Science can answer moral questions | Sam Harris

www.ted.com Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. But Sam Harris argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues, shaping human values and setting out what constitutes a good life.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at www.ted.com/translate. Watch a highlight reel of the Top 10 TEDTalks at www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

[@Heavynprog1]

''I almost burst into tears when describing the practice of honor killing. I knew that I was going to talk about fathers who murder their daughters for the crime of being raped, and I knew exactly what I was going to say about them. But I hadn’t known that my own daughter would take her first steps the morning of my lecture. When delivering my lines exactly as I had rehearsed, I suddenly awoke to the reality of what I was talking about.'' -Sam Harris (On his blog entry ''The Silent Crowd'')

[@ruofanyu6699]

oof

[@kantvishi]

I did notice some discomfort in his voice there, I dismissed it as him having cold or cough.

[@EpicMRPancake]

Don't know where you got this quote from, because I remember him saying in a later video that he simply had a cold that day.

[@j.oaklley8965]

None that has anything to do with Jesus he stoped the bad old testament laws!!!

[@EpicMRPancake]

@Nix Far out.

[@HanZhang1994]

Many know what Sam Harris knows. Few can explain it as clearly and concisely as he can. What a brilliant speaker.

[@HanZhang1994]

***** No, reading alot of books will help, but Sam speaks like someone who's had training in math, or at least symbolic logic. The power of his words is their precision. It's very unlike many other speakers who can move you, or paint their vision in poetic speech. Sam's speech is rigorously accurate and that's why it's so convincing. You'll notice for example, he uses alot of limiting cases such as "We know throwing acid on children's faces isn't moral and we should not find it acceptable simply because it comes from a culture other than our own." This is a limiting case argument where he takes something so far in one extreme that his point is completely clear and not ambiguous like with something closer to the gray area. This is a strategy of argument employed by philosophers and mathematicians frequently.

[@bryanzhang4377]

Han Zhang I agree

[@ReckoSong]

I understand his talk, but I don't see it support the title well. By far science can tell us (possible) relations between our biological characteristics and behaviors/decisions, and social science can interpret (possible) functional origins of some aspects of culture. However, we don't know whether this is the correct way to reach the 'ultimate' mortal. In science, experiments play the role of adjudicator. Therefore, science does not deny possibilities beyond the current experimental results, except the fundamental concept 'realism', and it can correct itself in such a way. Can we do experiments about mortal questions? In addition, this question contains itself. Can it be solved within itself (Gödel's incompleteness theorems)? I haven't thought throughly, but I don't see clear logic of a 'yes'. Secondly, actually more fundamentally, how to quantify the concept of 'good' and 'evil' is not clear. Sam merely touched this point, but bypassed it with extreme examples to modern Western people. The final question of Chris Anderson goes deeper. I think that Sam has no concise answer to it. Complements. Some scientists believe that new phenomena arises from complexities (emergence). Ourselves are examples. Genes encode our brain which is more complicated. As a result, we can 'cheat' genes. Similarly, culture is another level. The moment we ask ourselves 'is this mortal?', the influence of culture sets in. Then measurements on molecular level are not sufficient to define unified 'good' and 'evil'. Sam does not discuss this at all, which is disappointing especially science is the theme here. Science has already influenced our view of mortal value, and it will. But after this talk, I still don't see how it can be an authority of mortal issues. And by the way, the analogy of chess is flaw. 'Don't lose your queen' is a strategy rather than a principle in chess. Strategy does not exclude exceptions, principle does. This kind of analogy serves well to lead people's thoughts to the desired direction, but not scientific :)

[@MrSterlingHarris]

Right!? What a champion.

[@petersparks7363]

Recko, read all the words son. Prefered Sam's chat. Dont give up. Please attend TED. I think you could make it..............

[@superface]

Sam Harris: "We can no more respect and tolerate vast differences in notions of human wellbeing than we can respect and tolerate differences in the notion of how disease spreads." 2020: "Hold my beer." Rewatching this video now it strikes me how sad it is that, instead of slowly moving towards Sam's vision of a future where we can apply our scientific understanding to questions of morality, we're instead sliding into a world where we apply our moral ambiguity and relativism to questions of science. We're well and truly screwed.

[@adamdouglas5596]

why is sams vision what we should move toward

[@benp9793]

@@adamdouglas5596 Because reality is real

[@adamdouglas5596]

@@benp9793 who told you that

[@BatmanHQYT]

This is a great way of putting it.

[@benp9793]

@@adamdouglas5596 Reality. Try perceiving it.

[@moathdw910]

The good days when Ted used to be brave enough to bring controversial subjects

[@huskiehuskerson5300]

We need religion. What we don't need is science. Bible has all the answers not stupid science books

[@jacobhaire4364]

@@huskiehuskerson5300 bruh

[@huskiehuskerson5300]

@@jacobhaire4364 I'm glad you agree 👍

[@Isaac-xp4yd]

@@jacobhaire4364 bruh indeed

[@PotionsMaster666]

@@huskiehuskerson5300 bruh

[@James-cb7nb]

Damn, Ben Stiller really is a man of multiple talents

[@stevenaustin8274]

Hey i never heard that one before how hilarious

[@EugenTemba]

Rofl

[@indianspartan76]

@@stevenaustin8274 sarcasm?

[@stevenaustin8274]

Karan Desai not really just utterly bored with this Ben stiller joke it was funny first time hundredth time it’s losing its edge

[@BeccaMartinez94]

James lmao

[@drkim4077]

Thank you. That’s all I can say. As a closet ex-Muslim girl with a younger sister, having videos like these helps me keep my sanity, this religion has already taken so much from, I can’t bear losing anymore.

[@xmus577]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mn-5i2OQhct4btU tell me when you find a mention to Islam there.

[@nishantintouch]

Ex-muslim atheists are one of the best people to hang out with and talk to.

[@mrloop1530]

Same for me. I can't tell you, how much my Christian upbringing destroyed for me.

[@Wassim971]

"closet ex-Muslim", can't get more cliched...

[@sarenareth689]

@@Wassim971 Because they need to hide for their own safety? Yes a sad thing indeed, a shame they're required to be closet.

[@dn-dk2ei]

Basically Sam is saying well-being should be our guiding doctrine of morality. And there might be multiple answers to how we can maximize/increase well-being in different states (the moral landscape) but, there are some answers that are worse than others, and we can map that out by considering the impacts on well-being/human suffering.

[@lizzard13666]

It does sound good in principle, but the defeating problem is "Who gets to decide what counts as "wellbeing". Any sliding scale has to start at the maximally negative and end at maximally positive, and this implies there is some "maximally positive" state of wellbeing. Who decides what that state is? Sam Harris provides an interesting way of justifying an individuals actions as "good" or "bad" by their own individual subjective standards, but he does nothing to touch on what standard we should look to when two individuals differ. He seems to confuse "absolute vs relative" morality with "objective vs subjective" morality, which are two related but different issues.

[@MyBuzzL]

on adition of @dean above me already said, it is very superficially thinking that human morality is based on wellbeing. every one have different perspective about wellbeing, take look at basic human right for example, everyone have to respect human live, even mass murderer. in this case tax payer subsidize the mass murderer to live separately and remotely without have to work for the rest of his life, so mass murderer is given present named lifelong food and roof. see drug traffickers documentary, most avoided country is the one who killed and violated human right. drugs also become problem, who to say that taking drugs is dangerous and offensive. it is within their right to taking it, just like in Switzerland the most human right country, it legal to choose how to die, that have to included drugs like cocaine or meth. the example of chess is way to stupid, and it is contradict himself latter. the game of chess is always have win and lose, and the best one is the one who always win or we can say the smartest just like physicist. than the most wellbeing in life is also holding the most morals, whether he is robber, mafia or mass murderer. and just like he said it is wrong to have morality don't get queen killed in chess, same like it is wrong to have ur daughter raped, so u killed ur daughter that is why u will never have raped daughter. it sick

[@lizzard13666]

@Davy Anthonissen That's anything but simple in YOUR view! Under you and Sam's view, "child marriage" in animals and other organisms is EXACTLY what got us to where we are, then according to you and Sam, there was a sudden and arbitrary distinction between the animal called "human" and all the others? What about other hominid species like Neanderthals, do they share the moral value you arbitrarily put on humans? Your system CANNOT account for why that is immoral, mine can! Luckily, under my view, each human has inherent moral value, and as such we should respect them. Your view is fundamentally incoherent seeing as evolution BENEFITTED from murder, stealing, and non-consensual experiences etc, yet we KNOW these things are morally wrong for a human to do. So to summarise, it is under YOUR view that those negative moral actions benefit humanity, without them we wouldn't be here to flourish! Under MY view, we can say with certainty that those are NOT moral actions!

[@lizzard13666]

@Davy Anthonissen I did.

[@lizzard13666]

@Davy Anthonissen Nice, enjoy your car!

[@michaelrecine7626]

Science can be used for deductive reasoning. It can be used to derive the best (if there is a best) possible action given a set of values. That being said, he never actually displayed how science can yield those values. It can't. It gives us an "is", not an "ought". He makes a fatal error in assuming that one "ought" to desire these more "desirable" moral spaces, or that we "ought" to care for the suffering of others, etc... He assumes certain values to judge what "human flourishing" even is, AND that it is preferable (albeit we may grant that that is a sort of self evident idea). He is using values derived not from science to suggest that science can provide these values. These values are an inductive reasoning. Science relies on philosophy, so even the idea that science can provide values relies on values on how to conduct this science.

[@rodsz1784]

Have you read that Moral book? It's really horrific.

[@fredheimuli5913]

That's because it's a book about life, our circumstances, and our struggle for meaning. Life is a grimey experience, rife with pain, suffering, and conflict. If that's the case, Did you expect that moral book to be a cute Hallmark greeting card? You have to be more sophisticated than that my Friend

[@michaelrecine7626]

@@rodsz1784 Even if I were to agree, these two things can be true at the same time

[@CosmicValkyrie]

@@fredheimuli5913 Well the moral book asks for genocide of certain people. You don't have to be sophisticated to realize that the moral book is utter garbage.

[@fredheimuli5913]

@@CosmicValkyrie the book merely exposes people's desires. People also do many heinous crimes in the name of science with ulterior motives. Study Big Pharma, and research agencies who are paid to back crooked objectives. Does that mean science is evil or bad? No, it just exposes mankind. People misunderstand and don't interpret the meanings of those books properly. It's a book about "the evolution of our own moralities" and how they've been corrupt many times.

[@Tesserex]

11:21 He seemed to have genuine trouble getting through this section, emotionally. He has two daughters. Definitely shows how invested he is in the seriousness of the subject beyond the theoretical.

[@brunowalker99]

I don't want to have a daughter because of that.

[@aadams9808]

I've never seen him get emotional before this. Damn.

[@mmemo7703]

On a podcast where Sam was a guest, he spoke about this talk and what you see as emotional state he admits he had a cold and had a difficult time going thru the whole speech :) But he is never the less serious about the subject

[@bravetraveller3305]

What podcast?

[@aadams9808]

M Memo Which podcast was this?

[@muralin239]

I admire how calm and eloquent he is in whatever situation.

