate was being scored or that it counted towards either side's debate club standings. Harris certainly won in making people think about things and in actually basing his views on reality and therefore getting things right.

    The rest of your post just reinforces his point about psychopathy.
  6. Solid444 Member+

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    Really? do you even know what the debate was about and what Sam Harris actually believes? Sam Harris´view on morality is a very radical view coming from an atheist and 99% of atheist would disagree with him. Having read his latest book explaining his position, I am not at all suprised of the piss poor job he did defending his view and why he relied on snarky comments to get through this one. I am not a fan of Craig, but Harris seems to be a less attractive version of Sarah Palin, I guess she also made people ¨think¨.
  7. Ombak Moderator

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    I'll take Harris' philosophy grounded in reality and evidence (just as I will Dennett's) any day over philosophy that ignores reality.

    Of course I know his idea is controversial. It shouldn't be - it's little more than an attempt to describe morality as a natural phenomenon.

    The fact that I disagree with him on some things doesn't prevent me from agreeing with his approach to any given thing.
  8. Solid444 Member+

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    That´s the problem, his philosophy is NOT grounded in your reality as an atheist. Harris is not just trying to give his own moral philosophy, he is justifying an OBJECTIVE moral construct. He grounds his moral framework by saying that the good is determined by what increases human well being and the bad is determined by what increases human suffering. This is completely fine if this was his own subjective belief, but he actually believes that it is objective.

    Now for his moral framework to be objective, it must be grounded on something outside of our minds. You are telling me that in your atheist reality, you can show that in this random universe without purpose there exists a moral framework that is objectively true? You can also show me, based on evidence, what SHOULD be meant by well being (personal vs. collective, mental vs. physical, short term vs. long term), or why we SHOULDN´T apply the same standard to animals that we do to humans, etc. This CANNOT be justified based on a naturalist reality, and the crime is that Harris completely fails at even trying. I recommend you to read his book The Moral Landscape, your logical side will be aching but you will have a better understanding about this so called philosopher.

    The irony is that in your reality, you cannot justify Craig´s objective morality any more than you can justify Harris´. You cannot bridge Hume´s Is-Ought gap, in other words, you cannot derive what ought to be the case simply from what is the case. I am not surprised if you didn´t pick up on his major premise, because he did a painfully horrible job in this debate. Aside from the whole atheist/theist debate, if we focus on logic and reason, I don´t see how someone can seriously say that Harris was more logical during this debate.
  9. Ombak Moderator

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    Well I started writing this reply but it seems kind of silly now considering the rest of your post. Here is what I wrote anyways:

    We had this discussion before and it was pretty clear that you were not talking about "objective" but "external" and "absolute".

    An atheist can have an objective moral system. All that is required for an objective system is for parameters to be defined in such a way that many people can use the system and independently reach the same conclusion.

    Describing the system is at once simple and not at all simple: it requires describing human interaction, evolution, the mind and the intersection of several such biological issues. So no one is about to claim it's easy. However as far as we can tell there is nothing outside of this and it is something that can be described. Then we need only agree on a proper definition of moral. Harris chooses "well-being" (or increasing well-being). He freely admits it's hard to define but he also gives clear examples of more and less well-being. In doing so he succeeds in proposing an objective framework for morality. It is not an easy one (then again it shouldn't be - there are gray areas as with any difficult subject) and it is not one that he himself claims to be the arbiter of. Then again, if he were it wouldn't be objective, it would only be absolute, like your system.
    As I said above, you are not looking for objectivity you are looking for an absolute, external source.

    There are several problems with the whole of the above quote so I might not get to all of them but here goes:

    Atheists do not see the universe as random (nor does science), that does not follow from "without purpose". It also does not follow that because the universe is without purpose we would be without purpose (though you did not directly propose the latter).

    I'm not sure what you mean by naturalist reality. I might if you didn't leap from "naturalist reality" to the idea that somehow we need to apply the same standards all over. That's nature worship, not naturalist reality (it's closer to deism than it is to a rational understanding of things).

