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6452753 No.6452753[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

>The connection between facts and values is straightforward and philosophically uninteresting... values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures; the well-being of conscious creatures is what can be valued in this universe... Now, here’s the one bit of philosophy I’m going to anchor this too: imagine a universe in which every conscious creature suffers as much as it can for as long as it can – I call this the worst possible misery for everyone. The worst possible misery for everyone is bad. If the word bad is to mean anything, surely it applies to the worst possible misery for everyone... the moment you grant me that the worst possible misery for everyone is bad and therefore worth avoiding... well then you have every other possible constellation of conscious experience which, by definition, is better. So you have this continuum here of states of consciousness and given that consciousness is related to the way the universe is, it’s constrained by the laws of nature in some way, there are going to be right and wrong ways to move along this continuum... now this is, in philosophy, a somewhat controversial statement. I do not see how.

>> No.6452754

Sick greentext bro

>> No.6452764
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6452764

That might be an opinion worth thinking about, if not for the fact that "misery" means different things to different people. For Diogenes, misery arose out of social niceties, for every else, misery arose out of Diogenes taking a steaming dump in the theatre.

>> No.6452765

> "values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures"

Well-being implies a value judgment. So values are based on facts which are based on values?

>> No.6452768

Why exactly is this wrong?

>> No.6452774

>>6452765
it just werks

>> No.6452775

Sam Harris is a fucking angel, just watch the guy talk, he is 100% sincere about what he does and he really is just interested in kindness.
I don't know why reactionary anti-antitheists get so fucking butthurt about him, his best friend is a Muslim, he might be an enemy of religion but he isn't a total dick like Christopher Hitchens.

Sam Harris is amazing.

>> No.6452788

>>6452774

Oh that's reassuring.

>> No.6452792

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifpIw3EK7-A

>> No.6452816

> Opponents of torture will be quick to argue that confessions
elicited by torture are notoriously unreliable. Given the foregoing,
however, this objection seems to lack its usual force. Make these confessions
as unreliable as you like—the chance that our interests will
be advanced in any instance of torture need only equal the chance of
such occasioned by the dropping of a single bomb.

Sam Harris: Let's torture people, even if it probably doesn't work.

>> No.6452828

>>6452753
Epicureans use that argument since forever.

Would you go to this "universe of pain" if you could save from death your children? Your spouse? Your dad and mom? Your community? Your country? Your world?

If you accept any of these trades and find it correct then Harris' scenario isn't the worst thing ever. So it can't be used to measure anything.

Well-being isn't quantifiable. And, as the ancients always knew, human beings are unsatiable creatures.

>> No.6452848

>>6452828

Nobody lives for ever.

>> No.6452894

>>6452753
>values reduce to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures
As simple as that. Checkmate philosophy!

>I do not see how
Because you're an ignorant fuck who has never read a single book on ethics in your life. He's so stupid it hurts. All he's essentially saying here is "wouldn't it great if everyone was happy?".

>> No.6452905
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6452905

>>6452753

>> No.6452910
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6452910

>>6452905

>> No.6452912

>You would surely agree, being fair and virile, that no misery is good, and the good is just

holy shit, we have our new socrates

>> No.6452918
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6452918

>>6452910

>> No.6452927

>>6452918

oh god I've never seen this last one. That's fantastic.

>> No.6452991

>>6452774
Sam Harris' defence of his arguments in a nutshell

>> No.6453007

>>6452894
Can you believe that he has a BA in philosophy from Stanford?

>> No.6453019

Oh god which one of you put that Ben Stiller comment in his wikipedia article?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Harris_%28author%29#Early_life.2C_education.2C_and_family

>> No.6453060

But Sam Harris thinks metaethics is boring you guys

>> No.6453295

>>6452764
>>6452910
>>6452905
>>6452918
These are actually more embarrassingly stupid than Sam Harris

>> No.6453356

>>6453295
Sam pls go

>> No.6453374

>>6453007
A BA means nothing really

>> No.6453383

>>6452774

I think he's referencing biological well-being. Science is his epistemic reference point.

>> No.6453389

Allah is the same God of the Thora and the same God of the Injil(new testament) .. ever heard of Occam's razor ?!
Plus you have a mind that God gave with which you can think and ask questions until you find the true answer .. Why don't you believe your crazy neighbor is God ?! That's a question you should ask yourself not me .. I came to a conclusion ..

"has been discussed THOUSANDS of years before you." how come we are still discussing it now ?! If it's being discussed you cannot deny it's possibility ..

"Evolution and the big bang isn't 'an accident', but it was an arbitrary happening that shaped everything. " With an "arbitrary happening " you don't seem to mean a random happening or an accident ?! lol .. using other words does not change the meaning bro ..

>> No.6453418

Isn't the case that the statement :

> Values reduce to fact about the well-being of conscious creature

isn't itself a scientific statement?

Furthermore, the statement "the worst possible miserey for everyone is bad" is not also, itself, a scientific statement.

Since this first value caracterization is the whole basis of Harris system of morality, it follows that the system itself isn't determined by science.

Now, that I agree that the worst possible suffering for everybody is bad does not make the statement scientific.

And so it seems to me as tough there is a big giant conflation at the basis of everything, that Harris system's rely on the equivocity of the expression "determined by science" (see the subtitle of his book The moral landscape).

>> No.6453440

>>6452753
>well-being

Okay champ

>worst possible misery is bad

Why?

>> No.6453444

Has Harris even read Nietzsche? You know, the guy who concludes that because God doesn't exist, we NEED a difficult, strenuous life to become the best possible living things we can be?

>> No.6453447

>>6453444
Well-being is vague enough a term that it could probably cover a lot of what freddy was going on about

>> No.6453449

>>6453007
>a BA

Who cares?

>> No.6453470

I don't even like the guy, but all of Harris's most vehement detractors on /lit/ stink thickly of insanely jealous unemployed philosophy majors.

The same type of goons who shit up every Alain de Botton thread--probably even the exact same goons. It's really hideous. You'd think a "philosopher" would realize saying nothing is the best way to do away with Harris.

>> No.6453500

>>6453470
Harris pls