The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values

I first encountered Sam Harris in a review of The End of Faith in The New York Times a little over six years ago in September of 2004. My journey to rationalism covered many years, much reading, over a difficult path. Sam Harris became the first of the “new atheists” who explicated my mental turmoil in a logical and common sense manner. A little over two years later, he followed this work with Letter to a Christian Nation. In this book, he answered many of the criticisms leveled at End of Faith. Many of his critics had not even the slightest taint of rationalism. Since then, I have followed Harris through his blog, www.SamHarris.org, which provides e-mail updates of publications and appearances. I knew Harris spent much of his time show more working on a dissertation in neuroscience from UCLA. This book is an off shoot of that dissertation.

Harris’ thesis runs like this: “…the split between facts and values – and, therefore, between science and morality – is an illusion” (179). He posits that human morality arose because it provided a value to early hominids. “…values actually are – the set of attitudes, choices, and behaviors that potentially affect our well-being, as well as that of other conscious minds” (22). The contradictions among religions arose because of narrow interests of small tribes in conflict with neighboring groups. Thus, the commandments proscribe murder and theft, yet the God of Moses directed the Israelites to kill every man, woman, and child in the way of this particular group’s takeover of large areas of the Middle East. Belief enables individuals to bridge the gap between facts and values.

Harris states, “Science can, in principle, help us understand what we should do and should want – and therefore, what other people should do and should want in order to live the best lives possible” (28). Imagine what the world would be like if everyone lived by the “Golden Rule.”

The idea of a “moral Landscape guarantees that many people will have flawed conceptions of morality, just as many people have flawed conceptions of physics” (53). Recent polls have shown that an astounding number of people in the US believe the universe is only about 7,000 years old, and therefore expect, that if evolution were true, we should be able to see monkeys evolving into humans before our eyes. Harris adds, “the fact that millions of people use the term “morality” as a synonym for religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, or other failures of insight and compassion should not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time” (53).

The chapters entitled “Belief” and “Religion” offer particularly complicated lines of reasoning, but the conclusion remains the same: “For nearly a century, the moral relativism of science has given faith-based religion -- that great engine of ignorance and bigotry – a nearly uncontested claim to being the only universal framework for moral wisdom. As a result, the most powerful societies on earth spend their time debating issues like gay marriage when they should be focused on problems like nuclear proliferation, genocide, energy security, climate change, poverty, and failing schools” (191).

At times, The Moral Landscape is not an easy read. I found myself going back over some key passages in order to fully digest Harris’ lines of reasoning. However, the challenge is extremely worthwhile in the long run. The author devoted nearly 100 pages – one-third of the book – to detailed footnotes, references, and an index. This work represents scholarship of the first order. This book belongs on the shelf of every person concerned with rationalism and the moral and ethical problems of the dangerous world in which we live. (5 stars)

--Jim, 10/16/10 show less

My brain is creaking under the weight of relevant fact assimilated from The Moral Landscape. This book is a re read, a thing I'm not reticent of admitting. I had forgotten nearly everything of this book. Except if you count for the fact that I emerged wiser from reading it. This statement is supported by the "experiencing self" and "remembering self" duality that is one of the many things explained in The Moral Landscape.

Wisdom, indeed, opens up pathways in the brain for ever, even if one does not remember the cleverness and salient logic. I think that Sam Harris exposes his work to attack by denying that he doesn't draw on extreme examples of fundamentalist Christian cruelties. He clearly did. But his major focus were on barriers show more between Religion and Science. His pieces on Collins, Polkingthorne, C.S Lewis et al are a pleasure to read. The statistics are still impressive as this book is not yet dated. This book earns its positive reviews and it should have been more universally known. To read it is its own reward. show less

Reading Sam Harris is an intellectual treat, a feast for the brain cells, an oasis amidst today's current 'sea of twaddle'. His arguments sizzle and his support for them is full, complete and unemotional. He is the absolute best author to return to after reading a bunch of escapist things, even good escapism so that the intellect can be re-calibrated, often with the bar raised from its previous place.
This book argues for a science-based approach to determining morality. It is an interesting argument, clearly well thought out, strong and enticing, but I still have reservations.
While, as Harris argues, a science of morality may be possible, human beings do things that are totally irrational, often very impulsive and frequently even in show more violation of their own best interests. Harris realizes this, but I believe that there are practical models for morality that can be more fully and regularly applied by people in their normal decision making.
Using Harris' technique, consider this: Captain Kirk (Star Trek) makes a decision. Mr. Spock gives him one of the "Spook is puzzled looks" and says, "Is that logical, Captain?" A science of morality is Dr. Spock, Captain Kirk is the rest of us.
Still, I like the thinking and arguments. It was a pleasure to get back to reading Harris after such a long time since my last visit to his work.
Still, however, for a clear presentation on human morality, I recommend the incomparable six stages of morality developed by Lawrence Kohlberg as well as the clear reasoning and concrete examples of Jacob Bronowski. Kohlberg's book is difficult to obtain and expensive, but a search of him and a glance at the Wikipedia article will give people the idea of the power of his work. Bronowski's book, The Ascent of Man" became a PBS series a few years ago. show less

