I think it may occasionally be a tad too strict, even though, to my knowledge, I haven't myself been moderated before. Maybe there ought to be a thread where "deleted" posts are relegated, unless they are grossly and intentionally offensive (or constitute spam)?

Perhaps I misunderstood Aristotle. — TheMadFool

Aristotle if frequently misunderstood. That's because he talks with a rather thick Greek accent.

What I'm particularly hoping and looking for are the premises, the obvious truths that are necessary for Aristotle's idea on morality to make sense. He said it's enough to be rational to be good. Doesn't that imply that there are objective facts about the world that will, on applying reason, lead everyone to goodness?

I think this way of framing the question would be unintelligible to Aristotle. It might be correct to say that Aristotle's conception of ethics is realist (it's not up to us, or up to our conventions, whether some action is good or bad) and cognitivist (it is either true or false that we ought to do this or that). But modern ethical theories often are foundationalist in the sense that they purport to deduce truths about value jugements, or about the moral goodness of actions, from general principles. This wouldn't make sense for Aristotle.

David Wiggins has explained Aristotle's conception of practical deliberation (in view of determining what one ought to do; or what it is good to do) through contrasting it with the "blueprint model" of ethical knowledge. According to the blueprint conception, when you know what to do in a particular situation it is because you have a general idea of what it is that ought to be done in situations of that kind. This general knowledge is derived from the ethical theory conceived as a blueprint (it can be derived in a complicated manner from several ethical axioms). And from this general knowledge, and your specific knowledge of the situation, you can derive logically (deductively) what it is that you ought to do.

But Aristotle's explanation of practical deliberation doesn't work like that at all. Aristotle's practical "syllogism" is merely analogous to a theoretical syllogism since it has a major premise (stating a general truth regarding an end pursued in action) and a minor premise (identifying a particular means and opportunity to achieving that end). The conclusion of the practical syllogism, though, isn't a proposition. It is an action (or an intention for the future), and it isn't arrived at deductively. In fact, it can't logically be arrived at deductively since actions don't have a propositional form. Rather, in order to be valid, the practical syllogism must reflect the wisdom of the agent in selecting both premises in accordance with the morally salient features of the situation (the end that ought to be pursued) and the reasonableness of the action (as a means to achieving that end). That is, among many potentially conflicting ends, the practically wise agent must judge which one of those ends has precedence over the other ones in light of, in part, the means available. And there is no general blueprint for doing that.

A solution that I thought of many years ago goes like this: amend the U.S. Constitution to say that every congressional district must be drawn with at least one right angle. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It would be more fair if each district were drawn with at least one right and one left angle.

What is the phrase "the unity of virtue" supposed to mean? — Cabbage Farmer

The idea simply is that you can't have a virtue if you don't have them all. This thesis is not as extravagant as it may seem. The reason why the thesis makes sense is because you can always imagine practical situations where the demands from two different virtues (courage and modesty, say) appear to conflict. But each virtue, considered in isolation, consists in one's having a motivation to act that is in proportion with the rational demands of the situation. Hence, to exhibit courage is to face danger when the situation demands it and neither to fear too much (cowardice) or not enough (rashness). But in some situations, what it is that determines "too much" fear or "not enough" fear, in a fearful situation, and hence what it is that determines if an act is cowardly or rash, may be the demands from the virtue of modesty (not being either too shy nor shameless). Hence if the agent lacks in her virtue of modesty, she will also be led, in some circumstances, to display cowardice or rashness.

Reason -- logos -- thus mediates between the various virtues of character and unifies them in practical deliberation. Too much of one virtue can never lead to an act that is vicious in another respect. Hence, there is no such thing as too much of a virtue. (By analogy, you can't have a heart that is too healthy. If the functioning of your heart damages the health of your kidneys, say, then it's not a healthy heart. But in this case the unity of organic health rests on the teleological organization of the body rather than the form of practical rationality.)