    That you call Harris a so-called philosopher is funny. If the subject CAN be tackled by science then only a philosopher who is familiar with the science is well-equipped to deal with it. (He does not have to BE a scientist, but a philosopher who is not familiar with the relevant science is just a waste of a mind).

    Craig's morality is not objective. It is external and arbitrary - it is whatever his deity says it is. External and objective are not automatically connected and in fact are very difficult (for us) to ally. I certainly cannot justify Craig's morality but I would not want to anyways.

    It seems you missed Harris' best quote of the debate: "once again we have hit philosophical bedrock with the shovel of a stupid question." I believe this was in response to why we should value our well-being. I'll leave that as is rather than tackle it further for now. (Though I'd be eager to tackle it and other stupid questions of philosophy - or perhaps more accurately questions that are now stupid because the subject they address has an adequate scientific approach).

    You don't seem to be working from the ground up. You seem to be working from the assumption that all of these things we philosophize about require and maybe even actually HAVE external anchors and you are challenging people to provide new external anchors. Harris and Dennett work from evidence and reality. Reality beats mental masturbation.

    Harris' morality book is an attempt to work from the ground up, describing reality as it is and proposing an objective (not absolute, not external) system. It does not claim to be the final word on such a thing and indeed I see it as encouragement to handle the subject as what it is - a natural phenomenon, much like Dennett proposes we look at religion.
  10. Solid444 Member+

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    I will focus on two parts of your last post, if you want to cover the other later, bring them up again.

    The problem is that the subject cannot be exclusively tackled by science. Lets take a more precise moral question, Abortion. Science cannot tell you when it is immoral to abort a fetus any more than it can tell you when you are acting immorally in Harris proposed framework. What science can do is tell you when the fetus develops certain characteristics just like it can tell you when certain actions will deliver certain outcomes. Up until now, we cannot derive from this information how we OUGHT to behave, science has only told us how things DO behave. In order to get a moral framework, we have to bridge the IS-OUGHT gap and there is no way to do this through science! If we said, it is immoral to abort a fetus when it feels pain or it is immoral to behave in such a way that increases suffering, then now we have a foundation to apply our scientific principles. The problem is that since this is not a scientific question, it is impossible to show that this foundation of how we OUGHT to behave is better grounded in reality than any other foundation.

    This foundation is just as valid as saying, human life starts when a baby learns to talk or we should act in a way that increases our own personal happiness. Harris does not show why his foundation is truly moral, he just claims that it is so and this is understandable because using science, you cannot derive a moral truth (an OUGHT) from reality.

    My definition of objective is the same as yours or Harris'. Morality cannot possibly be treated as a natural phenomenon because we cannot derive how we SHOULD behave from nature and science. The most important part of Harris' morality, the one that tells us what is moral and immoral, cannot be proven scientifically, therefore, it is ridiculous to claim that the entirety of his moral framework can.
  11. ceezmad Member+

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    I kind of disagree with Sam on this one (maybe I just do not fully understand him), I think Morality is Relative and is always changing, he bases his morality on what is the worst thing you can imagine (everyone suffers) and he goes from there. I can see that; but the everything else is a decision we make as people and civilization on what should be moral and what should not be moral.

    Abortion Moral or not?

    Gay Marriage, Moral or not?

    Stoning gay people, Moral or not?

    This changes over time, so does our Morality.

    Eating animals, is that moral? will it always be moral?

    Maybe I just do not understand Morality.

    Suicide Bombings Moral or not? It will vary on the circumstances in my opinion.
  12. benztown Member

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    Sam Harris argues that we can observe the facts. We can observe whether an acton causes or reduces suffering.

    Harris argues that the step from "female circumcision causes suffering" (which is an objective fact) to "female circumcision is immoral" is just as trivial and straight forward as the step from "high radiation causes cancer" (again an objective fact) to "high radiation is unhealthy".
  13. benztown Member

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    You should listen to Harris again, he has certainly convinced me. Sure, morality changes, but that doesn't mean it's not objective, it just means that we used to be further off the mark than we're now, just like Newton's theory of gravity was further off the mark than Einstein's theory. That doesn't mean however that the force of gravity is subjective, does it?
  14. Ombak Moderator

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    Exactly, objectivity is one thing, our ability to get the answers right is another.