[@Anna-cx4tg]

it's all that meditation

[@deeninspire3149]

@@Anna-cx4tg lol its all the 11 years of hindu and Buddhist training - the irony hahaha

[@tg3137]

Yeah that's what long term meditation practice does, you can sometimes spot people who meditate or practice mindfulness just by the way they act

[@anaesthesia1549]

Murali N That's because his audience including the commenters here are unfamiliar with his tactics. Lot of his talk is flawed and he appears to trick his unsuspecting audiences. I will give you just two examples. First, what is the relevance of mentioning bombing the nuclear facilities of Iran in relation to science's answers to moral questions? Bringing the case of Iranian nuclear facilities into this discussion turns the discussion on moral question into political question. And when it becomes political question it can be asked in an other way, that is, why not to bomb Israeli nuclear facilities, as for some, Israel is morally more culpable than Iran because Israel has almost eliminated a whole nation of Palestinians to make their own place in Palestine. Sam Harris cannot raise such question because the real agenda here is to prove Iran morally inferior and culpable. Now he doesn't have to name Israel as morally superior because audience already know the relationship between Iranian nuclear facilities and Israel. By subtly mentioning it he successfully reinforces the idea into his audiences' minds. This is how these people trick their audiences. By siding against Iran and therefore in favour of Israel he is clearly showing his bias. True intellectuals and scholars never take sides, especially in political matters. Second, his mentioning of suicide bombers and the 72 virgins. Now if Sam Harris truly understands Islamic teachings he should have known that suicide is haram (strictly forbidden) in Islam. Using suicide to kill noncombatant innocent civilians is double haram in Islam. Moreover, there is no mention in Quran of any promise for suicide bombers having 72 virgins. In spite of these facts ( of course only if he is knowledgeable enough to acknowledge these facts), his mentioning of these misconceptions in his argument against religion as basis for morality constitutes dishonesty and malice against Islam. And he very subtly brings this across his audience's subconscious.

[@anaesthesia1549]

j s k Your statement is exactly like confidently telling that the horse is black without looking at a white horse.

[@kvartlapp9724]

I had compassion for rocks (and other objects) as a kid, and my brother used to kick them and call them ugly to make me cry ...

[@jukaa1012]

The questio here is not if having emotions for rocks is good or not, but if making your brother cry is good or not

[@user-rd8rv6nb7f]

Hey you are a really nice guy ) The best thing about you is that you have empathy for everyone) You are very sweet ❤❤❤

[@pinchebruha405]

What that says is that your brother was jealous and probably a psychopath

[@theboombody]

That's pretty interesting. I don't know if I've heard of anyone ascribing feelings to inorganic material before, other than inorganic material that LOOKS organic, like a stuffed animal or a doll. But man, trying to protect every rock in the world will really wear you out, that's for sure.

[@finch1187]

@@pinchebruha405 lol cmon bro😂 that’s a bit of a stretch. I think if u have ever had siblings, u would understand the motives for these types of actions is just fun and entertainment. I’m not saying the older brother was right to do that, but siblings mess with each other. As they grow older, the teasing typically becomes funny and enjoyable for both parties and can really help build their relationship.

[@junevandermark952]

"“There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair.” Albert Einstein. From the book ... The Final Inequality, by L. J. Ludovici."Morals at any given moment have always been as good, or as bad, as our imaginations credit them, for the morals (from the Latin, mores: customs) means simply customs, and they keep changing all the time in all the corners of the world."

[@user-og1nm6gq1l]

Albert Eonstein was a Khazarian mafia fraud.

[@LucisFerre1]

I just read a news story about a father in dubai who prevented lifeguards from saving his daughter from drowning because it would be less shameful to allow his teenage daughter to drown than endure the humiliation and shame of "strange men" i.e. rescue workers, touching her body. Religion poisons everything.

[@Tempust97]

+LucisFerre1 Not sure that it had ao much to do with religion than culture... Im not religious at all but just saying that I dont think you really can blame religion for what this man did... his poor daughter

[@mancubthescrub]

+Alle H that explanation only begs another question. What shaped the culture? And since it's on the topic of father feeling shame for the daughter, look no further than the Kuran, notice the gross similarities between how it's was described in memory by the above user, and how it is describe in what they believe to be the literal word of their god.

[@Tempust97]

+Mark Bristol how are you sure the father was muslim?

[@mancubthescrub]

Alle H by asking an honest question, what kind of culture could release the product that is this man? What cultures view it a "dishonor" to the father when touched by "strange men". Today what are the cultures that endorse that kind of behavior. Oh by the way, it is not illegal to kill your daughter in Dubai, as long as it's an honor killing.

[@LucisFerre1]

Alle H EVERY culture that has honory killing is islamic. Do the math.

[@lSomeRandomGuyl]

I love the regressive at the end who implied that since he's been to these muslim countries, he knows that women have a free choice to wear the burqa. And then Sam curbstomped him by saying it's not free choice when there are death punishments in place.

[@spamwithrice]

+SkepticOwl death or burqa, what a choice!

[@hajtom6280]

you know what we are talking about, you can't call it freedom if you are in danger from fellow human beings hurting you for doing something that won't affect them.

[@blocksy6772]

But surely you must see that when submerged in a situation, where you are told to hide you body or you will be butchered, there is at least a limitation on that free choice. Technically they all have free choice, they could take off all their clothes and walk around naked while singing 'Mary had a little lamb' if they chose to, but that would mean the end of their existence. So saying 'free choice' is simply a way of easily stating that there is no free choice as there is in compared to the other places in the world. But saying this over and over is rather tedious, so 'free choice' should suffice. So the problem they are talking about here is not whether they should have 'free choice' , as you mean it. But more whether the atrocious limitations placed upon the little free choice they have should be lifted, allowing them to for example sit in a park feeling the sun on their arms and legs, without having the fear of having stones thrown against their faces until they died.

[@miksmasellistasjateg]

Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he could just be a good interviewer playing devil's advocate (allah's advocate?).

[@PongoXBongo]

Which is exactly what I think he's doing. Chris is the primary organizer and host for TED talks, and likes to either dumb things down for the audience during super technical talks, or apply balm to open wounds when touchy subjects are raised. It's his job to moderate and find the peak of human experience for everyone involved. ;)

[@robsquared2]

It's good that we remove the idea that we remove the taboo of comparing religious ideas against each other and against secular ideas. There can be no progress of society without frank and open discussion.

[@hankdieselify]

It needs to go beyond all of that someday when religion is seen by everybody as made up and frankly silly to believe in. It can be great to be spiritual, but the beliefs that stem from religions have held us back and have caused many atrocities.

[@josvanderspek1403]

Does KZbin have a superlike button?

[@rarevisitor1250]

I'll use your comment as one

[@agentprismarine2778]

why ? are you saying minimising human suffering isn't morally better ? are you saying that causing human suffering is morally better ? The only subjective questioning is whether ending human suffering is morally better and whether ending suffering at the cost of other desirable things like freedom is morally better ... I'm sure the answer to the first question can be universally agreed upon. The second one is up for debate otherwise that's the only subjective answer.

[@bahbcat]

"Whenever we re talking about facts there are certain opinions that must be excluded."

[@artieche9]

✔

[@erasmusso]

+Bahb Woolley Actually, ALL opinions must be excluded. Scientists don't discuss their feelings about a theory, they discuss hypotheses, evidence, experiments, etc. Feelings tell you absolutely nothing about reality.

[@bahbcat]

erasmusso Dude, I was just quoting the video. Opinions are not always about feeling either. An hypothesis is an opinion.

[@erasmusso]

Bahb Woolley I know that's a quote, I just wanted to comment on it, but sorry if it came off as a criticism, that wasn't my intention. About a hypothesis being an opinion, I guess it depends on how you define an opinion - what's the opinion based on. But it makes sense, sometimes you have an opinion and then find out it's testable and you can do something practical with it. I was thinking for example about the opinion: "homosexuality is wrong". You can't perform an experiment to find out if it's wrong or not, it's just an opinion...

[@Murph1989sean]

+erasmusso I would venture to say you could. Again, as we start to know more about the human mind, it may be very possible that homosexuals are actually more or less happy than their heterosexual counterparts. Not including in the context of society, what is better for everyone as a species, that would answer the question.

[@YivvaMedia]

Once again, faith in humanity almost 100% restored after watching the video, followed by agonising disappointment when reading through the comments.

[@christinarasmobeymer]

Yivva I agree. I loved how they gave him a standing ovation.

[@afaultytoaster]

Yivva you have crappy expectations of humanity if a 20 minute video changes your opinion

[@TooleyPeter]

afaultytoaster Or he has a newspaper.

[@TooleyPeter]

***** Five paragraphs, my goodness, you are definitely not taking this personally.

[@TooleyPeter]

***** Then you have a complicated relationship with Mohammed.

[@vinniedavies7047]

I've been having a sort of existential dread and panic the past week that I have no way to validate my morals objectively and as such can't trust them. This video really helped ground me and reassure me. Thank you Sam.

[@topdog5252]

That’s great! Really hope you’re over it.

[@dcarnage9211]

I have also received this reassurance from his speech. I often feel misunderstood because I see things the way he does. I feel more grounded than I have for some time.

[@alirezased2673]

I think we should seperate our thoughts from the world we live in so we don't act out these often uncertain notions in seemingly irrational ways in random settings spontaneously and in appearance maliciously.

[@areuarealman7269]

Validate your morals ?Are you a knight in an old school adventure?

[@G_Demolished]

It might help to ask yourself why your morals would have to be objective to “trust” them.

[@ninpot2765]

So profoundly moving to see a man of such immense wisdom show such emotion on such crucial matters. A champion.

[@user-og1nm6gq1l]

Lio you are not serious.

[@wmduav]

What a pitiful soul, desperately searching for answers in a world view that offers zero hope and morality.

[@theboombody]

The man's brilliant, but his argument relies on emotion, not science. Science doesn't care if anybody kills anybody. That's one of its limitations.

[@theunknowncommenter725]

Where was he? I didn't see him anywhere in the video.

[@ninnymonger]

I’ve watched this talk once, every year, since this came out on the TED website (which is a little before it came to KZbin). Only after hearing him speak of this on his podcast in mid November 2019, did I actually catch his tearing up at 11:20. Now I’m tearing up at having this realization. His fury is well placed. More people should be as livid as he was.

[@strumspicks2456]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/ranEnaWthbOehKs

[@ericwalker3588]

I have watched it many times also and didn't notice that also. But it looks like alligator tears. I used to think he was ok. But now I wonder if he is the antichrist. He wants to get rid of all religious beliefs.

[@shampoozm]

He’s closer to Christ in ideas than most people on earth. I would guess than you, too. To suspect people of fake tears. He has a daughter of his own, and I think he’s capable of empathizing enough to cry.

[@bommie]

@@ericwalker3588 lmao I hope this is a troll response. He's since revealed that, the morning of this TED talk, he was informed that his infant daughter had taken her first steps. When he arrived at this point in his speech, touching on the lunacy of Islam's view and treatment of women, he was ambushed by the emotion of imagining his daughter living in such an environment. It was genuine emotion.

