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i'm gonna speak today about the relationship between science and human
values
now it's it's generally understood that that
questions of morality
questions of good and evil and right and wrong are questions about which science
officially has no opinion
it is a stop in science can can help us get what we value
but you never tell us what we ought to value
and consequently most people i think most people probably here
think that science will never answer the most important questions in human life
questions like what is worth living for what is worth dying for
what what constitutes a good life
so i'm gonna argue
that this is
an allusion to the separation between science and human values is no vision
and actually
quite a dangerous one
at this point in human history
now it's often said that science
cannot give us a foundation
for morality in human values because science deals with fax
and fax in value seemed to belong to different spheres
candidates often thought that that there's no description
of the way the world is
they can tell us how the world ought to be
but i think this is quite clearly untrue
but values or a certain kind of fact
today they are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures
why is it that we don't have ethical obligations for rocks
when we feel compassion for rocks
so you don't think rocks can suffer and if we're more concerned about our fellow
primates
than we are about insects
as indeed we are
is because we think they're exposed to a greater range
a potential happiness and suffering
now the the crucial thing too
notice here is that this is a factual claim
is something we could be right or wrong about it with misconstrued the
relationship between biological complexity
and the possibilities of experience
well then we could be wrong about the inner lives of insects
hit and there there is no
no version
of human morality and and human values that i've ever come across
that is not at some point
reducible to a concern about conscious experience
and as possible changes
we even if you get your values from religion
even if you think that good and evil ultimately relate to conditions after
death
either to a in eternity of happiness with goddard eternity of suffering in
hell
you are still concerned about consciousness and its changes
ektu say the such changes can persist after death
is itself a factual point
which of course may or may not be true
now to speak about the conditions of well being in this life for human beings
we know that there's a continuum of such facts
we know that it's possible to live in a failed state
where everything they can go wrong does go worm or mothers cannot feed their
children
where strangers cannot find
the basis for peaceful collaboration where people are murdered
indiscriminately
and we know that it's possible to move along this continuum
for something quite
a bit more i don't like him so let's go to a place where
a conference like this is even conceivable
and we know
we know
that they are right in wrong answers
to how to move in the states
it would would uh...
adding cholera to the water
be a good idea
will probably not
it would be a good idea for everyone to believe in the evil live
so that when bad things happen to them
they immediately blame their neighbors
probably not but they they're they're truths to be known
about how human communities flourished
whether or not we understand these truths and morality relates
to these truths
so in talking about values we are talking about that
now of course are situation the world and the understood at many levels and
there's the from the level of the genome
on up to the level of economic systems and political arrangements
but if we're gonna talk about human well-being
we are of necessity talking about the human brain because we know that our
experience of the world and of ourselves within it
is realized in the brain
whatever happens after death
the suicide bomber does get seventy two versions
in the afterlife in this life
his personality
is rather unfortunate personality is the product of his brain
it's not so
and the contributions of culture of culture changes us
as indeed it does it changes a slight change in our brains
and so therefore the
whatever cultural variation there is and how human beings flourish can at least
in principle be understood
in the context of a maturing signs of the mind narrow science psychology
except you
sort of margaritas that
values reduced a fax the facts about the conscious
experience of conscious beans
and we can therefore visualizing space
of possible changes
in the experience of these beans
and i think it's the kind of moral landscape with peaks and valleys that
that correspond to differences
in the well-being of conscious creatures both personal and collective
and one thing to note is that
perhaps there are states of human well-being
that we rarely access that few people access in these await our discovery
perhaps some of these states can be appropriately called mystical or
spiritual
perhaps or other states that we can't access
because of how our minds are structured
other mines possibly could access
now let me be clear about what i'm not saying i'm not saying
that science was guaranteed to map the space
or that will that we will have scientific answers to every conceivable
moral question
i don't think for instance that you a one-day consulting supercomputer
to learn whether you should have a second child
or whether we should bomb iran's nuclear facilities
or whether you can deduct the full cost of ted as a business expense
but they've questions of fact human well-being
than they do have answers whether or not we can find them and just admitting this
just admitting that they're right and wrong answers to the question of how
humans flourish
will change the way we talk about morality and will change our
expectations of human cooperation in the future
inferences
there twenty one states in our country
where corporal punishment in the classroom his legal where it is illegal
for a teacher
to beat a child with a wooden board
part raising large bruises and blisters and even breaking the skin
and the hundreds of thousands of children incidentally are subjected to
this every year
the locations of these enlightened districts i think will fail to surprise
you
we're not talking about connecticut
e rationale for this behavior is explicitly religious
the the creator of the universe in self
has told us not to spare the rod plus we spoil the child
this in proverbs thirteen and twenty and i believe twenty three
but we can't pass the obvious question