What does it mean to say "practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand"? I take it one who is virtuous has practical wisdom, but some agents with practical wisdom are not virtuous. Is every agent of the latter sort an akratic, and is every akratic an agent of that sort? — Cabbage Farmer

Akrasia is a very difficult concept and my thoughts about it are far from definitive. In fact, two of my favorite philosophers -- John McDowell and David Wiggins -- who are fine interpreters of Aristotle, have had a dispute about its meaning and I have not yet managed to grasp the full significance of this dispute. But in any case, I think it can be argued that someone who lacks in virtue necessarily lacks in practical wisdom. The reason why it might seem that this is not the case is because, as you notice, the akratic agent seems to know what it is that she ought to do, and yet she lacks the motivation to do it. This indeed demonstrates a flaw in her character, and hence a lack of virtue. But the fact that her practical judgment (which is a singular act of her capacity of practical wisdom) is correct in this singular instance doesn't entail that her capacity of practical wisdom is intact. It only illustrates that her flawed capacity sometimes yields a correct judgment that matches what an agent who has both virtue and practical wisdom would judge and do in the same circumstances. It is easy to imagine different circumstances, though, where the flaw in her character will lead her not to be behaving akratically but rather lead to her practical judgment being clouded and hence to her rationalizing away her own bad or irrational action.

Yes, but rationality alone doesn't cut it. I mean it's not enough to be just rational. I can go even further and say that, sometimes, rationality impedes the good. — TheMadFool

That's true of "rationality" as it is commonly understood in modern times (maybe since the 17th century). But it's not true of rationality as Aristotle understands it. In modern times rationality tends to be understood in a restricted sense that only covers "logical thinking" (so called) and instrumental practical deliberation (how to determine means to our ends). It accords with Hume's dictum that "reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions", which makes it difficult to conceive that the passions, virtues and emotions can be regulated by reason or form constitutive parts of our rational faculty. It also makes it difficult to conceive of reason's internal-conceptual connection to morality.

Then they are surely the same thing! Or at least they/it has a name? — Jake Tarragon

They are co-extensive but they are not the same thing. They are co-extensive because they are inter-dependent. Someone who has picked up bad habits, or has defects of character (which is basically the same thing, for Aristotle) will have her process of practical deliberation biased or impeded by her vicious motivations. She will thereby not have the ability to recognize what it is that she must do in some range of specific situations. Conversely, if that person lacks an ability to reflect wisely about the requirement of her practical situation (because she hasn't thought things through or lacks a decent moral education) she will pick up bad habits and develop features of a vicious character since she won't be able to distinguish what it is desirable to do (what is rationally/morally good to do) from what she merely believes that it is desirable to do in specific situations. Thus, Aristotle defines desire as the (mere) appearance of the good.

To become virtuous is to develop motivational tendencies that don't stand in the way, and that indeed are partly constitutive, of an ability both to perceive clearly what it is that (rationally and morally) ought to be done and to do it.

What is practical isn't good e.g. it's practical to kill all old people since they're, well, useless (this isn't my view). — TheMadFool

You are confusing "practical" with "utilitarian" or "instrumental". Practical reason, as opposed to theoretical reason, is the part of reason that is concerned with determining what one ought to do rather than what one ought to believe.

Reason has two domains of application in Aristotle: theoretical and practical. Practical reason is in good order when a rational being has acquired practical wisdom (phronesis) and virtue. (practical knowledge is an excellence of the ability to know what to do in particular situation, while virtue is an excellence of character). Practical wisdom and virtue go hand in hand; this is a consequence of the unity of virtue and of the analysis of the process of practical deliberation. Hence, excellence in rationality -- practical and theoretical -- has virtue of character and practical wisdom as requirements. Nazis don't have either of those, arguably.

So, either way we're screwed. — Bitter Crank

We probably are screwed to some extent but that is no argument for inaction. It might be extremely difficult, at this stage, to limit global warming below 2°C (above preindustrial value) by 2100. But we still have a choice between aiming at stabilisation not too much above this value after 2100, on the one hand, or exceeding 3°C or 4°C by 2100, with temperatures still increasing rapidly, on the other hand. Either way, the Greenland ice sheet will probably melt over the next few centuries, but the fate of the much larger Antarctic ice sheet is up to us. And so is the amount of ocean acidification, which is also a significant threat to fisheries.