[@manavm]

@J P did you just attempt to justify or otherwise support honor killings? You have access to the internet so you cannot even plead ignorance. How incredibly disgusting and psychopathic do you have to be to supporting killing someone because they were raped - something they have no control over. Abortion should be legal so that people like you never get to be born.

[@dteselle]

So appreciate such an articulate and deep thinker as Sam Harris having the courage to address the illogical assumptions that many in the West accept in the name of diversity.

[@dinodino5602]

+

[@heyalun]

He's fighting fire with fire, though. He assumes much

[@alexandercanella4479]

@@heyalun give an example of one of his assumptions....

[@heyalun]

@@alexandercanella4479 Sorry, I don't remember everything. I just watched it for under 2:00 and the first one I found was at 1:43 - something like "we're more concerned about our fellow primates than ants because we believe they have a greater emotional experience." That's an assumption. "We're" not more concerned about apes than ants. SOME of us are. I don't think that value is based on intelligence, emotional or otherwise. When I came back to this talk I remembered that I couldn't even make it through because it was so irrational and empty. He holds himself out to be rational but made irrational argument after irrational argument. His logical house is built on quicksand because he's in denial.

[@alexandercanella4479]

@@heyalun hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[@JD-ul2bt]

A few hours prior to going onto the stage, Sam Harris had learned that his daughter had just taken her first steps. Which is why he choked up at 11:20

[@loriw2661]

I can’t personally verify this claim is true (& I hope it is😊), that’s amazing to know what’s behind it.

[@Anicius_]

@@loriw2661 where are you from?. I am an ex muslim living in Orthodox muslim society in the third world and there is not one damn thing he said that was untrue, exaggerated or inaccurate. This is the truth of islam. Denying it is standing up on the face of truth and turning your back to it

[@lisadabbs2181]

@@Anicius_ I am curious to know if most Muslims do even know who really Mohammed was. They question where atheists derive their moral values from. So I question, what is the source of their morality, knowing as we know, what a despicable man Mohammed was. So, are they being dishonest or simply in denial?

[@Anicius_]

The way kids are raised here is different from how they're raised in the west. When as a child you drop a piece of paper with quranic verse or name of mohammad or allah written on the ground the extremity of the response the parent or the teacher shows tells the child that this is one thing that can never be criticized or disrespected. So they don't think the contrary thought in their minds or question the scripture. Curiosity is important and doubt even more so. It is that when these children see their doctrines questioned by their betters they go out on streets with fire and rage to give clarity to atheist's criticism And demonstrate the validity of our Arguments while being oblivious. So yes they're in denial and they're ignorant though quran tells you that you can lie too if its to spread the religion. Dishonesty also is permitted.

[@anaesthesia1549]

@@Anicius_ Your first observation is true and is a reaction based on exaggerated sense of respect for the sacred text by the practitioners. Text itself does not necessarily demand from the followers such kind of exaggerated response. Last part of your observation is totally absurd and shows your total ignorance of the faith of Islam. Lying is not allowed to spread the religion. Please quote any verse from Quran where it says lying is allowed to spread the religion. It’s only allowed under life threatening situation to save your life. Perhaps you yourself are lying. If you were ever a Muslim and studied the Quran you should’ve known this.

[@freethinker8199]

I have watched this video at least six times, but never get bored. Best regard, Afghan exmuslim

[@arianagrandaremix8858]

Yes @Sam S

[@GH-wy9mo]

@SAM - just like he brainwashes. Brainwashing cannot be avoided at all in life as a philosopher says "man is free but everywhere in chains". What exactly was your problem with Islam itself?

[@nourae8866]

@Rebel Shinobi why are you do butt hurt they can say what they want

[@-ahmed121]

How’s taliban going

[@MinamuTV]

It is absolutely shameful that corporal punishment by teachers is still legal in 21 states because of its biblical roots. That truly is a national embarrassment.

[@thedon008]

Really?! Damn... LE: yeah now i saw that...

[@Personnenenparle]

How about the fact that you kill hundread of thousands of animals every single day to eat their dead corpses even if you can survive without meat?

[@thedon008]

Personne n'en parle - Nicolas Sicard Let's take it one problem at a time. You can go to infinity if when discussing a problem you come up with your own priorities instead of staying on subject?

[@Personnenenparle]

thedon008 Well, if you want to avoid the importance of the greatest genocide in human history, you might not have good priorities.

[@thedon008]

I'm a vegetarian. If you ever want to actually make people WANT to stop on their own, without being forced, you have too see that beating kids, and making it legal is a sign of many people not even seeing children important enough to not be educated with corporal punishments. So how can you then go to those people and say "Hey! Stop eating meat!"? Come on, be real. There are different crowds for different problems, and you have to target your objectives to the right people. Plus, there have been some more significant genocides in the human history against humans themselves and you're just being ridiculous if you deny that. Animals have eaten animals since ever, and we are such animals that benefited from eating them. Only until recently can we say that we have the means to live a better life. Don't be a zealot. You'll only piss people off, not convince them of whatever you believe in.

[@ajsim]

"How have we convinced ourselves that every culture has a point of view on these subjects worth considering? ... There are right and wrong answers to human flourishing..."

[@CloudStrifeCosplay]

its because humans are bigots, they think that giving others the freedom to choose, and even to make VERY bad decision should be a right, and that you will pay the consequences of that action later on (if they catch you) Its just a consequence that there is chaos with such a stupid menagement of human resources.

[@prometheus5405]

@@CloudStrifeCosplay at least young people have liberty to think outside the box and not be boring. People don't want to be controlled by anyone who isn't their chosen leader.

[@Mobiusu2b]

That statement is completely true if you aren't religious and believe in "yolo". Religion's worry more about the afterlife, not the physical being.

[@anaesthesia1549]

Who will decide, and how, which is right answer and which is wrong? When no one has this authority we will have to fall back on the experiences of those wise people who, over the millennia, pulled humankind from savage animal-like state to present state of advanced human beings. When we do that we might find that the best contribution in this moral progress from savages to thinking humans was made by religion. Main advantage of religion is that it provides a reference point that rises above all humans and everyone must follow that reference point. It is morally superior to declare "O' mankind, we created you from a pair of man and woman, and divided you in nations and tribes so that you may recognise one an other. Verily, superior among you in the sight of your Lord is the one whose deeds are the best" than declaring that superior among you are those who endear their national interests as compared to the universal interests.

[@DavidRussellM]

Anaesthesia The purpose of this talk and the premise of Sam’s book the Moral Landscape is to establish a set of values and morals universally revered by all to promote the most well being outside the purview of the prominent dogmatic faiths which come equipped with loads of damaging philosophy. i.e in this talk, ‘honor killings’.

[@spygulturtle2322]

"String theory doesn't resonate with me" hehehe

[@partydean17]

Lol

[@WigganNuG]

The real punch was. "I'm not a fan" ... lol :)

[@AmasaTony81947]

I’m glad that someone else picked up on that. I had a little smidgeon of doubt that he said that purposely. That someone else picked it up is comforting. I love his subtle word plays and his modest self-depreciations. See, atheists can be funny!

[@JAM-hg4mp]

I don't get it.

[@xRedSmartiesx]

​@@JAM-hg4mp String theory, summed down, suggests the universe is made of tiny strings resonating. The different frequencies of the strings make for the different particles we observe. Sam does not resonate with the theory. Just a subtle play on words.

[@annajoy3323]

“String theory doesn’t resonate with me” I’m not sure if he recognized the pun there, but it made me giggle.

[@misc.2331]

This guy is light years ahead of every other human

[@roblaquiere8220]

How can that be? That is a measure of distance!

[@misc.2331]

Rob Laquiere Exactly why I chose light years. The distance between where he is and the nearest human being on a map of intelligence requires a measure light years

[@TheBMP09viperproduct]

+Misc.2 Stop glorifying humans ..

[@misc.2331]

TheBMP09viperproduct dumbest, most pointless comment ever

[@TheBMP09viperproduct]

+Misc.2 How is that ?

[@TatonkaJack]

Interesting idea. But it still isn't really saying science can answer moral questions. Essentially he's putting forward a simplified version of consequentialism, which on a personal level can be a useful decision making tool, but on a larger scale logically leads to utilitarianism, which can be problematic in a Thanos kind of way. It also doesn't address the underlying "why?" He's saying we should value human well-being through the criterion of consequentialism. But why should person A care about the well being of person B? Why shouldn't person A maximize his/her well-being at the expense of person B? Obviously society thinks taking advantage of other people that way is wrong, but that's because of the values we collectively carry. Really, what this talk boils down to is saying that science can measure well-being (although he did admit it doesn't work in morally complicated matters), and human well-being should be our moral compass. Which again, can be problematic on a large scale. So in conclusion, science can't answer moral questions, it can merely help quantify consequences in a specific moral framework. That's all heady stuff. In more practical terms he's saying think about how actions affect yourself and others which others which I think is a great idea.

[@NateDOGG3024]

Kaden Gilchrist plus, the epistemology he consistently refers to isn’t necessarily scientific

[@jeffberlin4179]

Or you can just say. I'm not comfortable with that question. And with those 6 words just shut down the discussion. Because your not the one with the boot on your neck.

[@ilcrawfo]

We have evolved to be very social beings that live in and rely on close knit groups. That and empathy are two good reasons not to be a selfish jerk.

[@DanaMeise]

Just because you can stitch words together for sheep doesn’t mean the rest can be fooled by your weak arguments

[@myoung48281]

If science shows that global warming is manmade, then the effort to stem it becomes a moral imperative. If smoking is shown to cause cancer and other health issues, morally it should be something to be shunned. If lead in the water supply....etc. There is a strong impetus to change judgements as to what and what not to do based on science (moral decisions based on science, it's bad to get sick from smoking to the RIGHT thing to do is to stop). This is more than utility, it's literally a moral persuader. The problem is that the acceptance of the science is usually challenged as being incorrect or somehow misleading or inconclusive, all in the service of maintaining the value of maintaining the status quo for reasons of personal enjoyment, economy, not wanting change, and other cultural or practical reasons.

[@Dusk-MTG]

It's easy to say that some points of view on morality are definitely wrong and are not worth considering and it's also easy to make the most obvious examples. But when you try to apply this concretely, you find out that very rarely this is the case in real life, so either you end up with the impossibility to judge or with a negation of democracy. In my opinion China is the best example of this: can we say that their beliefs are definitely correct or definitely wrong? Many people say that "Communism is good in theory but bad in practice" and that seems to be the case. But what I see in China is the application of this model of thought: "My idea is correct, and if you think elseway you're wrong (and you go to jail, but that's another story)". And if we really want to be honest here, we think that China "has moral values that aren't worth considering", but why is that? Is it because of the Communism or because they jail or kill anybody who is against it? It's really the second one so what does this show? It shows that this way of thinking may be harmful, also more harmful than a lot of our current beliefs. That being said, I see that what Sam Harris says is very interesting and it would be nice to live in a world where everyone shared the same "correct" point of view, everyone would want that. But the question we have to pose ourselves is: Is it possible? And the question is most clearly no. By the definition of point of view, we can't all have the same opinion and, unlike science, we don't have a way to say what is correct and what is wrong. I'm a physicist and what we do is elaborate theories and then verify with experiments. Sometimes (a lot of times in the history of physics) we believe our theory is correct, it seems reasonable and it really seems to work well. Take the Galileian relativity for instance: anyone before Einstein (Maxwell, Poincarè, etc...) believed that spacetime is flat and that was the "correct" way of thinking. But was it actually "correct"? Indeed, it was not, and there was no way to know it before the special and general relativity theories. So my point here is: How do we know that what we now think is "correct" IS ACTUALLY CORRECT? Science can't really give answers by certainty, but by a process called corroboration, which means that we try to find every weak spot in a theory, and if the theory resists, it means that is good enough for the moment. But there may be some other weak spots that we haven't considered yet and that make that theory false. In physics we never say that a statement is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT, we say that the theory passed all the tests, for example. Absolutism is not the way to go in science, and if we want to create a science of morality we may as well do it, no problem, but we have to consider our best moral values just like any other theories: they seem to be good now and here, but we can't really be sure that they're the absolute best moral values we'll ever get.