okay is
is it a good idea generally speaking
to subject children
to pain
and violence and public humiliation
as a way of interest in healthy emotional development and and good
behavior
is there in the to helps
that this question
has an answer and that it matters
now many of you might worry that the notion of well-being is truly undefined
and seemingly perpetually open to be reconstr elusive and how therefore can
there be a
an objective
uh... notion of will be well
consider by now g
uh... the concept of physical health
the cause of the physical health is on the finance we just heard from michael
spectre it we it has changed over the years
we're when this statue was carved but the average life expectancy was probably
thirty
is now around haiti in the developed world
there may come a time when we medal winner genomes in such a way that that
not being able to run a marathon at age two hundred
will be considered a profound disability
you know people send you donations when you're in that condition
noticed at that the fact that the concept of health
is opened genuinely open
for revision
does not make it back to us
did the the distinction
between a healthy person and a dead one
is about as clear inconsequential as anyway macon science
now another thing to note is there may be many peaks on the moral landscape
that may be quibbling ways to thrive
immediate little ways to organize a human societies hosted
maximize human flourishing now why wouldn't this undermine
an objective
morality
well think of how we
talk about food
i would never be tempted to argue to you
that there must be one right fuji
is clearly a range of materials that constitute healthy food
but there there's never less a clear distinction between food and poison
here that that the fact that there are many right answers to the question what
is food
does not make the distance not tempt us
to say that there are no truths to be known about human attrition
many people worry that that uh... a universal mara morality would would
require
moral precepts that
that admitted no exceptions so frances if is really wrong to lie
it was always be wrong to lie and if if you can find an exception
when there's no such thing as moral truth
why would we think that's
consider by analogy
the game chest now believe you gotta play good chest
the principal like don't lose your queen is very good to follow
the but it clearly this exceptions of their moments where losing your point is
a brilliant thing to do
their ball it was the only good thing you can do
and yet be jess is a domain of perfect objectivity
the fact that there are exceptions here it is not does not change that at all
now this brings us
to the source of moves that people are apt to make in the moral sphere
consider the great problem of women's bodies
what to do about them
was is one thing you can do about them
you can cover them up
now it is the position generally speaking of our intellectual community
that
what we might not like this
we might think of this is wrong
in boston or palo alto
who are we to say
that the proud denizens of an ancient culture
are wrong
to force their wives and daughters to live in cloth bags
we're going to say even if they're wrong to beat them with winds of steel cable
or throw battery acid in their faces
if they declined the privilege of being smothered display
people who are we not to say this
hui to pretend
that we know so little
about human well-being
that we have to be non judgmental about a practice like this
i'm not talking about
voluntary we wearing of available when they should be able to wear whatever
they want to stores i'm concerned
but what does voluntary mean
in a community
where when a girl gets ***
her father's first impulse
rather often
is to *** her out of shame
budget just let that fact
detonating your brain per minute
you don't get from ***
and what you want to do
is kill her
what what are the chances that represents eight p
of human flourishing
now to say this is not to say that we have got the but the perfect solution
in our own society
i mean for instance
this is what it's like to go to a new stand almost anywhere in the civilized
world
now granted
for many many required degree in philosophy to see something wrong with
his images
k
if we are reflective mood
we can act
is this the perfect expression
of psychological balance
with respective variables like youth and beauty in women's body is is the optimal
environment
in which to raise our children
probably not book itself
sos perhaps or some place on the spectrum
between these two extremes
that represents a place of public better balance
threats are many such places a big lake again we've given other changes in human
culture there may be many peaks on the moral landscape
descended noticed that they'll be many more ways not to be on appeal
the irony from my perspective to the only people who seem to generally agree
with me
and who think that there are right and wrong answers the moral questions
our religious demigods
of one form or another
and of course they think they have right answers more questions because they got
these answers
from a voice in a whirlwind
cannot because they made an intelligent houses of the causes and conditions of
of of human and animal well-being
and in fact the the the endurance of religion as a
as a lens through which most people view moral questions separated
most moral talk
from real
questions of human and animal suffering
this is why we spend our time talking about things like gay marriage
and not a bad genocide
or nuclear proliferation
poverty or any other hugely consequential issue
but that did the demagogues are right about one thing we need
universal conception team about
now what stands in the way this one thing to notices that week
we do something different when talking about rally specially secular
academic scientist types
we're talking about morality we value differences of opinion
in a way that we don't in any other area of our lives so for instance
the dalai lama
gets up every morning meditate on compassion
anything's at helping other human being into some integral component of human
happiness
on the other hand we have someone like ted bundy ted bundy was very fond of
adopting and raping and torturing killing young women
is so we appear to have a genuine difference of opinion about how to
properly use what's not
most western intellectuals
look at this situation
there's nothing
for the dalai lama to be really write about really write about
or for ted bundy to be really wrong about
that admits of a at
argument at the vatican potentially falls
within the purview of science
that we that he likes chocolate