    Improving our ability to get the answers right does not mean the answers are subjective.

    I wanted to quote this in my reply because I agree with it wholeheartedly but this reply is directed primarily at ceezmad: I think your post is fair but takes us in a different direction. My argument with solid444 is that he is asking atheists to provide an absolute morality from an external source. He thinks he is asking for objectivity. At the very least we disagree on what objectivity is.
  15. Solid444 Member+

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    I don´t know how this adds anything significant to what Ombak already said.

    Your second example about the radiation takes a statement about what is the case and it leads to another statement about what is the case, this is perfectly coherent with science. The first example about circumcision takes a statement about what is the case and transforms it into what ought to be the case, this cannot be derived by science. They are completely different and I think its fallacious for the same reasons that i mentioned in my last reply to Ombak.

    No, its not subjective, because Newton was wrong and Einstein is right based on the scientific knowledge we have. The truth about gravity is independent of Newton´s or Einstein´s mind. We can make observations and point to why this is the case. You make it seem that in morality, like in gravity, there is some ultimate truth that we are getting closer to discover. In gravity, this is absolutely the case and we can make scientific observations based on evidence about what gravity actually IS. In morality, this cannot be the case since there is no way to make observations and gather evidence about what morality SHOULD be. Once again, I do not doubt that you can scientifically quantify that certain actions lead to different levels of suffering (an IS statement) what you cant do is show scientifically that one SHOULD decrease suffering. This is a subjective claim that cannot be proven scientifically and thus, Harris' moral framework cannot be objective since its foundation is subjective in nature.

    This is the equivalent of saying "Morality is determined by what increases my net worth and immoral actions are those that decrease my net worth." Taking this statement, and given any action A or B, we can certainly quantify which action will increase my net worth and therefore, decide on the moral course of action. Taking the above statement as our foundation, we can definitely build a moral landscape based on a scientific analysis to determine what would be the moral course of action in any situation. The problem is that my moral framework cannot be objective since its foundation is subjective in nature. I can't prove scientifically why the statement in bold is true, because science cannot derive an OUGHT statement from nature. This is the same case with Harris' foundation. While Newton and Einstein were moving toward an objective reality, Harris' morality is based on a subjective foundation that cannot be proven scientifically so there is no RIGHT answer to this question, just subjectively different answers.
  16. benztown Member

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    No, it's not about what ought to be at all. The first example is also about two statements that are the case.
    Female circumcision is the case => an immoral act is the case.

    That you ought not to mutilate a girls genitalia is no different than that you ought not to eat a pound of plutonium, it's an additional step.

    See above.

    Well, morality means what it means because that's how we have defined it. I don't see the problem there at all.
    Health means what it means because that's how we have defined it.
    Gravity means what it means because that's how we have defined it.

    Of course we can only talk about something on the basis of a common definition.

    Are you seriously arguing that the definition of a word hinges on the existence of god?
  17. Ombak Moderator

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    Yes science can tell us facts. If we decide what morality is (and no one but us can decide this) then, given the facts, we can make objective decisions as to what is more or less moral.

    We can also come up with tough questions - the right to abortion is moral in my worldview, this is not subjective, but whether or not aborting any given fetus is a more or less moral decision is an extremely difficult determination to make and that remains true no matter what the source of morality is.

    If you subscribe to a worldview that declares that all abortion is immoral no matter the case you subscribe to an arbitrary morality, not an objective one. Just because the answer is clearer does not mean the system is objective.

    But the frustrating part about your reply here is that you ignored the "shovel of a stupid question". There is no "is" "ought" gap in Harris' model.

    If you want to sit down and spend your life trying to "is" "ought" biological phenomena like morality, that's fine, but you're wasting your time.