[@jabesmedeiros]

Very interesting comment! That makes my point: morality is not a matter of science is a matter of minds. An absolute morality can only come from an absolute mind. An absolute mind is God´s or is nothing.

[@stevenkrizsan3891]

@@jabesmedeiros indeed

[@steven_king]

I don’t think Sam would disagree with you there. As one physicist to another, our theories are always changing, but the point is, we continue progressing ideas. Yes, it’s true that what we know today will likely be nonsense in 100 years time, or perhaps even less. Yet, we strive to keep pushing the ideas further, standing on the shoulders of giants, we continue to progress. I believe we will never have the “right” answer, and I don’t think that’s what Sam is arguing. I think the biggest takeaway I got was that we can, and should keep exploring these views, and from a scientific standpoint. Will we always do the right thing? Absolutely not. But will we continue to learn through hypothesis to theory and more observation? Yes. And we should.

[@sgdsingh9123]

But Sam firmly believes humans do NOT possess Free Will, which opens up the possibility of a “homogenous moral landscape” for humanity, if only the “right” people were to decide on the “best” cultural future for the rest of us, no? With 8 billion wildly varying and chaotic humans to implement this utopia upon, I don’t see it as POSSIBLE, but it would be interesting to live for 300 years and see what the action/reaction of that would ACTUALLY look like🤣

[@motorhead48067]

@@jabesmedeiros This seems sort of muddled and sloppy to me. “Morality is not a matter of science it’s a matter of minds.” What exactly is this supposed to mean? For one, minds do not necessarily fall outside the purview of science. You’re setting up a dichotomy between “minds” and science that I don’t think makes sense. And as Harris has stated over and over in other contexts, when he talks about science, he doesn’t mean men in white lab coats, he means the entire enterprise of making sense of the world through reason and evidence. And what does this making sense? Minds, of course. Minds can both use science and be described by science, so again, I’m not really getting your dichotomy between science and minds. And what does “absolute mind” even mean? And if God said “human beings should do x”, where would that get us? How would that bridge the is/ought divide any better than Harris has done? *God says we should do x* is just another *is* statement- another fact. It’s a fact about what God wants us to do. How does that translate into an ought? Why ought we do what God says we ought to do? And don’t just say “well because he’s God duh.” Come up with a real argument with “We ought to do what God says we ought to do” as your conclusion, and support that conclusion. There’s really nothing that matters more in human existence than morality, so why would you want to abandon reason and evidence on the most important topic in human in life and just defer to a book that is supposedly the result of an “absolute mind” (again, what does this even mean?), even though the book is clearly written by Iron Age scribes and not an omniscient “absolute” mind? And sorry if my comment comes across at all rude that is not my intention, I’m just trying to pressure your ideas because I’m genuinely curious too see how they hold up to pressure.

[@farokmo4946]

11 years later and all of the sudden his talk is much more relatable …

[@jimmymags6516]

just like your folks .

[@aylerayler]

And in my case, tragic. I am Chronically ill and my elderly parents are antivaxxers.

[@kickssass]

rarely seen a standing ovation on a TED talk lol

[@hajtom6280]

and yet the guy who runs TED does not like Sam's point here and did not at all agree with that standing ovation.

[@DigiDriftZone]

I think he challenged him to close common counter arguments from the other side. I am pretty sure he, himself strongly agreed, it just would not be productive to come on stage and say you're a genius and walk off :)

[@hajtom6280]

I hope that is the case.

[@offthekirb]

Sadly atheism is always a winner with everyone these days...

[@frustled7056]

What's so sad about that?

[@gregscotland1159]

I'm still not convinced that science can answer moral questions. He says right at the start that "it is often thought that there is no description of the way the world is that can tell us how the world ought to be". This is a very strong argument in moral philosophy known as Humes law, or the is-ought problem. He then says that this is "quite clearly untrue" and that morals are facts about the well-being of creatures. This is a *huge* statement to make. One of the biggest current debates in philosophy is whether morals are factual (cognitivism) or carry no factual content and are meaningless (non-cognitivism). And his solution to this problem? His answer to this ongoing debate? Humans feel no moral obligations to rocks, but they do feel moral obligations to conscious things, therefore morals are all about the changes in conscious beings. Where do I start. First of all, he has simply made another is-ought problem, instead of solving it. What about the descriptive statement that we feel obliged to act in certain ways around conscious beings means that we ought to do something? He's essentially just said "people say the is-ought problem is true, but I don't think it is" and not followed it up with a reason or argument as to why Humes law is incorrect. It's like saying "I think the earth is flat because the earth is flat". Furthermore, he has given absolutely no justification for believing that morals have factual value, and this is simply terrible since it is one of the biggest current debates in modern philosophy and he bases his whole video on his unsupported premise. Then he stoops even lower to say that every single moral system he has come across is concerned with conscious beings, and that this somehow helps his point. First of all, he yet again is creating another is-ought problem: just because X is the case does not mean that y out to be the case (just because people follow religions etc. that teach the importance of consciousness does not mean we ought to do anything about it). Furthermore, just because everyone you've come across acts like this in no way makes your argument true. It's known as argumentum as populum (just because the majority believes it does not make it true). I could say that everyone I have met so far has said that the earth is flat, therefore the earth is flat. Just because everyone you have met values conscious things over rocks does not mean that rocks have any less value than conscious things, objectively speaking (and since he is trying to give moral values factual content, yes, we are speaking objectively).

[@samvanderstoop179]

Isn't it natural (in the biological sense, perhaps in other ways too) for a being, a being that is being, to want to/strive for being well. No being that is being desires being poorly. A desire for well-being would follow (biologically) from there, wouldn't it?

[@mrhdbnger]

"Furthermore, he has given absolutely no justification for believing that morals have factual value." I have to wonder if we watched the same video. It seemed to me that he went into some detail to justify this belief. Make no mistake about it, when you or I or anyone declare a thing to be factual you may be attempting to speak objectively but the declaration remains a statement of belief. It assumes that the listener also believes it to be fact. It assumes that the imaginary scenario of no one observing or stating the thing still gives it objective existence in a factual state. This is never the case as it is a fantasy scenario. Facts are invariably presented as a premise by a speaker to one or more listener(s). The word fact is nothing more than a designation for a level of belief. At some point we are compelled to declare something irrefutable enough to give it that designation. Your main objection seems to be that Sam has argued that certain actions are provable, demonstrable and calculable to be better for living and conscious things and could, perhaps should, fall under the designation fact. Those are, after all, the conditions under which we designate any other beliefs to be fact. "Just because everyone you have met values conscious things over rocks does not mean that rocks have any less value than conscious things, objectively speaking (and since he is trying to give moral values factual content, yes, we are speaking objectively)." No, we are not speaking objectively. It is not possible to do so. To argue the value of a thing "objectively speaking" is nonsense. Value is a human concept just as truth is. To declare that there is objective value or objective truth is nonsense because that sort of objectivity is nothing more than a mental exercise which removes all observers but leaves you conducting this mental exercise as an observer. You argued against circular reasoning but engage in it with the assertion of anything "objectively speaking". It goes like this. Objectively speaking it doesn't matter what I think or believe says ME. That is the same as saying the earth is flat because of a flat earth. Sam is not speaking objectively. He is trying to persuade his audience that some aspects of what is good for conscious beings and therefor of moral value are compelling enough, universally experienced enough, measurable enough and quantifiable enough to be designated as fact.

[@drflaggstaff9008]

Non-cognitivism is just silly. "Non-cognitivism is the meta-ethical view that ethical sentences do not express propositions" (And therefore are not testable) And is rather largely based on imperative logic. Propose the idea: Apes can suffer to greater extents than insects. And: Their forms of suffering are comparable. These are not imperative claims, they're declarative, and falsifiable at that. And finally, value of something (now referring to your 'why arent rocks valuable' is a relative quantity. Theoretically and structural, not objective in any sense. You can ask if the rocks are useful to each other in the pursuit of some goal, but the goal would likely be arbitrary given that the rocks have no internal systems or consistencies to maintain, there is really nothing to qualify as 'worth' anything to them in any sense. ((As an aside, one may assume I'm implying consistences 'should' be maintained but thats not what i said.)) You can also ask if rocks have value in relation to something else, people why not. We walk on them, use them for construction, their emergence in the early universe ultimately lead to us (albeit slightly indirectly). Hopefully by now you're seeing that 'value' is descriptive, not prescriptive; it needs to be in relation to a goal, and is therefore already an axiom. The very reason that Hume's Law is not, as you say, "a very strong argument in moral philosophy", is that it intentionally takes its own question unimaginably beyond its own scope. Attempting to 'describe the world' is next to impossible, and no one taken seriously has ever suggested that there is 'a (singular) way it should be'. However, attempting to describe the human brain and its correlates to subjectivity, while still very difficult, is much more plausible. Moral Philosophy can lead us to more refined goals in relation to the knowns about brains, and of course a completed moral philosophy would require an understanding of all brains, all possible brains, and all potentially subjective systems, which would be a looonggg way off. But whats not up for debate, is whether our relevant morality relates to subjective experiences. Objectively, of course it doesn't have to. Morality, like value, is descriptive. As subjective experiencers, our only concerns are in relation to subjective possibilities.

[@victorvrocha]

Great comment. When I began the video and thought it could be something philosophically consistent. Anyone who reads a "Introduction to Metaethics" textbook can point out the uncountable mistakes he is (intentionally) making.