Your "either way we're screwed" philosophy assumes that we must chose between the yellow and red lines. But our choice really is between the blue and green lines, since this is what is consistent with foreseeable scientific progress in renewable energy production and reasonable political will.

Here's where I am a bit more skeptical, not because I wish to deny the claim, but because I don't know enough about it to have formed a definite position. Climate science, like most other forms of science, is in fact rather complex. I certainly think humans have had an impact on the climate (how could they not?), but as for whether our burning of fossil fuels is "largely" responsible for global and regional climate change, I don't know. Most scientists say that this is the primary cause. But some of these scientists' research is paid for by ideologically driven interest groups, which is somewhat suspicious (though does not in itself invalidate said research). — Thorongil

Not only do most scientists who have a relevant expertise in climate science, or atmospheric physics, believe that the enhanced greenhouse effect if largely responsible for recent global warming, the consensus is that this human contribution is somewhere around 110% of the observed temperature increase (from the latest IPCC assessment). It is thus more likely than not that the natural contribution was a mitigating, albeit short term, cooling effect. This is mainly due to the solar irradiance having dropped slightly since 1960.

Over the long term, the current natural tendency also is a cooling effect due to the Milankovitch cycles. Those cycles have been responsible for the recent glacial/interglacial transitions and for the slow cooling that occurred since the Holocene Climatic Optimum 6,000 years ago. Over the last 150 years there occurred a sudden reversal of this long term cooling trend and an accelerated pace of warming that tracks total atmospheric CO2 concentration (which is now higher that it has been in the last several million years and still increasing rapidly). The way global temperature is thus tracking CO2 concentration is in very good agreement with climate models.

Scientists are also discouraged from research that might be critical of the consensus view, a profoundly anti-scientific practice, given that all major scientific breakthroughs and revolutions in the past have occurred due to some individual or individuals challenging the consensus view. That, too, is somewhat distressing.

Not all scientific progress is progress of the revolutionary sort. There is also progress of the "puzzle solving" sort that happens during what Kuhn called episodes of normal science. Contemporary climate science is indeed "normal science". Scientists tend to be critical of individuals who seek to overthrow the consensus wholesale and promote a scientific revolution. This is not distressing. Before a scientific revolution has occurred, the proponents of the revolution often are seen by the mainstream scientists as fools or crackpots, and indeed this negative judgement is correct most of the time.

There is a very small minority of scientists who have a relevant expertise in climate science, who aren't crackpots, and who purport to be highly critical of the consensus. I am thinking of Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, John Christy, Judith Curry, S. Fred Singer, and a handful others. It is hard to see them as promoting a new revolutionary paradigm, though, since their arguments are very weak and all over the place. They all agree much more with the basic science endorsed by mainstream climate science than they do with each other; and their advocacy efforts mainly center on attempts to sow doubts throug highlighting cherry picked results. They do agree with each other on the ideology, though, since they all seem to be ultra-libertarians who believe government regulations and taxes to constitute the highest form of evil the world has ever seen.

But norms are just another factor that causally influences us. They are simply values or habits that influence our mental and physical actions. — litewave

This is incorrect because the manner in which norms of sound reasoning (either practical reasoning or theoretical reasoning) govern our behaviors and our thinking when we understand them is categorically different from the manner in which physical events cause physical effets in accordance with laws of nature.

One intuitive way to highlight this categorical difference between laws and norms is by appeal to the idea of direction-of-fit that has been popularized by John L. Austin and his student John Searle, but that apparently traces back to Aquinas. The main idea is very simple. The Earth is caused to orbit the Sun along its actual trajectory in accordance with Newton's laws of motion and of universal gravitation. If, however, there is a deviation between the "laws" and the actual trajectory, then there is something wrong with our understanding of the laws. Our knowledge of them must be revised (although, oftentimes, a merely apparent violation of the laws can be accounted for by some external influence). In any case, the Earth is not breaking any actual law of nature. On the other hand, if a computer, a cat, or a human being behaves in a way that fails to accord with a norm of design, a biological norm, or a norm of reasoning, respectively, then that doesn't show that there anything wrong with our understanding of the norms. That may rather show that the computer is buggy, the mouse is sick, or the human being is irrational.