    Why should we consider our "well-being" over the well-being of animals? Seriously, that's a stupid question. There is no morality independent of our existence, morality arises out of the fact that species have evolved into social animals. Morality IS that which enhances our our well-being. We may always better define well-being and we have to be careful not to reduce it to black and whites like "I come out on top if I do this". The health analogy Harris comes up with is very pertinent.
    I'll just reiterate that our definition of objective is clearly not the same. Perhaps someone else can tackle the problem here if they want to, I'll tackle it only briefly below.
    Again, "philosophical bedrock with the shovel of a stupid question".

    If you have trouble understanding that decreasing suffering is a good thing, maybe I should bring up the psychopathy example again.

    That you cannot create a philosophical construct to derive it from scientific fact is a limitation of philosophy, not of science, reality or Harris' framework.
    Morality is a natural phenomenon, therefore it can be described by observation. Brain patterns, social behaviors etc give us clues as to what people generally find more or less moral and what questions are difficult.

    If you define a moral goal or landscape as Harris does you can now view these things objectively. What is moral and what is not becomes a question that different people can independently reach the same answer to. That's objectivity as Harris and I understand it. I don't think that's how you understand it.
    Indeed. Why should I not cut her genitalia? Uh, dumb question. Sorry, no is-ought gap.
    This is where philosophers fail as I held earlier: if the subject can be dealt with (medicine, physics and linguistics for some of the stuff above) based on evidence, then a philosophical approach to that subject that ignores the evidence is nonsense.
  18. Solid444 Member+

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    A person who lives in a society where it is acceptable to mutilate a girl's genitalia, does not eat plutonium because it might kill him, in his mind, the only reason he should not mutilate a girl's genitalia is because someone (or a group of people) have a subjective belief that he should not do it, which he obviously doesn't share. How is this not completely different?

    No, morality is not defined as that which enhances our well-being. The definition of the word morality alludes to certain conduct that is right and wrong. Harris doesn't want to change the definition of morality, he simply argues that the right behavior is the one that promotes our well-being.

    You also keep saying that Harris is just trying to show what morality is, not what morality should be or how people should behave and you couldn't be more wrong. This is an excerpt from Harris' moral landscape describing his disagreement with the scientific community about morality,

    "While psychologists and neuroscientists now routinely study human happiness, positive emotions and moral reasoning, they rarely draw conclusions about how human beings OUGHT to think or behave in light of their findings."

    Harris did not write about moral history and then took a general consensus about what people think is moral. If he did this, then I would have no problem at all. He is saying that he is in an epistemic position to determine how humans ought to behave but those scientists are right, you cannot scientifically derive an ought from nature.

    I gave this example before, but if i defined that the right behavior (the moral action) is the one that increases my net worth, why would i be wrong and Harris be right? If Harris' moral framework can be derived scientifically, then one should be able to demonstrate why my version of morality is scientifically fallacious, especially if Harris' moral framework is supported by science.
  19. Ombak Moderator

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    You're making an effort here to completely misunderstand subjective and objective aren't you?
    Depends on what moral philosopher you ask. Well-being is a pretty good measuring stick for right and wrong and Harris isn't the first to employ it.
    Well he's trying to show what morality is and how you can make moral decisions once you understand what morality is.

    Writing about moral history wouldn't result in showing what morality is, it would result in showing what moral philosophy (both religious and secular) thought morality was.

    Again I would point out that morality is a natural phenomenon. If you want to know what it is, ask a neuroscientist, not a moral philosopher. Moral philosophers were once the best equipped people to describe morality, they no longer are. We are capable of better and more accurate models now because we can examine how the brain works.

    If a moral philosopher wants to remain relevant outside of his insulated world he needs to create models that understand the evidence science is producing, not ignore it.
    You would be wrong and Harris would be right for empirical reasons. He could show how people's brains react to the above and you would be relying on a made-up model, not actual human reactions.

    You do know that neuroscience could look at brain patterns and see how you and others react to this arbitrary definition of right and wrong that you picked? And that if you acted on that definition more data would reinforce the idea that what you are doing is negative (wrong) and if you changed your definition the reaction would be positive (good)?

