What lurks in the background of discussions of science and morality, underlying the issue of “is” vs. “ought,” is our inability to know what is causing us to say what we are saying at the moment, that is, our inability to at once say what we are saying and to understand fully all of the causes, from our past and our present, which have brought us to this point in time and account for our saying it. The conundrum gets a bit clearer, though in a sense more befuddling, when we realize that, to identify those causes, we once again must talk, which leaves us in exactly the same quandary of explaining the causes of that verbal behavior. It is like the uneasy feeling we got many years ago when we realized that the definition of any word in the dictionary is just more words. How can that be? How do we really know what any word means if all we have are other words to tell us? Most of us just ignored that mystery and moved on.

Another way to make this point is that we treat our verbal behavior as if it is something entirely different from that about which we are talking, as if what we are talking about has an explanation or a solution but we have no need to explain or solve the problem of what causes explain why we are saying what we are saying. What causes us to use words like “morality,” and to say all of the things we say about it? What are the causes of that, and of all the other things we say, that is, all of our other verbal behavior on any topic?

Stepping back then into this bit of “meta-thought,” if you will, we can begin to see a little better how science might ultimately help us account for both the “is” and “ought” statements that we make. Making such statements and the causes responsible for us making them are both part of what “is.” Trying to wriggle out of that and preserve the distinction by saying something like, “You ought to have said ‘X,’ when you said ‘Y’” does not save the distinction since there are similar, unexplained and very complex reasons for why someone would make that statement.

It is clear that we do not have any good answers to what causes our ongoing verbal behavior because there are so very many things that have occurred in both our evolutionary and personal histories that have brought us, as individual human beings, to this point in time and that, along with what is going on at the moment, cause us to say what we are now saying, in this case, to make statements of “should” or “ought.”

So, we talk as if what we say, that is, our verbal behavior somehow sits outside of that to which it is said to refer, the latter being a candidate for scientific explanation, but the former somehow being exempt. It is not; it is only very poorly understood. What then really is responsible for us saying what we do at the moment? We have little understanding of that now but will eventually understand it, identify its causes and successfully predict others’, if not our own, verbal statements, and under increasingly fewer constrained conditions. That means, in the present case, why we are saying what we are about the “is” vs. “ought” distinction.

In sum: saying what we say, and the causes for why we say what we say, seem inarguably part of the category of “is,” not the category of “ought,” and that is how the two “Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA),” to use Stephen Gould’s phrase, will be resolved and how Gould himself will rest more peacefully “knowing” that his Magisteria is really only a single, Magisterium.

John, you did make it clearer and I agree more with you now. Yes, morality is more about who we are than what we know. But it cannot be reduced to what we are because 1) we are so different, some love, some hate (even myself I’m not 100% consistent with my principles). Therefore that cannot offer an objective base and without one all my criticism I’ve already provided still applies.
2) what we are is still the “what is” not the “what ought to be”. This can be partly resolved if you accept and independent, self-sufficient morality to which people are more or less attuned. It seems to me you need to also emphasize the relation between the individual and the independent morality. When you say: “Morals emanate, in my experience, from a place where the know-er and the known are non-differentiated.” do you mean that the individual (the know-er) is the source of morality?

Not contrary to what you said but still an addition to your statement, “morality is who we are, not what we know”: sometimes what we know determines what we are. This is the sense in which Joseph’s emphasis on “awareness” is relevant. Some concepts and ideas (including ones on morality) or “pieces of knowledge” (including values, priorities, etc.) lie at the foundation of our paradigms. They determine what we like, what we do, how we view & interpret things, what makes sense and what not. They define what we are.

I think I just said the same thing, in about 15 variations :-) Hopefully one variation has some validity for you.

Yes, Tom. Whatever is our supreme idea or sub-paradigm under we subdue all the other sub-paradigms (if a conflict arises) – be it God, nature, science, etc. – the upholding of that idea becomes a form of worship and a form of religion. But no, science cannot provide any “universally objective perspective”. I’ve explained that (as Michael Shermer does) it must first assume objectivity in order to come up with an objectivity. And it cannot explain why the earth or any other objective or goal is better than any other. The logical conclusion is an arbitrary morality (which is an absolute lack of morality in the end). But nobody goes that far in pursuing a logical conclusion and the position you describe (global, world government body for the benefit of the Earth) is still further down the line of consistency than most people would go. So you were right in that sense but there is still dissonance/inconsistency in the end (as I said and explained, a science based morality is an oxymoron).