[@typicales1715]

@@drflaggstaff9008 Hmmm, David Hume was an empiricist, and so all empiricist knew from the start that they could not escape their perceptions. That's why he used that pool ball thought experiment to address the inescapability of human perception. Even if you observe a pool ball hitting another one, humans have a flawed vision which can't ever grasp the fundamental reality happening in front of us. We don't see it in slow motion, for example. Or in infrared, or in x-ray waves. To us, the pool balls are extremely rigid when they hit each other and bounce away from another as the force is transferred from one pool ball to another. Now our scientific instruments can record in great detail what happens when a pool ball hits another one, and we see the flexibility and elasciticity of those pool balls as they bounce off each other. In Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, he also uses the example of jeans going from a gradient color scale of dark blue to dark green. At what point do our human eyes start noticing the shift? If we put all of the colors of the jeans side-by-side, it would become a alot more obvious where the color spectrum falls, but we'd still have difficulty getting a proper gradient like computers do. And Hume also applied this thinking to morality. Our perceptions are inescapable. Yes, certain actions like prohibiting murder is beneficial generally speaking, and Sam Harris has a beautiful sense of moral values, heck, I like Sam Harris. But Sam Harris, like you, seem to fundamentally mis-understand the Is-Ought Gap and how problematic it really is. We can't see the exact moment where a moral claim like, "Stealing is wrong" should always be enforced. Some people need to steal in order to eat, and people go to jail for trying to feed their families when they live in ghettos in destitute poverty. Morals have this fundamental uncertainty about it and the is-ought gap thought out by Hume is an explanation of that moral uncertainty. There are pretty much exceptions to everything when it comes to any moral statement imaginable. That is why the is-ought gap is still called Hume's Law, and not Hume's hypothesis... Because it's never been observed that 1 moral claim was universal at all times. Unlike say... the laws in evolutionary biology which seem standard and unchanging. Or at the very least, are FAR LESS changing than moral statements and moral ideas. Are values still relevant? Are morals still a possible way to end suffering? Sure, and we have to find ways to get better moral systems by becoming more mature in our moral arguments. That takes effort, practice, and a deep sense of reflection on what goodness and well-being are.

[@blinertasholli1280]

I see two problems. How do we define well-being (Brave new World type of scenario) and how do we get a Should from an Is?

[@edgecrusherhalo]

I rewatch this like once a year or so. It’s equal parts amazing and frustrating. Amazing because of how sensible and powerful it is. Frustrating because of how stuck in the past we are and I realize so many people either don’t think about life like this or they just plain dismiss it in favor of superstition.

[@Rients96]

If only 1% of people on Earth thought like Sam Harris, we would have been in a totally different place than we are now.

[@nathanielcatt380]

if only 1% of people on earth thought like ted bundy we would live in a different place than we are now

[@TheRedMooncorp]

I don't think his views are that uncommon, many students I know think like him

[@satanslittlehelper802]

@@TheRedMooncorp Who do you mean? Is it a bad sign I have to ask this?

[@TheRedMooncorp]

@@satanslittlehelper802 Well I study economics in Germany and many of colleagues think similar to the speaker. In fact using science, in our case mostly statistics to rationalize and operationalize normative ideas and observe their level of achievement is very normal, it is basically what you do in economics. I would have assumed, that a small majority of the academic population thinks like this^^. Why, is rational, scientific thinking for social issues something so rare, among your social circles? (Not trying to mock, just confused^^)

[@satanslittlehelper802]

@@TheRedMooncorp Oh boy, this was just meant as a joke towards Nathaniel Catt's response: "if only 1% of people on earth thought like ted bundy we would live in a different place than we are now", me asking who of the two students tend to think like today.. those Germans man, no humor. (Keine Sorge, ist nur Spaß. :D)

[@OlinScharm95]

6 years ago... How come I have never seen this?

[@thefourthone1843]

I believe I have just felt what you did one month ago. This was incredible.

[@CiudadanaHerzeleid]

Don't worry, I've just found out about Sam Harris three weeks ago, and watching this today :)

[@OlinScharm95]

CiudadanaHerzeleid Then you still have a lot of great content to watch...

[@maxorbit357]

I found out about Sam 4-5 months ago. He's spot-on every time I've seen him talk. You can't help but listen and say "yep, he's totally right and I never thought of it that way".

[@chadgrov]

Max Orbit I highly suggest checking out Christopher Hitchens as well.

[@sepanta4021]

I just started to read the moral landscape, and I'm already fascinated by how beautifully he describes the situation!

[@Marius.82.]

You should see Sam Harris vs Jordan Peterson ep 4!

[@acraze2287]

@@Marius.82. they need to have more debates

[@dorothybarron6115]

I love his calm spirit and the very basics of thought, thoughts and being thoughtful

[@AFCoulthard]

Back when TED Talks was worth a damn, now they have the worst apologists and regressives on; spewing non scientific studies and presenting very trivial, opinionated conferences.

[@nickbobba]

You are an idiot

[@jarfuloflove7320]

Why's he an idiot, Manzu?

[@77Night77Shade77]

To be fair, TED is still largely about the things it's always been about, that being scientific innovations and the like, it's mostly TEDx that has decided to give voice to a rather toxic group of people.

[@HHLPA]

Which is stupid. Their channel is for science and then they have ideologues passing their bullshit as "kind of science" so it legitimates it.

[@nickbobba]

There have always been better and worse TED talks, OP is just too stupid or ignorant to see it. He is trying to mask his opinion about the topics people discuss on TED as a consensus about the quality of their content. I'm sure some people are interested in the opinion of "the worst apologists and regressives" and would say the same thing about the amount of "new atheists and rationalists" taking over TED. TED is an open form for intellectuals from the whole spectrum of ideas to put forward their reasoning, thoughts and sometimes discoveries, not an organization dedicated to reporting facts.That's why OP is an idiot.

[@mastertheillusion]

Let that detonate in your mind for a moment.

[@CommanderDragonLily]

Such a great line

[@lordvoldemort4242]

I could listen to him speak all year, only taking breaks to fulfill basic needs lol, but that's how much I like his Ideas

[@cosmoslady]

Get on his podcast if you haven't yet. Best podcast!

[@some2199]

@@cosmoslady bro, can you tell me how many podcasts he has, I mean his own, there are many channel.

[@matthafer2415]

The clarity and precision the way he takes a thing and makes you see it so clearly so few can do it as well as Sam

[@drclairejones]

I have never heard this debate explained like this before. I am the wiser for watching this talk.

[@MouseGoat]

By being stupid in his logic? no no.. i do like him... but i'm seeing gebing flaws in this argument... even if i agree the world could use a lot more of the western way of thinking. But there is the problem, values... its a nobel thing believing all humans deserve to live happy lives... but it also a western value. it's never gonna be a universal value, because the universe does not have a will, for it to have will it would need a god.

[@i2pjd6hRw5P]

+Nekogami-Crystal I think he is arguing that all humans have a fundamental desire to live happy lives. I think he's right in that sense. The only thing that would convince anyone to think otherwise is religion.

[@iwantyou8990]

Or less wise-- His intellectual sleight of hand is less discrete than he would like to believe. He conflates human perception with value as human perception of facts, when the two are not interchangeable from a logical standpoint. He's pretty cool, though.

[@rutkayugurdurgun5998]

Have you ever read a book on ethics, Claire? Aristotle, Kant or John Locke maybe?

[@nathanielcatt380]

Of Course being from the West i like the western way of thinking more, but who are we to go tell groups that outnumber us that their ''morals are wrong'' and that ours isn't?

[@bvishal2kn]

Damn! 11:48 it's the first time i have seen Sam get emotional.

[@timmarrier]

His daughter was either just born or it was her first birthday, I can't remember which he said.

[@BrianFedirko]

Honor killing drew my tears. And people do feel about rocks(diamonds)... and their suffering... Love everything and only use hate towards concepts. ☮ I love Sam. He Rocks!!!

[@simonreich9304]

Exactly!! It’s funny to think that we are so far technologically speaking but have so fucked up morals at the same time. This is by far one of the best ted talks I’ve ever seen. It absolutely describes our modern day issues as we come to understand what’s actually better for our society overall and move away from egoism

[@ajenks9]

We are also so far scientifically speaking than ever, so why is the case for science any more compelling?

[@zachkariotis9982]

@@ajenks9 that's a pretty dumb question. Obviously we look to science for certain things, but don't recognize its full potential

[@alirezased2673]

Let's collect our good thoughts and put them to use wherever we have the power to influence. Although, reading what I've written, it all seems a little too active, but being passive is not the answer either. I guess 😸 I am in the limbo, climbing up and droning over these moral landscapes in my head but too afraid to move in these moral landscapes in real life. I have too much security to lose you know...

[@alejandroaguilar9223]

Faith in humanity restored. Guys a genius in reasoning and , at the same time, hes not, hes just as I am, with a very sofisticated brain fot analysis and reflection. I believe we all are capable of being this way. Amazing talk.

[@sgtsnakeeyes11]

+Alejandro Aguilar yeah thats actually the saddest part, he's just using basic reasoning and yet that's so much more than most others seem to be able to do

[@zemorph42]

+sgtsnakeeyes11 That's basic reason!? Now I feel like an idiot! Not that it's a new feeling for me, but it's better than the idiots that never realize that they're idiots. I need to study more.

[@MsThesios]

+Alejandro Aguilar You are astoundingly arrogant i mean to say "as i am, with a very sofisticated brain" is so incredibly ironic its insane.

[@lebohangmohapi8605]

What did you get out of it, that the brain will one day determine morals?

[@G_Demolished]

@@lebohangmohapi8605 That WE determine morals based on consequences, and that we shouldn’t rely on what Bronze Age goat herders thought their deity had to say about it.

[@purumr]

Yasmine Mohammed brought me here after many years.

[@anothercrappypianist]

Likewise. That was a harrowing and fascinating interview. I watched this talk three or four times over the past decade, and just now again after in that interview Sam revealed that he almost broke into tears at the point he was making at 11:20 because he had just learned before walking on stage his daughter took her first steps. Heartbreaking.

[@PresidentialWinner]

Yeah m 2

[@CamLaw97]

Lmao I’m not done with the podcast. I immediately came here when she started crying

[@nsldsfv1202]

Minutes after finishing the podcast this shows up #1 on the feed.... thanks algorithm spying on me

[@RM-fs8ub]

Me too, just now....

[@CaptivateThoughts]

If humans were totally objective robots then yes but I think the best wisdom comes from a balance of objectivity and profound feelings for humanity.

[@cambodialiving4186]

Can’t believe this video is 14 years old. Sam hasn’t changed at all and is still promoting the good will of science. This just shows that his words, even 14 years ago, has the same importance as much as it does in this day and age.

[@EmperorsNewWardrobe]

11:27 for anyone who listened to Ted interviewing Sam recently where he’s defending the idea that he’s unemotionally rational, this is the bit that he mentioned about fighting back tears while going this talk

[@Tomn8er]

Great speech but title is a little misleading. He didn't really explain in any depth how science can answer moral questions. He simply said that morality has a real basis in facts and therefore not all moral values are equal.

[@firstnamelastname1368]

He's establishing the premise of a minority opinion. The details and examples can be found in the book. This is a 20 minute speech to generate interest, not a research article up for peer review.

[@76JStucki]

@@firstnamelastname1368 What's the title of the book?

[@firstnamelastname1368]

@@76JStucki Moral Landscape. It's referenced in the talk. Here's a link: dl.uswr.ac.ir/bitstream/Hannan/130172/1/Sam_Harris-The_Moral_Landscape__How_Science_Can_Determine_Human_Values-Free_Press%282010%29.pdf

[@alejandrotellez2962]

@fynes leigh Morals are norms. Morals can change throughout history depending on the society. Morals help us distinguish what we should or shouldn't do in a set society.