    The problem is that you want to (and you really, really want to) define morality as something external (magical!) to the brain. Every day more and more evidence shows it's not. Morality is a human construct to describe a set of natural behaviors.

    A further problem is your stubborn refusal to understand that objectivity does not require an external measure that's completely independent of any human being's input.
  20. benztown Member

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    "I don't want to die" and "I don't want others to suffer" are both subjective.

    Well, that is how morality is defined.
    It appears to me that you're argument really is about the definition of morality: "Why should morality be defined like this and not any other way?"
    Quite frankly, that's a stupid question, it's defined that way because we needed a word to have that meaning in order to have meaningful discussions.

    You're playing a semantics game and a terrible one at that. You try to un-define the word, to take out any concrete meaning.
    Sorry, but that's not how things work.

    He's basically saying: "If you want to be moral, this is how you should behave."
    So where's the problem with that?

    That's simple: You've changed the definition of the word you're working with.

    It's no different than this:
    Look at my new coffee table:
    [IMG]
    From studying this specimen, I conclude that coffee tables like to fetch sticks, chew on bones, hump random legs, love to be petted, can learn commands in human language, chase cats and have to go for a walk at least three times a day unless you want them to use your house as toilet.

    Wait a minute you might say, coffee tables usually don't have any of these properties, you're talking about a dog. But I can just reply the way you did: That's how I define coffee table, prove me wrong!


    It's a nonsensical argument quite frankly...
  21. ceezmad Member+

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    That is a shitty coffee table, I would not pay more than $5 bucks for it on Ebay, I mean where would I put my coffee? :D
  22. Ombak Moderator

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    Here's some sophisticated theology from WLC:

    http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5767

    It's ok for god to order genocide, infanticide etc. because he's god.

    And he reiterates this gem:

    1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.

    2. Objective moral values do exist.

    3. Therefore, God exists.

    Remind me again why this sort of theology should be taken seriously?
  23. benztown Member

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    This is indeed a despicable article and just goes to show how immoral religion is.

    There are lots of problematic passages like this:
    This kind of reasoning makes this whole divine command thing very prone to abuse. And given the standards of evidence people like WLC use, he has absolutely no way of telling whether a command really is divine.

    Wow, so much for morality. Where's the morality in letting Israel suffer and giving the Canaanites hope? Especially given that god apparently knew how it would all play out. Is this a sick game of his?

    Yeah, I can't think of anything better than killing all Canaanite children in order to make that kind of illustration...how in the world is anybody supposed to take this guy seriously?

    Then comes the most dangerous bit of his article:
    That kind of theology is what drives parents to kill their young children in order to save them. I remember hearing two of these stories recently, where a mother killed her children in order to assure that they go into heaven. Nicely done WLC.

    But there's more:
    Well done, this is how smoothly you can turn killers into victims.
    But there's one bit that doesn't make sense, why couldn't the children do the killing and still inherit eternal life? I mean WLC did point out that it was the moral thing to do, because god said so...

    Again, this doesn't make sense. If god wanted to set a precedent, then why did he send Israeli soldiers to do the job? Wouldn't it have been a much stronger sign to do it himself? Turn every Canaanite into a stone pillar or something?
    Military action can hardly serve as any sort of divine sign. After all, it was the Israelites who were conquered by the Babylonians later on, so according to that logic, this was a sign by the gods of Babylon that they are not to be trifled with.
    But of course there's always a cop out...in that case it was also YHWH saying something, namely that the Jews weren't pious enough...but then maybe the Canaanite god was the real deal, only that they were not pious enough...

    See kids, this is how you can tell the good guys from the bad guys: The bad guys try to convert everybody. How terrible is that? The good guys on the other hand just slaughter every man, woman and child as well as the cattle. Now that is godly behavior...
  24. StiltonFC The clone replacing you

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    [IMG]

    congrats on leaving out the parts that put into perspective what God is actually like.
  25. Ombak Moderator

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    Care to point out those parts? So we can either laugh at the nonsense or be frightened by the willingness to defend the indefensible.

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