The part where the way we morality is different than the way we posses logic is that, unlike logic, the content of this moral sense may differ from person to person (and it is in this sense that it’s subjective) [maybe that’s what you meant and we are in agreement]. There is a good deal of the content that is pretty universal and even the subjectivist Franz agrees with that. This takes us to another quote you made that I don’t agree with. It’s from Antoine de Saint-Exupery: “Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered; it is something molded.” I agree that it has to be done individually (and in this sense is’t a subjective quest for an objective morality as I mentioned above while I still allow for some degree of government enforceable morality) but we cannot find it in ourselves we cannot mold it. Yes, we posses more or less of this non-contingent morality but that can’t be the ultimate source. If each one could mold it, how would one do it? What standards or criteria would one use? Whatever one feels like? Should one use or criterion based on meditation and integration with the universe or Franz’ criterion of consensus? How does one know which criteria is better? This takes us back to my comments to Franz that a subjective morality is either a subjective view of a true/objective morality or a truly objective morality that is no morality at all (as it’s completely arbitrary, nothing better than anything else).

If there is no non-contingent morality out there that the individual can discover we are doomed. Morality and life would be just a charade. When I say discover I don’t imply that individuals don’t already posses some degree of this morality. Indeed, they do. What I mean is that there is more than that. If this non-contingent is (or must be) associated (or is identical) to a mind or sentient being (and I’m convinced it is but that’s another subject) then knowing and learning that mind would be the window towards that morality. This would take us to another topic and another discussion. However is my *subjective* opinion that meditation (focused or not) and integration with the universe, although may be good and laudable, are not the right path to this non-contingent morality. You may find something about them in the details of the morality but they are neither the source or the venue of morality (this would be yet another discussion).

Joseph, you seem to have a blind faith in science. I loved science even before I had my first science class. I still love science more than any other subject that I ever learned in school. I believe science is very important and we are much indebted to science but that doesn’t mean I can’t or shouldn’t see its shortcomings. You have an idealistic view of science on which you built your “awareness” thing. Of course, we all want smooth, dissonance free and bump free foundations of our paradigms and easily patch up to hide incompatibilities and help us feel good and intellectually consistent. But that’s a deceiving idealism. Among the things that we don’t yet know (referencing Newton’s quote and the discussion on it) is that in some ways we are currently wrong. Your idea of continual scientific progress is again idealist. See Kuhn’s Scientific Revolutions. Research how often scientific ideas are overtuned. Or how many scientific articles are retracted and so on.

You say (in response to John’s response): “they (scientists) perfected the scientific method which allowed them to discern the veracity of their models of the Universe.” This also gives away your idealism. There is no perfecting of the scientific method. It’s just a method and it remained fundamentally unchanged since the 17th century when it came about. Scientists can use it to perfect theories but the method isn’t perfected itself.

Further, scientists can never ever discern the veracity of a model or theory. Both models and theories require unprovable assumptions. The best that the scientific method can do is to discern the *non*-veracity of a theory or model. See the falisfiability principle. At the most you can say that a theory makes confirmed predictions but you can never say that a theory is true. That is because it’s always possible that another theory with different assumptions makes the same predictions. So a confirmed prediction can only tell you “not wrong yet” but cannot tell you “this is confirmed as true.” For example the current issue of Science celebrates 100 years since General Relativity. It tells how scientists try to take GR to extremes to see if it still holds or breaks because there are other theories that make the same predictions on the scales where predictions have been confirmed for GR but make different predictions at other scales. Also, it is known that you can arrive at Special Relativity without the postulate of relativity (as a matter of fact I developed a theory that specifically contradicts this postulate and still makes the same observed predictions). Therefore, your faith in a strict “veracity” of science is misplaced. Again, the scientific method can only tell you which theories are not yet proved wrong but cannot ever tell you which ones are right. Einstein said: “No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”