This is in part why our sensitivity to norms of sound practical reasoning don't account for our behaviors being in accord with them (or failing to be in accord with them) in the same way laws of nature account for material effects following material causes in accordance with them.

So what? Even when we don't know physical laws or the past state of the universe they still influence us and everything we do we do within their context. — litewave

I am not arguing that the laws of nature, and whatever may be happening in my brain, or my past education, experience, etc., don't "influence" what I do (whatever those "influences" on my thinking may amount to, exactly). What I am saying is that *all* of those influences and "causal factors" are utterly irrelevant to the question of the validity and soundness of the mathematical demonstration that you are purporting to evaluate. Your only guidance for doing this is your knowledge of sound principles of mathematical reasoning. If someone is going to challenge your understanding of those principles, or the manner you are bringing them to bear to a specific problem, then it is only incumbent on that person to make a rational argument. The laws of physics and the past "causes" of your mental states, whatever they may be, are irrelevant. Only the rational 'form' of your thinking is relevant.

Again, some of those causal antecedents may be necessary in accounting for your having developed the necessary cognitive skills. But when you have developed them to a point sufficient for your becoming intellectually autonomous -- for your having acquired an ability to think rationally -- then, from that point on, what it is that is relevant to governing your thinking are the rational principles that you have come to understand. And those principles are not hostage to any sort of future discovery about the deep workings of the physical universe or the specific inter-connectivity of your brain cells.

It would be an intention that stimulates an intention. For example, you have the intention to eat eggs. This intention, along with other factors, may stimulate your intention to go to the corner store to buy some eggs. — litewave

When you do X in order to do Y then your doing X can be construed as a manifestation of your intention to to Y. If you are breaking eggs in order to make an omelet, then your breaking eggs isn't merely "caused" by your intention to make a omelet. It is rather part your action of making an omelet. This is why Elizabeth Anscombe explained intentional actions (in progress) as exercises of practical instrumental rationality. Actions and their "parts" are internally structured by means-end relationships. Furthermore, the instrumental rational abilities that are being exercised while acting are constitutive of those abilities to act intentionally at all. If you don't know that (and how) you must break eggs in order to make an omelet then you don't know how to make an omelet either.

So, the sense in which the intention to Y "causes" the intention to X, in the case where you are intending to do X in order to do Y doesn't refer to the same sort of causal relation that holds between throwing a rock at a window and the window breaking. It is a manifestation of instrumental rationality, and this rational ability is internal to the agent's own ability to Y. So, saying that intending to Y causes your intending to X is rather like saying that your believing that 102 is an even number causes your belief that 102 isn't a prime number. This is misleading, at best. It is better to say that your knowledge that even numbers above 2 aren't prime is constitutive of your ability to judge that 102 (or any other even numbers above 2) isn't prime. In any case, it should not be construed on the model of causation between events in accordance with natural laws.

The Wikipedia article gave the essense of compatibilist free will: it is the freedom to act according to one's motives without obstruction. You can analyze and differentiate what the "motives" or "obstruction" are but compatibilist free will remains compatible with the fact that everything we do is ultimately determined by factors over which we have no control, while libertarian free will is not. — litewave

This is only a negative characterization of "compatibilist free will". Of course, saying that one is a compatibilist just is to say that one holds that the capacity of free will isn't inconsistent with universal determinism. When you want to go further than that and specifies what it is about free will that characterizes it a such (i.e. as being "free" in the relevant sense) and that is being alleged to be compatible with determinism, then the overwhelming majority of philosophers stress the essential connection of freedom with responsibility. This is also the ground for denying the ascription of free will to non-rational animals; and the reason why absence of compulsion doesn't cut it as a criterion.

The SEP article that I quoted makes this clear. Interestingly enough, while I don't know any contemporary compatibilist philosopher (as apparently you don't either) who doesn't stress this essential connection between freedom, in the relevant sense, and personal responsibility, there are a few libertarian philosophers who seem not to bother too much with it. This is why libertarian accounts sometimes run into the 'luck objection' or the 'problem of intelligibility'. But if your own account of "compatibilist free will" happily dispenses with the necessary connection with responsibility, then that would seem to make it indistinguishable from some crude libertarian accounts. If our deep motives can be necessary outcomes of the impersonal laws of nature then they may just as well be the contingent outcomes of random quantum fluctuations. It wouldn't seem to make any difference as far as our freedom and responsibility are concerned.