[@lino2896]

I haven't watched the video yet but base on the title I would like to say " morality and good and bad has no dimension in science in which can be determined " and if I changed my mind I'll edit my final conclusion. Very nicely said as Sam always does but I'd like to share my thoughts 😅 on it in quite deferent direction : I absolutely do agree that morality and science are both subjected to facts but the value and methods in which both can be determined can be slightly tricky some times , even tho both do share some aspects aspects in which both can be determined some times they hold deferent standard or separate aspects of evaluations and in other cases where moral values contradict science , and in that capacity nor morality or science have completed answer to each other nor they have a sufficient answer to all the questions the human asks , and I believe that was the main reason way human civilization progress in a such away that lead us to our modern society because simply without questions there will be no progress what so ever , therefore over the years and my intense study of both subjects looking for an answer to it I've concluded there will be no answer to it because simply that will stop the human civilization from progressing farther to the future human by nature have to keep questioning every thing or there will be no progress.

[@knowledgeablebro6970]

If morality exist, morality is objective. Because if morality was subjective that would mean that it would depend on peoples opinions. And because everybody have different opinions, then morality would mean anything. Right could be wrong and wrong could be right, depending on the person, and there would be no distinctions. Which would be contrary to the definition; " Distinguishing right from wrong ". Therefore, to believe in morality being subjective is to think that morality doesn't exist.

[@vinsanity982]

He's describing a secular process by which we can get answers, not "the answer" as an alternative to moral relativism or religion. There will always be questions, especially since the world will always continue to change.

[@chrisefc3579]

You have to watch Sam 10 times over to even comprehend the words he fluently speaks, but my word when you do you realise this guy was born with a gift, and on top of that clarity to see the world as it really is.

[@s1Lence_au]

Nah you're just a bit slow

[@chrisefc3579]

@@s1Lence_au Thanks my friend. Belittling a person for trying to educate themselves, well played. Classy. Say hello to r/Iamverysmart over on Reddit, you are their star of the day.

[@rustycherkas8229]

The only criticism I'd make of your comment is "born with a gift". He has said that his 'awakening' came with the planes flying into the WTC. The act shocked a lot of people, but 'Sam' has used the trigger to arrive at what seem (to me) to be rational observations and criticisms of ALL religions. Particularly profound is his theme that, in the 21st century, it's time to cast off iron-age superstitions and prejudices, less we be the cause of our own end. Turn the tables on "religious intolerance" and stop tolerating and graciously allowing those who believe in fairytales to dominate societies.

[@s1Lence_au]

@@chrisefc3579 is there an r/iamverydumb because you'd fit right in

[@lightbeforethetunnel]

He's a good speaker but his Scientism detector is broken. This video is just Scientism fallacies over and over. That's literally all it is.

[@TrollinJoker]

Thank you. We need a universal concept of human morality. Very wise, very true, very urgent.

[@anthonypc1]

! as long as it's adaptable and based on evolving science! lets not do a repeat of the past millennia of religious enforced morality, and require violent revolutions every time it's inevitably necessary to change with the times.

[@nicktanner8231]

how much are you going to enforce it? at gunpoint? wait until vegans get enough power and claim moral high ground, wait until people dont want it legal to drive your own car... morality will never be agreed upon and is a cancer to humanity

[@jesuslovesyou8039]

Alex Ander We already have that. It is called the Ten Commandments. 😉

[@RockyKarthik]

We already have. Have a look at Humanism

[@sven7308]

you are insane. no thank you.

[@MrCmon113]

Would you refrain from going to the doctor just because you cannot define health well enough? Would you refrain from consulting an engineer from building a bridge, just because you are not sure enough where to place it? Science will never tell you how to behave, but it tells you how to behave when you want to pursue well being. Of course it can also tell you how to achieve suffering. The doctor can tell you how to best kill someone. The engineer can tell you how to destroy the bridge.

[@MrCmon113]

dirzted I guess you replied to the wrong person?

[@standev1]

+Taxtro What Sam Harris deliberately forgot to establish is why we ought to pursue well-being. And he 'forgot' to establish that because he's unable to do that using only science.

[@MrCmon113]

standev1 Why should we heal people?

[@standev1]

Taxtro It depends. Do you want an atheist science-only answer or a Christian answer?

[@MrCmon113]

standev1 Are you ok with medicine as we practice it?

[@bretnetherton9273]

"Awareness is known by awareness alone," is the sole irreducible axiom of reality.

[@cifi5118]

Lol

[@simongross3122]

Rene Descarte was a drunken fart; I drink therefore I am :)

[@buzzin6895]

He is indeed a talented communicator.

[@douglasmatsenguest5337]

Came back here to listen again after Sam’s recent podcast. Such a powerful talk. We are so lucky to have Sam speaking out about this. Spread the word, share this video.

[@RustleInThaBush]

Was that the Yasmine Mohammed conversation? He just re-released this week, which i why im here again!

[@gregorcollins]

Sam Harris 2020.

[@gregorcollins]

very well said:)

[@music10095]

someone like him wouldn't want to be president.

[@rylandelap4734]

he is extremely logical, intelligent, and atheist. America has a long way to go before we advance to using someone like that in government

[@bjergtrold]

He is what the founding fathers were, in many ways.

[@rylandelap4734]

Troels Berg he is certainly one of the most reasonable persons in the world.

[@boya92_]

The foundations of many of the answers to the queries that humanity has ever questioned as far as morality is concerned, are intrinsically correlated to a process of thinking that ocurrs as a logical reasoning based on facts, this facts are respectively concerned with the inherently conceivable feelings associated to the human nature such as pain, for instance, we take for granted the idea of "pain" as bad on the grounds that, as humans, we are subject to be sentient beings, and on this regard, the matter of whether or not causing pain to somebody is objectively wrong depends on the grounds of a greater good which is ultimately concerned with the notion of community.

[@BolasDaGrk]

Such a brilliant speech to hear and rehear over the years. Sam Harris really is brilliant, and hits points people would be lucky to reach themselves and understand with clarity. It truly is a shame that no matter how many of the speeches are heard by society, the underlining conditions that make people fanatics is ultimately based on poverty in a class system, not lack of reasonable debate or philosophy in schools. If the most brilliant people at the top of the ladder are too infatuated with the status quo and making money to undo their biases and take a reputation risk by exposing class and money as the clearly evident enemy of humanitarianism, what makes anyone think the people at the bottom will be capable?

[@julietrogers4554]

Did Sam just get choked up? Omg i fing love him so much.

[@CsavsRacing777]

Yes he did, he mentioned this in a podcast, just prior to this talk his daughter took her first steps. When talking about female oppression he admitted he was on the verge of breaking down in tears/

[@AC-mp7cx]

hes horrible

[@williamconway7313]

@@CsavsRacing777 do you know what podcast that is?

[@matthewharris8819]

Unfortunately, he's a white supremacist, so..

[@stefanbjarnason251]

@@matthewharris8819 You just accused Sam Harris of being a white supremacist. That is a very serious charge. Would you be so kind as to provide evidence? Thank you.

[@bea.c.a.m]

This talk is timeless!

[@radutomoiaga994]

I love how science adepts use absolutes...just like religion.

[@PredatorH2O]

@@radutomoiaga994 Guess who has better reasons.

[@syphonyousa7125]

Did you mean useless?

[@cgme7076]

Radu Tomoiaga :: What absolutes? Just because you struggle to follow along doesn’t mean science speaks in absolutes. Let me ask you these three things to see where you’re at for your science knowledge: 1) What is a scientific fact? 2) What is a scientific theory? 3) Are the models for a scientific law able to change? If you have a problem answering these three simple questions then I’m going to suggest you read up on the answers. I’ll bet you’re smart enough to understand what the answers are, you just have to be willing to open your mind a tiny bit.

[@legalfictionnaturalfact3969]

@@cgme7076 yes, morality is an absolute: the golden rule. men especially hate when i say this because men like to treat women in ways they'd never want to be treated. just saying. :)

[@caboosethemoose2070]

He decided humanity flourishing is the answer to what is morale. He made it up. I’m not saying it’s not valuable but who said that is the definition of morality

[@GH-lq9fg]

Exactly, that why Sam thinks that Left wingers don’t need to follow the law. I bet he becomes and Islamist if you snap a donkey on it

[@shyraz9536]

Sam Harris you are a legend . Proud to be a exmuslim athiest .

[@RA-ie3ss]

You bought this theory?

[@davidchall7684]

"If questions affect human well-being, than they do have answers, whether or not we can find them" Simply perfect.

[@isaaclong9341]

The guy at the end asked some interesting questions but also displayed some very under minding and disrespectful behavior through body language and the framing in which he asked his questions. Politically he may have had to seem that way due to the mentioning of the Middle East. Sam gave excellent responses and tried not to leave too much of anything up for interpretation through out the entire talk. In conclusion this was an excellent mind expanding talk that would benefit anyone truly searching for truth with the slight addition of a rude person at the very end.

[@PatrickBuzoDrums]

That was chris anderson. They have a really interesting interview as well. I think you can find it as a podcast "ted interview"

[@BatmanHQYT]

Chris Anderson is not at all a "rude" or bad-faith interviewer - he's the TED CEO who simply represented some potential common objections to Sam's argument to give him the chance to clarify his position. They have a longer interview about this topic that's quite interesting.

[@eyeq7730]

Sam was calm and the first one to reach out to shake the hand of the pink sweater guy...

[@jusTarung]

How am I just found this video now?? The Moral Landscape and this video answered my doubt and confusions about the divering argument about moral relativism. Thank you so much!

[@25jpg]

Yes, science helps us to describe our world; however, I still believe it cannot tell us what we ought to do objectively. E.g. Science can help us to describe the consequence of our actions, I.e. action x will produce y amount of suffering, but that description alone does not tell us WHY we should reduce suffering or why we should thrive/prolong survival. The science is simply a description of the facts. To infer the 'why' is up to us to come up with based on our ideologies about what we THINK should be and how we THINK things ought to be. It is simply an opinion that we should minimise suffering unless there is some universal moral code that exists regardless of our individual opinions. A code that exists independent of human thought. The problem is that history reveals that when we deny the existence of such a moral law, we enter into the 'wild west' of ideologies where extreme ideologies tend to proliferate and what's right and wrong becomes less clear and easy to discern especially in larger populations. I don't deny the harm that religion has caused and can cause, but we need to be careful not to oversimplify the issue and 'throw the baby out with the bath water.'

[@alexanderkaiser89]

But does science need to be able to explain everything? It’s seems quite odd, that people who cannot understand something tend to rely on a fantasy, such as God. Religions, all religions, were made to describe things humans didn’t understand - afterall, also power, money and control. As a sane and rational human, you should learn to accept, that everything doesn’t have an answer. Though, does that not mean it’s explainable with the made up idea of God.

[@ddavidpanah]

Love for you from Iran Mr Harris. You have always inspired me

[@ZesPak]

First time I saw him speak I thought he was somewhat condescending, but I really like Sam Harris. What he said makes sense. He isn't the Hitch in terms of historical knowledge, but his rebuttal in the end (about killing your gay son) was quick and on point.