Now, getting back to your post I’m replying to, you say: “If morals are about becoming personally integrated with the design of the universe, then morals are about understanding exactly what that design might be. Science and reason are the best tools we have for understanding the Universe as it is”. Design implies intentions, a goal, a plan to be carried out, premeditating. What John hints is that there is an intention or goal in the universe. Now if by science you mean the study of (or inquiry about) the material universe then science cannot directly test the process of designing the universe (i.e., the “intention” or “goals” behind it). Such a definition will automatically exclude apriori any non-material hypothesis and the scientist may be thus unable and restricted to infer any design, intention, goal or morality from his observations of the universe. They would be unable to see any design in the universe. For example, Francis Crick says: “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.” [What Mad Pursuit, p. 138]. If by science you mean the scientific method then you can apply it to probe such goals. However you probably mean the first and you mistake the capability of science to describe the universe (how it works) with incapability of science to answer the ultimate “why.” Then you continue by saying: “the existence of morals is intimately connected with a rigorous deployment of science and reason.” You ignored all my objections and continue your wishful thinking, intellect-comforting but oblivious notion that science and reasoning offer a base for morality. What about some honesty? You would be quick to point out that the superstitious hold on to their views in spite of contradictory evidence but what about yourself?

By the way, with due appreciation and esteem for the scientific method, other logical methods, such as deduction, are more reliable, straight forward (see Occam’s razor) and preferable. It is just that deduction is often not enough in the scientific inquiry and scientists need to resort to the scientific method (which relies itself on deduction).

I didn’t have time to finish my thoughts last time, so here I go again.

You say “there are no moral facts, period.” You do this to distinguish your view from Michael’s that is fraught with Hume’s is-ought problem. But then you contradict that statement because it becomes obvious that you believe in subjective moral facts. You say: “Obviously, if I believe that values are subjective, I still believe in values – namely, subjective ones!” They are facts because you believe they apply *always*: “torturing sentient beings for fun is always wrong.” That is true regardless if you call them subjective or not. You say that most people agree (the consensus) but even if only you believed in it – you believed that it was *true* (else you wouldn’t hold to it). That is, you would have a subjective belief in an objective truth/value/morality. This is further confirmed by the fact that you make it absolute by stating that it’s always true. You confuse the nature of the belief (which may very well be subjective) with the object of the belief (which you and every other person treat as being objective).

Something that you fail to see is that the is/ought problem does not apply to objective morality only but to *any* morality, including a subjective morality. You say there are the 2 standard views: 1) objective morality and 2) “holding that nothing can be regarded as good or bad” and then your view (the 3rd), believing in subjective morality. But if you say there are no moral facts whatsoever and are consistent with that then you end up believing #2 above (no values, no good or bad). On the other hand, if you maintain that there is *true* morality, even if only subjective, you still end up with the same problem as Michael; you haven’t escaped it by demoting morality to “subjective.”

You come up with an arbitrary criterion (consensus), observe what matches the criteria (observe what *is*) and then declare that “is” a subjective “ought.” You failed to cross that bridge between “is” and “ought” just as bad as Michael. He would agree with me that declaring morality subjective does not solve the problem. You agree with me that basing morality on science does not solve the problem either. Both of you are right. In your case your morality is devoid of content, it only has form. The form being your criterion (consensus or whatever else somebody else would come up with). But whatever matches the criterion (whatever “is”) becomes moral (even if only in terms of a subjective morality). It could be one thing or it’s very opposite. It doesn’t matter, what matters is the criterion. Therefore your morality has no content but only a form. Thus it is purely arbitrary. And, to go further, your form (criterion) is arbitrary as well – you couldn’t say why your criterion is better than others (even if you tried to answer, another “why” would further question any answer ad infinitum).

You say that a believer in subjective morality is more likely to re-asses his views compared to one that believes in objective morality. If a belief in “subjective morality” is truly subjective (not only in terms of the nature of the belief but in terms of the object of the belief, as I explained above) then it’s no morality at all. It’s just an arbitrary “is” that could have very well been something else. In this case any moral assessment or re-assessment would come back empty: nothing is better or worse than the other. Therefore a believer in a truly subjective morality would have no reason to change his view (and he wouldn’t really have a moral/value-based view in the first place).