Evolution promotes values that are beneficial to survival, health and reproduction. Not all of those values can be regarded as moral. Morality is based primarily on one of the values that evolution promotes: compassion. It is an important value that facilitates emotional and cooperative bonds between people and seems to be part of the integrative processes in our minds. — litewave

You can't cast the content of moral thought solely in evolutionary terms. If you are going to grant that evolutionary pressures account for both moral and immoral tendencies, then you have thereby failed to account for our ability to distinguish between those two sorts of tendencies. And yet, we are able to do so.

While it may be the case that some of our naturally evolved cognitive abilities and emotional tendencies (e.g. a capacity for empathy) are required for sustaining our ability to make moral judgments, those evolved tendencies aren't guaranteed to yield sound moral judgments, or even to have sound moral judgment as their aims, and they indeed often don't. The only ultimate aim that they have is reproductive fitness, and this is something distinct from the aim of morality.

We act based on the limited information we have. That doesn't mean that our thought processes are non-causal. — litewave

I am not arguing that our thought process is non-causal, or causal. I am not talking about any sort of process. The working of our brains is causal and "mechanical", in some way. But our judgments are constrained by norms. To know how our "thoughts" are caused doesn't tell us whether those thoughts constitute sound judgments anymore than knowing the physical principles that govern the behavior of a computer tells us whether or not the program that it runs is buggy. Appeals to rational or functional norms are irreducible to causal explanations. And that's because things that flout norms (buggy computers or irrational agents) still obey the laws of nature perfectly (or rather, their material constituents do). Judgments can be right or wrong, but laws of nature just are what they are. This is why you can't learn right from wrong through studying the laws of nature or the manner in which material things are governed by them.

We act based on the limited information we have. That doesn't mean that our thought processes are non-causal. — litewave

What I am arguing is that the limited information that we have regarding our present practical situations often (or at least sometimes) is sufficient for us to make sound rational of moral judgments. And in those cases where such knowledge is sufficient, any sort of information about the fundamental laws of physics (if there are any), or the distant historical past, generally is irrelevant to the correctness of our judgements. They may be relevant to the explanation how it came about that we acquired our abilities to think rationally, and to be swayed by moral considerations, but they don't have any relevance to our evaluation of the validity and soundness of our judgments.

I have no idea what you meant here. Computers - causal machines - can perform logical and mathematical operations, so why would humans need something non-causal to perform such operations? — litewave

I wasn't here arguing that human beings "need" something non-causal. I just pointed out what ought to be uncontroversial, but that you seemingly are overlooking: And this is the fact that knowledge of actual physical laws, or of past historical facts, isn't required for one to assess the soundness of a mathematical demonstration. Do you disagree with my example? Do you hold that our judgments regarding the soundness of a putative proof of Goldbach's conjecture ought to be held hostage to potential new discoveries about the laws of physics or about the distant historical past?

Intention is a mental state, a desire that stimulates and directs action. If the intention was not caused by an antecedent act of will then it was not intended - it formed in our minds without our intending to do so and thus without our control. — litewave

I can grant you that there does not occur an intention, or an intentional action (in progress), without an act of will. But the content of the act of will isn't any different than the content of the intention. If you intend to walk to the corner store in order to buy a dozen of eggs, then what might the content of your "act of will" be such that it would "stimulate" the intention? That seems confused. The intention and the act of will just are two names for the very same thing. Can you imagine an act of will that would somehow fail to constitute the corresponding intention?

This is from Wikipedia's entry on compatibilism: — litewave

This is clearly a simplification. This simplified definition is immediately followed by a quote from Schopenhauer. I had asked you if you knew a contemporary compatibilist philosopher who endorses such a simplistic conception of an act of free will. Wikipedia often offers fine explanations, but it is not an actual philosopher. It is a collection of articles written and edited by people like you and me.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is generally better source.