[@user-og1nm6gq1l]

APOLOGISTS

[@user-ib6ih8lz6n]

많은 생각을 하게 해줘서 감사해요 ㅎ 몇번더 돌려 봐야겠어요 ㅋㅋ

[@out-of-the-boxsystems3091]

"I'm the Ted Bundy of String Theory" 15:52 That got me! Best punchline ever.

[@sagebias2251]

The moment podcast listeners are looking for is 11:20.

[@sophonax661]

Thanks

[@gitlyndon]

Thanks dude

[@robieosborne7369]

More around 11:40 isnt it or am i missing it? The camera is super far away from him at 11:20

[@MonteiroM]

​@@robieosborne7369 I think Sage Bias pointed when he stars the topic of raping/killing so we get the context.

[@stephendevincenzi8386]

merci

[@magnusfischer3073]

"I'm the Ted Bundy of string theory." S.H.-2010

[@Tyrantula4]

"OK OK. Let's stop right there for a moment. OK? He just compared himself to Ted Bundy. HE'S A RAPIST AND A MURDERER!!" - Cenk Uygur

[@Hushiramu]

Now I agree and disagree with that.

[@thankshi2815]

OQO0 😂

[@thankshi2815]

Tyrantula4 did he really say that?

[@AlanGarciaC.1093]

@Thanks Hi. Sam's point is that morality is really about knowledge or ignorance. What his analogy to Bundy means is that Bundy is a moral IGNORANT. (and Sam is ignorant about String Theory).

[@shahedtaghiandehaghani2061]

One of the greatest TED talks in the history of TED talks. Brilliant, brave, and intellectually honest.

[@YoYo-gt5iq]

When I was in Iraq, I commonly saw the poorer men wanting to hold down their women by walking ahead of them and having them covered, and the seemingly wealthier men to hold their wife's hand or to be holding their child despite the heat and the obvious pain doing so did.

[@mosamuel7708]

What are you trying to say?

[@TheSunlight74]

His eloquence is astounding, not only in prepared talks like this but in general conversation.

[@deepwayne757]

Harris seems to have a working knowledge of morality as an activity humans engage in. We look at things and intuitively recognize them as right or wrong regardless of whether or not we can pull up the objective criteria, and all of this is probably rooted in concern for conscious beings. I like his ideas about the continuum of consciousness being parallel to the continuum of concern, and it's definitely interesting to consider the idea of "discovering" new ways of flourishing through something resembling science. That said, Harris' argument as a whole looks much more like knee-jerk reaction and rhetorical posturing than what you could call philosophy. The least believable part of the talk is his description of the ideology he opposes. I'm not an expert on philosophy, but for what it's worth, I don't know a single serious philosopher who would actually answer the "Dalai Lama/Ted Bundy Dilemma" with an indifferent, relativistic answer like the one Harris suggests is the norm in Western academia. Maybe the Logical Positivists, but there's a reason you don't hear about them that much nowadays. Secular, non-dogmatic morality has been a thriving branch of scholarship since ancient Greece. Plato, Aristotle, Kant, the Existentialists like Sartre and de Beauvoir, and the Utilitarians like Mill and Bentham all present examples of robust ethical systems that don't rely on revealed religion, and these are the kinds of names you'll hear being discussed and weighed in philosophy departments discussing ethics. Regardless, he sets himself up to make an argument for moral realism on a scientific basis, which is something he could potentially do regardless of how accurate his idea of the ethical landscape of academia is. However, the relation of his moralizing process to science is ambiguous. The clearest link he seems to make is to make an analogy comparing morality to science, in saying that there are some people who are better at doing it. Empirical reasoning or logical rigor, things I'd imagine he'd hold up as science's virtues, ultimately find no place in his morality. It's knee-jerk ethics, it's "isn't it obvious this is wrong?" In place of an argument for why these reactions have solid moral footing, he instead repeats example after example of immoral actions, in fact saying one twice just to drag it out. This is the hallmark of a speaker who cares more about emotional reaction than logical argument. The above-listed philosophical schools also tend to base their moral arguments on something like "common sense", feelings, "moral impulses", something like that, but not one of them fails to recognize that in order to present a coherent philosophical argument, further steps are required. They systematize it, they work out the kinks, they present themselves with problems and attempt to answer them. The only thing Harris does that resembles this is present the idea that morality needn't not be absolute to be true, an argument presented against another relativist strawman whose ideals nobody would likely share. Harris doesn't want to establish a moral system based on science, he wants to make the audience firm in their already-held intuitive morals, and he wants to stir them up using emotional rhetoric and descriptions of cruelty. And he stirs them up so he can point to Christianity and Islam as morally repugnant institutions that nobody is brave enough to criticize. He characterizes the Islamic World as a uniformly dystopian society. He makes generalizations and ignores the messy details, while cultivating the rhetorical momentum and emotional outrage that allows him to do so without his audience noticing. I'm not suggesting that Sam Harris is a "demagogue", but I am suggesting that he defends his beliefs with much less rigor than some of the religious leaders he highlighted on his presentation slide. Menachem Mendel Schneerson was an immensely prolific and influential writer and thinker in the Jewish tradition, and Pope Benedict XVI spent 27 years in theology departments analyzing, reflecting, lecturing, and writing about Catholicism before he even entered the church. It's a fantastic demonstration of Harris' ignorance and willingness to unfairly generalize that he puts these men on the same level as Ayatollah Khomeini purely because they're religious figureheads. Ultimately, this argument is no moral revelation, and it's definitely not scientific. Harris seems to feel that his perceived commitment to Reason and Logic have made him immune from doing the real, difficult labor of ethical thinking. Instead, this lecture is a shoddy portrait of the world that paints another culture as a dystopian realm of unquestioning dogma, and weak-willed westerners are responsible for its prolongation because we're taking too many pains to be sensitive about their culture. It's a typical conservative argument against political correctness, inexplicably presented as a defense of science. This is self-righteousness and ignorance, not logic and reason.

[@jreber6312]

Griffin Neal Well said. That said, we have significantly more tools to pursue the scientific method today than ever. Some of these tools (i.e. FMRI, data mining, rapidly advancing AI, and many others) may present opportunities to advance moral thought using the scientific method. Philosophy is a very slow-moving discipline. It is a reasonable idea to use advanced technology and the scientific method to create a 3D map of peaks and valleys of known and unknown moral systems as it relates to well-being (and many other top-level criteria, though Sam may lack that insight). Philosophy has managed to come so far in a few thousand years, but adding new tools, the scientific method, multiple overall criteria/measures, and counterbalancing the results with rigorous philosophical thought and preexisting moral systems is a reasonable proposal.

[@SangMism]

I was trilled to hear that. He is very smart and brave to bring out very conservative topic. This ted talk should be watched.

[@anaesthesia1549]

No one with their right mind can support honor killing no matter what crooked logic the perpetrators put to justify this abhorrent crime. Sam has every right to be outraged. Similarly, no one with their right mind can support bombing of Baghdad with the strategy of Shock & Awe and it’s aftermath no matter what crooked logic the perpetrators put to justify this abhorrent crime. But Sam Harris supports invasion of Iraq. No one in their right mind can support aerial bombardment of Gaza city and its aftermath no matter what crooked logic the perpetrators put to justify this abhorrent crime. Again, Sam Harris supports Israel. In conclusion his outrage over abhorrent crimes is very selective therefore not genuine.

[@gussampson5029]

The talk about children being hit in schools is funny because I just watched a Jonathan Haidt video where he mentioned that having a punishment exist encourages both the good and the bad to engage in better behavior. So the good kids are more likely to be even better and the bad kids are less likely to be bad. The good kids buy into the system more when they believe that destructive behavior is punished. So they contribute more altruistically to the group. As unpleasant as it is, punishments are necessary. I personally wouldn't advocate hitting children, but they need a punishment that matters to everyone.

[@DeJake]

9:29 His chess point is BRILLIANT. I got shivers. That's beautiful

[@Timaeus3]

DeJake Actually, the chess comparison is a “false analogy” that Sam Harris might have realized if he had any knowledge of epistemology.

[@TheSrishanbhattarai]

@@Timaeus3 It would be great if you could explain why it's a false analogy for us mortals rather than just stating it as a fact

[@Raiko01]

Chess is a purely logical game; life isnt. It may be, when we get the brain entirely figured out, but we cant atm so it isnt.

[@garnauklaufen6704]

@@Timaeus3 It's not just a matter of epistemology, but also of ethics: What we should want is an ethical question, and once it is answered, we can look at ways how to accomplish that. Harris takes for granted, that we should determine our will according to some utilitarian principle, apparantly. But there are strong philosophical arguments against that. In chess, the goal is clear, and therefore sound sacrifices of queens are absolutely valid. In real ethics we debate, weather mating the other king is actually a kategorical imperative that needs to be pursued by any means necessary, or weather the preservation of the queen might be ethical by itself. Since the content or form of a good will itself is what we inquire about in ethics, Harris just skips the essential ethical question and presents it as though it was allready answered, simply ignoring ethical arguments from various philosophers. He should actually heed his own words and exclude his own oppinion on ethics, and rather refer to actual experts on the matter, like, well, David Hume or Immanuel Kant.

[@elljay3453]

The goal of chess isn't necessarily that clear. Some may prefer an interesting or romantic move over the dull move most likely to win. A player may, like other sports, throw a game if there is a bet on it; or to lower their rating in order to qualify in a lower division in a more important tournament. They may lose on purpose to make their opponent feel good. Etc.

[@kingcarisma]

"Who are we to say?"WE are to say..This is such a good speech, I almost wanna say holy God..

[@goyonman9655]

you really wanna do because you're involved in a religious experience

[@alexisjuillard4816]

as someone once pointed out to me , regardless of what you think of harris (i don't think anyone could argue he is a very special sapiens) Sam is the most "clear thinker" i've encoutered. agree with him or not, he has a unique talent in communication, in making his points in the simplest and most appropriate terms

[@acraze2287]

meditation being a big proponent in his life probably helps him a lot with that

[@mayya9004]

I never thought of Moral being something you can be an expert in. But it does make so much sense. We all have opinions of being right or wrong but some people's opinions seem to be very off and from some we can learn. We know what is needed for human flourishing. Just one thing: On women covering themselves. Clearly we don't want them to be forced and we want them to choose.. but is there free will? Can we choose?

[@YagamiKou]

if ur curious about the basics of freewill in philosophy I recommend the "crash course philosophy" videos on freewill short answer, fully free will, likely cannot exist but determined actions can still be considered "free" the most oblivious way to tell if a determined action is free imo "did u want to do it?" even if ur not free if u want to do it... it doesnt matter, u evolved in such a way that u "want" most of what u are "determined" to do and people can consider this a kind of "freedom" but true freedom probably a nope 🤔

[@nandokgg]

Brilliant Harris. Atheism enabling the turning of age to adulthood of humanity

[@thomasoxford2140]

And vegans growing roots, sprouting leaves and turning into vegetables.

[@thinkingmouse2751]

fernando martins questioning cave runes does not make you smart idiot.

[@Volmire1]

Wow, another atheist youtuber that thinks atheism is linked to the maturity of humanity. There's no evidence for that...