If, on the other hand, a belief in “subjective morality” is a belief in true morality (as it’s obvious that you hold) then you are no more likely to change your view than a believer in objective morality. To you “subjectivity” is nothing more than an excuse to cover up your cognitive dissonance and pretend you have intellectual comfort and consistency. It’s just admitting that other people may have other views even if most don’t while you *truly* believe that you are right (which is why you are ready to fight for it with every fiber of your being). This implies that you believe that others who do not hold to your view are wrong and the should hold to your view which is right. Further, you are ready to fight to restrict their actions derived from the wrong view. Well, describing you I just described a believer in objective morality. There is no difference. Calling your morality subjective is just a patch-up to hide the incompatibility/dissonance between your materialist compartment of your paradigm and the moral compartment. It’s just an objective morality in disguise.

The irony is that you don’t even realize that your example to support your statement about capacity to re-assess proves just the contrary of what you intend to prove. You say: “that kind of intransigence [of believers in objective morality] can lead to serious problems. Proponents of religious morality often end up defending things most of us nowadays find horrible (e.g., William Lane Craig justifying the Israelites. slaughter of children in conquered tribes)”. Now read it again and tell me who is more likely to re-assess his virew, Craig or you? It seems Craig reassessed his moral judgements based on cultural, historical or theological factors. Did you do any re-assessing? Even though you throw in a “nowadays” to give the impression of subjectivity and temporal relativity your view is really absolute. You believe “now” but what you believe now you believe it to be true for *all* history, including the history of the events Craig discusses. Now, who is more intransigent? Can you claim that your view is any less objective than Craig’s? No, you can’t. This goes back to your other statement about some acts being “always wrong.”

Your statement about Sam Harris claiming that it might be a good thing in certain circumstances for the entire human race to be exterminated just provides further support to my position that there is no limit to where morality can lead if a noncontingent morality (that I described previously) is given up. One can come up with *any* moral rule or criterion. Now we all have an innate sense of morality, value, worth, better vs. worse, right vs. wrong, etc (and a corresponding, very strong, compartment in our paradigm which often creates a dissonance with other compartments). Nobody can be truly consistent holding to a contingent morality because one would have no reason to hold to any view. Ultimately all views would be arbitrary and none better than any other. But your opposition to Haris’ view (implying that it’s unreasonable) once again proves that you believe yourself in an intransigent, objective morality. You could never prove that your criteria for deriving morality (and you mentioned consensus) is better than Haris’ criteria. But insisting that it’s better in spite of lack of any proofs of any kind reveals that your morality is ultimately an objective morality.

All these attempts to hide this moral dissonance prove that we have an unrenounceble sense of true, objective morality. But it must be noncontingent (for example, independent of the contingent universe) or else it becomes arbitrary, amorality. That’s unacceptable to any of us (because of this strong sense of morality/value that we cannot live without) – even to Franz (at least if he’s honest) – and contradicts a strict materialism.

Franz, I like your post (even though I believe your final conclusion is wrong). It happens but it’s rare that one goes to such extreme in pursuing the logical implications of an idea (like you do). You say: “I think people attempt to ground morality in things like science because that idea – the subjectivity of values – scares them. They assume subjectivism is or at least leads to nihilism.” You call it fear (“scare”) but it’s ultimately a cognitive dissonance. A compartment (using the terminology in the latest eskeptic dot com newsletter – comments on “Critical Thinking” and about “compartmentalization” where I made some comments on this) of Michael’s paradigm says science is sufficient for (almost) everything and another compartment says subjectivism leads to unacceptable nihilism. That creates a cognitive dissonance which Michael tried to resolve in his book and article by building a bridge between science and morality while ignoring and hiding the fact that this bridge is built on the pillars of an objective morality (such as religious morality). You had the honesty (or self-criticism) to face this and admit that it doesn’t solve the cognitive dissonance (as I explained, he assumes objective morality even before he gets to science). However, you just pushed the cognitive dissonance one step further. While you (unlike Michael Shermer) admit that science cannot provide an objective morality, the dissonance appears at another level. While Michael’s dissonance is between his all-sufficient-science compartment and his there-must-be-objective-morality compartment (that he tries to resolve by making up an objective science-based morality) your dissonance is between your all-sufficient-science compartment (or something similar) and your there-must-not-be-nihilism compartment. Both are strong beliefs you hold and in order to resolve the conflict you imagine a subjective morality that doesn’t lead to nihilism.