"It would be misleading to specify a strict definition of free will since in the philosophical work devoted to this notion there is probably no single concept of it. For the most part, what philosophers working on this issue have been hunting for is a feature of agency that is necessary for persons to be morally responsible for their conduct. Different attempts to articulate the conditions for moral responsibility will yield different accounts of the sort of agency required to satisfy those conditions. What we need as a starting point is a malleable notion that focuses upon special features of persons as agents. As a theory-neutral point of departure, then, free will can be defined as the unique ability of persons to exercise control over their conduct in the manner necessary for moral responsibility. Clearly, this definition is too lean when taken as an endpoint; the hard philosophical work is about how best to develop this special kind of control." -- From the SEP entry on Compatibilism

Evolution also allows random mutations - so we can have any values that can possibly happen to us. But natural selection will tend to remove those that are detrimental to survival, health or reproduction. — litewave

This hardly answers the charge of naturalistic fallacy. Some inherited agressive tendencies, which may contribute to explaining why some people commit murder or rape, may have had evolutionary advantages in the past and have been selected for that reason. That doesn't make rape or murder moral. Just because a form of behavior has a tendency to promote survival and reproduction doesn't make such behaviors moral.

How can you say this? The very title of the book you yourself have brought up a number of times, is 'the moral landscape'. The whole point of the analogy to a landscape is to show how its a complex system with multiple peaks and troughs, he explicitly says a number of times that there may be many equal peaks, there may be better or worse ways to get to a peak etc. — PeterPants

Yes, this is just one of the glaring contradictions in Harris's confused theory. To be fair, such inherent contradictions have a tendency to crop up within most efforts to account for the demands of ordinary principles of justice or morality within a strict consequentialist framework.

The trouble with this is that the measure of elevation at some point on the multi-dimensional "moral landscape" represents the aggregate state of wellbeing of all sentient creatures, according to Harris. It follows from this definition that there can't be better or worse ways to reach a given peak consistently with Harris's insistence that wellbeing exhausts the content of morality. If there were better and worse ways, then, presumably, reaching some slightly lower peak would be a better option than reaching a slightly higher neighboring peak, on account of the paths available and the worthiness of the paths. But if that's the case, that means that wellbeing (the elevation of the peaks) is not the only objective moral consideration. Harris's theory is thus self-contradictory.

1- wellbeing is being defined as 'everything that matters, everything of value, all past present and future facts that have any effect on the quality of life of all beings' — PeterPants

You might want to rethink this. Things that have a causal impact (positive or negative) on the wellbeing of sentient creatures aren't part of wellbeing anymore than than a thief or a robbery figure themselves among the stolen goods.

2- morality is about values, in order for anything to have value, it has to have value to something sentient, therefore morality is entirely about wellbeing (as defined above).

Morality keeps an eye on value; but it is also concerned with rights, obligations, justice, virtue, human dignity, human autonomy, personal relationships, etc.

3- If we desire more wellbeing, then we ought to try and understand how wellbeing works and how to effect it.

Oftentimes, doing what is right is done for its own sake rather than for the sake of making something "work". The idea that understanding what one ought to do (or what is right) amounts to understanding how something "works" confuses theoretical rationality with practical rationality. One can understand fairly well how things work and be quite in the dark regarding what to do. Were this not the case, Harris would have no need for his fundamental premise grounded on pure intuition. He rather would be able to demonstrate it through investigating how things work, but this is impossible to do by his own admission.

4- it is objectively better to improve wellbeing.

This can be construed rather tautologically as the claim that it is objectively better to do whatever ought to be done (which your definition of "wellbeing" suggests) or as the claim that when favoring someone's wellbeing (ordinarily construed) conflicts with something else then this something else (e.g. personal duty, respect for human dignity, or justice) must always be sacrificed for the sake of wellbeing.

The main thing people seem to argue against is the notion that we could objectively say some action or desire is better or worse. do you guys feel this way?

No. I am a moral realist as are very many philosophers who aren't utilitarians.