[@eosapienrancher4045]

Fernando's is a philosophical claim. What would "evidence" of that statement even look like? You'd have to define what a mature global society means in the first place. Granted, that's a rather vague idea, but to draw an analogy to individual maturity, can we all agree that the ability to reason with one another without resorting to violence is a hallmark of collective maturity, yes? If that's the case, atheism clearly facilitates that kind of maturity by discrediting, as a matter of principle, any claim that cannot be substantiated in terms of objective criteria. As long as faith and dogma remain central factors in people's moral intuition, we will continue speaking past one another on moral issues, because there will always be this component of morality that can only be understood subjectively and cannot be properly communicated to others. In that sense, atheism does good work in helping humanity progress towards some kind of moral consensus on issues of fundamental importance.

[@anthonypc1]

QuisUtTiamat Love your comment. I'm used to youtube comment sections being mostly 'a wretched hive of scum and villainy...' But I should read respectable comments on scientific videos more -- giving me Pride in the Atheist/secular humanist community. :)

[@IBADSNU]

Easily one of my favorite talks. This is the type of video that should go viral! Well done, sir.

[@mdmobashshir8003]

I am a Muslim, and I can tell you that veiling is compulsory and is completely involuntary. And it's possible that a woman may chose to not veil herself, but she'll be looked down upon all her life.

[@parametalhead]

@Mohamud Ahmed it isn’t, though.

[@mdmobashshir8003]

@Mohamud Ahmed I don't think you've been to a middle eastern Muslim nation where there is a real threat of death and destruction if u refuse to wear a hijab.

[@Devpy-be7uf]

Brilliant discourse. He is absolutely correct. We need more people like him. Respect from India 🇮🇳

[@OpinionsMatterNamesDont]

1:34 “Values are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures” - that’s exactly where he nailed the subject!

[@TinoMT]

except we do not all have the same value, we do not all get well being, from the same values.

[@deadeaded]

@@TinoMT Of course we don't all have the same values, but that's just because some of us are wrong. We have "alternative facts".

[@TinoMT]

@@deadeaded Wrong in what? How can you say someones value is wrong? Who are you to say that? And why does it even matter who you are, to say it?

[@deadeaded]

@@TinoMT The alternative is that all value systems are equally conducive to moral flourishing. If you reject moral relativism, which I do, it immediately follows that most of us, probably all of us, are wrong.

[@TinoMT]

@@deadeaded Yeah, IF you reject moral relativism.

[@SMCca]

Wow that countdown timer is super distracting..

[@mahones981]

He speaks of human wellbeing and human flourishing (however you define it) as a given that we should aspire to. But why? On what basis?

[@EzJaye]

The basis is common sense, which *is* sometimes all you need. Feel free to try and offer an alternative 'given' (common sense) goal to aspire to, then, with respect to the topic of *moral actions*. The equivalent common sense aspiration in the world of health is "not dying early and not getting sick too severely or too often". I doubt you'd be tempted to question that particular assumption, yet I'm pretty sure billions of people agree with it. Sam is claiming society would improve if we agreed on an equivalent 'ground level' assumption with respect to morality. I've learnt that when you reduce arguments down to their smallest components - sort of like the intellectual equivalent of an atom - you eventually have to arrive at an (indivisible) common sense statement, which can't really be proved, such as the one Sam offers regarding morality: "a universe containing the worst possible misery for everyone is bad." As Sam has said, if you have an argument against that, I think you're living in cuckoo coco-puffs land, and there's no point my continuing to engage you, because it's the "value statement" equivalent of claiming you only think the existence of gravity is 50-50 because there are decent arguments on both sides. At some stage, you have to see that something obvious *simply is the case*, otherwise you might as well muddle and bob through life at random like a wooden boat on a stormy sea untethered to any facts or reason because you question the validity of absolutely everything.

[@mahones981]

@@EzJaye Thanks for taking the time to respond. If you want to speak of 'ground level' and 'common sense,' we need to take a step back. Firstly, the secular world says this world is all there is. You are nothing but physical matter. Everything about you is only here because of purposeless processes involving time and chance. We therefore live in a universe that does not care for us and our survival and our flourishing is not necessary or more important or less important than the survival of the cockroach. We are no more or less important than the cockroach either and our existence is ultimately meaningless. In the secular world, everything has a scientific explanation and a natural cause. As such, as Francis Crick wrote, ' your joys, your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.' Therefore our thoughts and feelings on such things as love, morality, human flourishing, what constitutes common sense or whatever else, are simply chemical responses in the brain and nothing more. Now what gives those with 'common sense' chemical responses that seek human flourishing any real objective moral high ground against those whose chemical responses lead to different thoughts about what action to take? If one is true to a secular worldview, there is nothing objectively 'wrong' with what the Nazi's did as they were merely acting according to the chemical responses in their brains. In this secular framework, the idea of right and wrong in a moral sense is at best an opinion or preference, which itself is ultimately nothing more than the chemical responses in the brain. Similarly, these words of Richard Dawkins would be undisputable 'common sense' if one was being consistent within a secular world view: 'In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference' At 'ground level' for the secularist, there is no basis to assert that a 'common sense' approach that seeks human flourishing is necessary nor should be mandated as the 'right' way to go.

[@EzJaye]

​@@mahones981 I will grant your points about (1) everything boiling down to *just* molecules, we are just physical matter, even your sense of free will is just cells, etc. etc., which is all the same thing: we are little more than 'organised dust'!, (2) humans being unable to claim, with certainty, that we're more important than cockroaches and (3) in an ultimate sense, life being meaningless. But none of those ideas nullify the point that the experience of conscious creatures contains features we tend to universally seek and others we tend to universally avoid. Conscious creatures enjoy pleasure (well-being, thriving) and avoid pain (suffering), regardless of whether those experiences are *just* molecules zipping about randomly or something else. The Nazis indisputably caused a much, *much* greater magnitude of psychological and physical *pain* than they did *well-being*, so it is correct to claim that their actions were *objectively* morally wrong, if the words 'wrong' or 'morality' are to mean anything at all. I'm not certain, but I *think* the emphasis of your "everything is just a chemical response!" argument is an argument against free will. If so, we're in agreement on that point...I too think that free will probably doesn't exist. However..........and this is so important...........the question of whether the Nazis (or anyone, of course) had free will or not absolutely *does not* get them off the hook with respect to describing their actions as immoral. What they did was based on deeply immoral *intentions*, whether you think they had the free will to choose their intentions or not. You are allowed to think that their *intentions* (and ultimately actions) were ONLY the final consequences of a chain of very unfortunate background causes, including their life experiences and genetics. But either way, their actions were still very, *VERY* immoral!! Similarly, even if someone who grows up to help millions of people, plants loads of trees, feeds the homeless, etc., didn't *really* choose to do any of those things on any deep level, because it's only their genetics and life experiences and random atoms in their brain bouncing around doing the choosing for them, can their actions be described as *moral*? 100% yes, because they've massively increased the well-being of those around them, regardless of whether they were responsible for their actions on any 'deep' level.

[@mahones981]

@@EzJaye I find your position to be unsustainable and self contradictory. The secular world view fails to make sense of reality. You know that morality exists and that some things are right and some things are wrong. For example, you know that to rape a child and physically attack them is bad. If someone were to do that, their parents would demand 'justice' But in a secular world view, if being consistent within it, these concepts of morality, love, right and wrong and justice would just not exist and certainly have no real meaning. Why? Because these concepts are not real, but just chemical responses in the brain. To think that Hitler acted immorally and at the same time accept that this belief and his actions are nothing more than chemical responses in the brain, highlights the contradiction. Trying to hold both positions is untenable. In fact, if everything is reduced to chemical responses in the brain, so to this 'meaningful interaction' There is just no basis for morality in a secular worldview. To be consistent, you would have to accept the quote I gave from Richard Dawkins earlier. Even this 'tendency' to seek certain things and avoid other things, in a secular world view, again points to nothing more than the chemical responses in the brain...there is no room to go beyond that and speak of 'morality' because everything is reduced to these chemical responses and nothing more. To insist on the reality of love, justice, good morality etc, you need to look outside a secular worldview, there is no way to incorporate it into a secular world view.

[@psyekl]

I like the way Sam Harris makes people think.

[@Seven-zr5fi]

Is it just me or will Harris be quoted for centuries to come? =)

[@isodoublet]

+Seven It's just you and his other acolytes.

[@liamvanderspek572]

+avicenna Won't be TYT and Glenn Greenwald anyway...

[@wellbi]

+Seven Man, this is just the thing I was thinking while listening this. Sam Harris is so much ahead of time. If we as species will survive next few centuries, not Hitch, not Richard Dawkins ... Sam Harris will be in text books. Because if we want to survive, as species, from Darwinian viewpoint, we need to adapt the mentality that comes from Sam's (universal) worldview.

[@isodoublet]

wellb0t People don't generally end up in textbooks for being wrong unless they're wrong in spectacular ways. Not the case with our friend Harris.

[@jasonhaze5349]

+wellb0t I totally agree with you, and this is from a guy who really used to prefer Hitch to Harris. Harris's work and ideas carry so much depth with them, and are by design intended to be much more universally relevant. Instead of getting bogged down in specific events and policies, focuses on how people think and why things are how they are. And that helps him come up with ideas and systems that are more rugged and universal and would have worked as well in the past as they would in the future.

[@CARUSAR21]

Man 6 years old... EVERYBODY who thinks burkas are ok, being gay is wrong, or religion makes you moral should watch this.

[@cheendu]

Anyone who thinks that is too closed off. This vid will hardly have an impact on those people.

[@globalincident694]

Religion can make you moral (although it doesn't make you right). It makes you think about other human beings and makes you behave in a particular way. Atheism doesn't make you moral at all, it lets you do what feels right to you.

[@CARUSAR21]

Dominic Littlewood haha you clearly have no idea what Atheism means...

[@globalincident694]

disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

[@globalincident694]

what's the problem?

[@blacky93able]

I sincerely love and respect many religious people, and I believe that their faith inspires them to act with kindness and if it just stayed that way there would be no problem. The real problem lies in the idea of ​​the "afterlife" and as the Bible and the Koran express it, it seems to me a form of "spiritual blackmail"; "God" is shown as a "lender" who, in exchange for offering you salvation and avoiding condemnation, asks you double in prayers, sacrifices, servitude and even kill "infidels", until your death, without questioning anything, without protesting, without rebelling, NOTHING! !! I believe that reason and self-esteem should be our moral compass to guide us in creating a freer, fairer and more democratic society, instead of dogma, myth, tradition and superstition. Thanks Sam, you are a great scientist and lecturer, just like Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Stephen Hawking, Temple Grandin, Robert Lanza and Rita Levi-Montalcini. PS: Your Atheist Manifesto greatly inspired me.

[@EmeraldPixelGamingEPG]

Have you ever lied?

[@MosesRabuka]

“Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both.” ~ Fritjof Capra

[@ergocaustic3473]

What mysticism man needs?

[@obbavyakti5805]

@@ergocaustic3473 A lot of high-quality, friend :)

[@jeanne553]

Man only thinks he needs mysticism.

[@armchair8258]

"...what no one needs in my opinion is such a useless and superficial book" 😂 Do u get the reference?