In a way, you are correct, it doesn’t lead to nihilism. It leads to something even worse (but again, if you were correct and there is no objective values then terms like “worse” or “better” wouldn’t make sense anymore). There is no name for the ultimate end-result of a subjective morality (or, more generally, value system) because nobody holds it and nobody could ever hold it. One couldn’t live with that (other than biologically) – but one couldn’t live intellectually, socially, emotionally, etc. Love, humor, goals would all be meaningless. One couldn’t properly hold to nihilism because eve that belief in nihilism is meaningless. One couldn’t even commit suicide because one must asses that life is not worth living in order to commit suicide. That an assessment would require that “worth” has any meaning.

While you “follow the reasoning where it leads” further than Michael you still stop at nihilism – which is where your cognitive dissonance takes place. But if you would take your laudable honesty further, to its ultimate conclusion you would see that subjective morality leads further than nihilism.

A subjective morality is an arbitrary morality. You avoid calling it that and avoid thinking about it as that because it only emphasizes your dissonance. But repeat after me, it’s a-r-b-i-t-r-a-r-y. If it’s not necessary then it’s arbitrary. It is what it is but it could have very well be something else. It just *happens* to be what it is. You say:

“If I don’t believe in objective evil – because I don’t believe in objective values – it does not follow that I don’t regard anything as evil, nor that I should stop complaining when something that I regard as evil is done. Obviously, if I believe that values are subjective, I still believe in values – namely, subjective ones!”
Well, a subjective value it’s nothing more than a description of what it is, not a prescription of what should be. Without an objective morality there is no “should” or “ought” (in Hume’s lingo).

You continue:

I have moral views which say that (for instance) torturing sentient beings for fun is always wrong. I may not believe that there is a fact, discoverable by science or by philosophical analysis, that corresponds to the statement “torturing sentient beings for fun is always wrong,” but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t oppose such an action. In fact, I would oppose it with every fiber of my being. And I would certainly call it evil.
The fact that there are no morality facts discoverable by science (which I agree) doesn’t mean that there are no objective moral facts. When you call an (i)moral action “always wrong” you automatically imply objective morality. “Always” gives it away. Your opposition to some actions “with every fiber of [your] being” also implies objective morality as well. You cannot truly believe that your morality is arbitrary and realize that you might as well have held a contrary position and, at the same time, display such ardor in enforcing your morality.

You further give up a strict “subjective morality” when you say:

Nor is this merely my subjective opinion. There is actually a great deal of intersubjective agreement on such issues. The vast majority of us are opposed to murder and rape, for example.
It follows that you base your “subjective” morality on consensus. If you hold on to “subjectivity” it means that it just happens one view to be the consensus but there is nothing special about it. If consensus was that slavery was OK then it *was* OK. If consensus was that eugenics is OK than it *was* OK. If the consensus was that it’s OK to kill people from the other tribe that killed people from our tribe then it *was* OK. If the consensus was that abortion is OK then it *was* OK. If the consensus was that the Darwinian goal of the survival of the fittest was best to live by then rape was a good way to fulfill it and spread around your genes around then it *was* OK. You can only describe what “is” (in your case, what the consensus *is*) not what “ought” to be. But then you fight “with every fiber of [your] being” for what *is* (*happens to be*) as thought it is what *ought to be*.

Both you and Michael Shermer believe strongly in objective morality (and it creates a dissonance with other compartments of your paradigms). Michael likes to think that it is derived from science while you like to call it “subjective morality.” Each one gets his intellectual comfort his own way.

Adrian, My main interest is sharing aware states to see what others have found out about the awareness phenomenologiical state space… your writing is pretty explicit as far as where you are coming from. I am afraid I wouldn’t be much of a debate sparring partner. Otherwise, I am sure you will work it all out… you are certainly a serious thinker and debater and clearly have some kind of underlying agenda which you prefer not to discuss and I am good with that. Best wishes!