And i have no idea how anyone can doubt it. wellbeing is everything that could possibly matter, by definition. To say its 'simplistic' is to miss the point entirely. its defined as everything that could matter so it can hardly miss stuff out can it? — PeterPants

In that case it is also useless. In any given practical situation, a real human being -- as opposed to a God who contemplates the whole universe from outside of it, say, and could evaluates how high it ranks on the "moral landscape" -- is faced with several things that matter to her (and, indeed, that ought to matter to her) and that she can't all pursue or salvage at once. Hence she has to make choices.

Utilitarians believe that everything that matters can be ranked on one single scale of 'utility'. But if what matters extends over things that can't be valued on a single scale, then Harris's theory comes crashing down. It provides no guidance for action except in the very simple situations where everything that matters can be neatly quantified on a unique one-dimensional scale. (Classical utilitarians and their consequentialist descendants strive to address those problems, but Harris seems not to have given any thought to them.)

I think your missing the point of it.. You have said just before, that Sam Harris says that we ought to act like x, because of y, this is entirely false, he makes no claim that anyone ought to do anything. an ought cant just exist on its own, that makes no sense whatsoever.
An ought MUST be based on a goal. — PeterPants

It doesn't seem like you have read The Moral Landscape then. Or, if you have, you may not have paid sufficient attention. Harris is a moral realist. On his view, what it is that one ought morally to do is an objective fact. Furthermore, on his view, there is no distinction between empirical facts and moral imperatives; there is no is/ought distinction.

"For instance, to say that we ought to treat children with kindness seems identical to saying that everyone will tend to be better off if we do. The person who claims that he does not want to be better off is either wrong about what he does, in fact, want (i.e., he doesn’t know what he’s missing), or he is lying, or he is not making sense." -- Sam Harris, The Moral Landcape

So, sam is simply pointing out what is the best goal. the real thing he is doing though, is claiming that all of morality can be objectively studied, thats really where his point lies.
And i have no idea how anyone can doubt it. wellbeing is everything that could possibly matter, by definition. To say its 'simplistic' is to miss the point entirely. its defined as everything that could matter so it can hardly miss stuff out can it? — PeterPants

Since Harris denies the categorical distinction between facts and values, that would not make much sense for him to make values only rest on contingent goals. I've searched the few dozen instances of "goal" in The Moral Landscape and nowhere does he make moral values rest on goals. If anything, he seems to think contingent goals of human being ought to be aligned with objective values, although how this would come about he doesn't say. His epistemology of values is non-existent. If queried about the source of his knowledge that his fundamental moral premise is right, he simply asserts that it's a self-evident truth and anyone who disagrees must be confused. So, he's also an ethical intuitionist.

Evolution tends to arrange that that which is valued is useful for survival, health and reproduction, while that which is hated is the opposite. Thus our values are formed. — litewave

Evolution has its own agenda. Human beings have a different agenda. For sure, contingent features of our evolutionary history can account for some tendencies and general abilities that we have. The naturalistic fallacy is the fallacy of inferring what it is that one ought to do on the basis of what it is natural that one would be inclined to do.

If by principles of rationality you mean logic and mathematics then principles of rationality are pretty much features of the universe - that's why science is so successful in predicting the behavior of nature and in harnessing the behavior of nature in technology. — litewave

If you have a suitably abstract view of "the universe" such that numbers and other abstracta make up an integral part of it, then, maybe, you could argue that principles of theoretical and practical rationality are "parts" of the early universe. But they are not parts of physical laws or of the initial conditions of the universe as those two thing are generally conceived to jointly determine human behavior according to the standard deterministic picture. To view them as such would be patent nonsense. It would mean, for instance, that if a friend of yours purports to have proven Goldbach's conjecture, and ask you if her demonstration is sound, then it would make sense to say that you can't know for sure until such a time when physicists have discovered the fundamental laws of nature or what the past state of the universe precisely was. But surely, those two things simply are irrelevant to the question of the soundness of the mathematical proof. Principles of mathematical rationality, though, are quite relevant.