Reading Sam Harris is an intellectual treat, a feast for the brain cells, an oasis amidst today's current 'sea of twaddle'. His arguments sizzle and his support for them is full, complete and unemotional. He is the absolute best author to return to after reading a bunch of escapist things, even good escapism so that the intellect can be re-calibrated, often with the bar raised from its previous place.
This book argues for a science-based approach to determining morality. It is an interesting argument, clearly well thought out, strong and enticing, but I still have reservations.
While, as Harris argues, a science of morality may be possible, human beings do things that are totally irrational, often very impulsive and frequently even in show more violation of their own best interests. Harris realizes this, but I believe that there are practical models for morality that can be more fully and regularly applied by people in their normal decision making.
Using Harris' technique, consider this: Captain Kirk (Star Trek) makes a decision. Mr. Spock gives him one of the "Spook is puzzled looks" and says, "Is that logical, Captain?" A science of morality is Dr. Spock, Captain Kirk is the rest of us.
Still, I like the thinking and arguments. It was a pleasure to get back to reading Harris after such a long time since my last visit to his work.
Still, however, for a clear presentation on human morality, I recommend the incomparable six stages of morality developed by Lawrence Kohlberg as well as the clear reasoning and concrete examples of Jacob Bronowski. Kohlberg's book is difficult to obtain and expensive, but a search of him and a glance at the Wikipedia article will give people the idea of the power of his work. Bronowski's book, The Ascent of Man" became a PBS series a few years ago. show less

Reading Sam Harris is an intellectual treat, a feast for the brain cells, an oasis amidst today's current 'sea of twaddle'. His arguments sizzle and his support for them is full, complete and unemotional. He is the absolute best author to return to after reading a bunch of escapist things, even good escapism so that the intellect can be re-calibrated, often with the bar raised from its previous place.
This book argues for a science-based approach to determining morality. It is an interesting argument, clearly well thought out, strong and enticing, but I still have reservations.
While, as Harris argues, a science of morality may be possible, human beings do things that are totally irrational, often very impulsive and frequently even in show more violation of their own best interests. Harris realizes this, but I believe that there are practical models for morality that can be more fully and regularly applied by people in their normal decision making.
Using Harris' technique, consider this: Captain Kirk (Star Trek) makes a decision. Mr. Spock gives him one of the "Spook is puzzled looks" and says, "Is that logical, Captain?" A science of morality is Dr. Spock, Captain Kirk is the rest of us.
Still, I like the thinking and arguments. It was a pleasure to get back to reading Harris after such a long time since my last visit to his work.
Still, however, for a clear presentation on human morality, I recommend the incomparable six stages of morality developed by Lawrence Kohlberg as well as the clear reasoning and concrete examples of Jacob Bronowski. Kohlberg's book is difficult to obtain and expensive, but a search of him and a glance at the Wikipedia article will give people the idea of the power of his work. Bronowski's book, The Ascent of Man" became a PBS series a few years ago. show less

I'm struggling to overcome the overt racism of an author who seemingly gets his information on Islam from Fox news. The book reads like an attempt to vilify Muslims and polarize religions. While Christianity doesn't get out scot-free, it escapes the false claims and sweeping generalizations made about their Abrahamic brethren, Muslims. The author seems to have little worldly experience and little capability to consider ideas from any perspective other than his own. Given this, it's an effort to put stock into his arguments and hear out his ideas.

I had seen Harris speak on this book before I read it, and honestly, I was disappointed that the book had almost less content in it than his lecture. Harris succeeds at providing a framework by which to navigate the idea that religious people don't have a monopoly on morality and that you can logically set up an objective morality without religion. However, he does not suggest how we might actually implement this morality, i.e. how would we convince people that this is a compelling and reasonable argument. Furthermore, his footnotes' defense of James Watson's racist remarks make it seem like he does not understand the history of racial issues in the Western world. Nothing happens in a vacuum, and although I understand that cultural show more relativism is a problem, ignoring the history of racism in the Western world is not exactly a solution. Overall, I would say that the book is worth reading, but that it is sorely lacking in terms of suggesting actual action and implementation. show less