he likes the melodies that there's no
is nothing that one should be able to say to the other
they should persuade the other
than others that we don't do this in science
on the left you have edward witten
he's a string theorists
gas the smartest physicist around
who's the smartest businesses around in my experience half of them will say
edwin
the other half of tell you they don't like the question
what would happen if i showed up at this conference
and said string theory is bogus you know it's doesn't resonate with me it's not
how i choose to do you the universe is a small scale
i'm not a fan
throughout
well nothing would happen because i'm not a physicist i don't understand
straight there and the ted bundy of string theory
p
how would one of the longer the string theory club that would have me as a
member
but this is just the point do whatever we are talking about sax
certain opinions must be excluded that that is what it used to have a domain
expertise
that is what it is for knowledge to count
how have we convinced ourselves
that in the moral spirit there is no such thing as moral expertise
or moral talent
or moral genius even
kalui convinced ourselves that every opinion has to count
how we convince ourselves that that every culture has a point of view on
these subjects
worth considering
they did as does the taliban have a point of view on physics that is worth
considering
pick howell is
held their ignorance
how is ur ignorance any less obvious
on the subject of human well-being
so this that i think is what the world news now
it needs people like ourselves
to admit
that there are right and wrong answers
to questions of human flourishing
and morality relates
to that domain of facts
it is possible
for individuals and even for a whole cultures
to care about the wrong things
which is a is possible for them to have beliefs and desires that reliably lead
you to needless human suffering
just admitting this
will transform our discourse about morality
herewith we live in a in a in the world in which
the boundaries between nations mean less and less than the one they mean nothing
we live in a world filled with destructive technology and this
technology cannot be on invented the able always be easier
to break things than to fix them
there seems to me therefore patiently obviously
wiccan no more
respect and tolerate
vast differences
in in notions of human well-being than with and we can
respect for tolerate vast differences
in the notions about how disease spreads
or in the in the safety standards of buildings in airplanes
we simply must converge
on the answers we give to the most important questions in human life
and to do that
we have to admit that these questions have answers
thank you very much
combustible material that
i did whether in this audience off people elsewhere in the altered some of
this she will be doing the screening the greatest thing writers are awesome
language since he's really important that you when you're talking about
uh... but they are talking about
women dressed in tough times
object in the muslim world spoken block
muslim women and some of them say something else and saying
no in our is the celebration of
uh... female specimens helps build that nixon expressed a certain results of the
fact that
arguments disputed psychological view
email blast is not to be trusted
i mean can you engaged in a conversation with that kind of woman
without seeing
cultural imperialism
you know i i i think it is that i tried to broach this in a sentence watching
the clock ticking but
the uh...
the question is what is voluntary in a context where men have certain
expectations and certain
uh... and you're guaranteed to be treated in a certain way
uh... if you don't they are self-employed anyone in this room
one and two
where available or a very funny hat
tech to their faces are going to be i think we should be free to voluntarily
do whatever we want we have to be honest
be constraints that these women or placed under an ad so i i think we
shouldn't be
so eager to always take their word for especially in the one is a hundred
twenty trees out in your you're wearing a full burke
a lot of people don't want to believe in this this concept of moral progress
uh...
opinion reconciled that i think i'm sticking to say
you could
reconcile that with the with the world doesn't become one-dimensional will grow
up
finkelstein
painting a picture of what
you know going the the clock the keys for the hundred years for it
how you would like to think of
the world balancing
morrow progress with
why i think little once you admit that we are on path toward
understanding our minds at the level of the brain and some
important detail then
you have to admit that that
uh... we are going understands all the positive and negative
qualities of ourselves you much greater detail so we're gonna understand
positive social emotions
by campus
and we're gonna understand the factors that encourages whether their genetic
whether they're
how people talk to one another weather there economic systems and
insofar as we begin to shine light on that
we are never did legally converge on
on best rackspace there was a everything is not going to be up for grabs not
gonna be like
it you know
they only my daughter from birth
is just as good as as uh...
teaching her to too
the confidence and
and well educated the context of men who do desire women
so it's it's it's it's we'll cut me i don't think we need an annus f grant to
know that they only
above freezing rain is a bad idea
at a certain point
we're gonna be able to scan the brains of everyone involved and actually
interrogated them you know they didn't do people love their daughters
i'd just as much in these in the system
uh... and i think i think they're right clearly right answers to that and if the
results come out that actually
the perfect fifty or
instinctive current judgment on some of these issues
we have about modulo one obvious fact that you can love someone
in the context of a truly delusional belief system so you can say like
because i i i knew my gay son was going to go to hell with the if he found a
boyfriend i chopped his head off and that was the most impassioned thing i
can do
you get all those parts aligned
yes i think you could probably feel in the emotion of love
but again then we have to talk about well being in a larger context
you know and and and since all of us in this together is not one
man feeling ecstasy and then blown himself up on a bus
uh... sons the composition i i would actually left should continue for us so
that we don't have that got it in a time thank you got exactly