Likewise if someone would seek you advice over some moral dilemma that she is facing: She promised to return a gun that she borrowed from a friend who she suspects might make use of it to commit a crime, say. It wouldn't make any sense, in that case either, to claim that you can't know what is advisable to do until such a time when physicists have gained a more precise knowledge of the laws of nature or of the past state of the universe. The principles of morality, just like the principles of theoretical rationality, happily abstract away from such contingent facts about the laws of nature and the past "state" of the universe.

I don't think compatibilists have a problem with distinguishing the constitutive part of free agency - they think that free agency consists in the ability to satisfy desires, carry out intentions. — litewave

I don't know any contemporary compatibilist philosopher who endorses such a simplistic conception of compatibilist free will. Can you point me to one?

But libertarians surely have this problem because of their insistence on the incoherent concept of ultimate control.

Maybe most libertarian philosophers face some problems (such as the luck objection, or the problem of intelligibility) but you haven't shown that any specific libertarian proposal is incoherent. Rather, you have straddled all libertarians with a dilemma regarding the source of "intentions", but you have in the process misconstrued what it is for one to have an intention as if it were caused by an antecedent act of the will rather than its being itself an act of the will.

Sure, as I mentioned, humans have a higher level of consciousness than animals. This entails more capacity for compassion and more sophisticated intelligence, so we regard humans as more morally responsible than animals. Humans are also more free than animals in the sense that human intelligence enables them to find more ways or more effective ways to satisfy their desires and needs. — litewave

Finding ways to satisfy your needs and desires just is a small part of the function of practical reason and of the scope of human freedom. Human beings aren't merely more skilled than dogs are at finding food and shelter. They also have the ability of assessing what their needs are; when their needs of the needs of other take precedence, what habits and desires are worthy of being cultivated; and lastly, and most importantly: given the desires that they actually have, which ones among them are worthy of being satisfied in particular situations.

what Sam claims, what i believe, is that IF you desire wellbeing, then you should strive to improve it. which is admittedly a completely obvious point. — PeterPants

It certainly is quite obvious and there indeed is little reason for anyone to deny it. What is questionable is Harris's use of this commonplace assertions as a unique ground for building up an all encompassing moral theory. Just because pleasure is more fun than pain hardly proves utilitarianism right. Likewise, just because it's better to get your own stuff rather than steal it from someone else hardly means that Ayn Rand's libertarianism is right. This is another theory that is hopelessly simplistic because it strives to reduce all of morality to one single moral consideration.

I still entirely think your distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning is a distinction without a difference. or at least i fail to see how this argument about morality is diminished in the least due to this seemingly bizarre distinction. — PeterPants

If someone tells you that she believes the weather will be rainy tomorrow, you can ask her why she believes it. If she tells you that she intents to spend her next vacations in Pyongyang you can ask her why she intends to do so. Although in both cases you are expecting her do provide you with some reason, those reasons also are expected to have different forms. In the first case you expect to be given some form of evidence for her beliefs while in the second case you expect, in addition to evidence, to learn something about her values, preferences or prior commitments, and/or her abilities and opportunities. Those latter practical considerations, though, are generally irrelevant to the rasons why someone believes something. If she would tell you that she believes that the weather will be rainy tomorrow because she is fed up with the recent sunny weather, that would be irrational.

The distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning is very commonplace in philosophy (since, at least, Aristotle who has done much to articulate the distinctive forms of practical and theoretical syllogisms), as well as social sciences, economic modelling, mathematical game theory, rational choice theory, cognitive science etc. It is quite uncontroversial that there is such a distinction although the specific manner in which both forms of reasoning are related is a topic of great interest and controversy. I think the onus is on you to explain why you think there is no difference.

i STILL dont see the difference...

obviously no one has a perfect model of another human being, we certainly dont have that capacity yet.
so what? i dont see your point. — PeterPants

I just argued that *even if* you had a perfect predictive/causal model of the behavior of a human being, that still would not tell you how it is that you ought to behave towards her. And that's because knowing how your interactions with (or manipulations of) that human being will affect her doesn't tell you whether you should do it. To gain knowledge of the potential effects of your actions is a matter of theoretical reasoning. To arrive at a decision regarding what it is that you ought to do is a matter of practical reasoning.

You have read The Moral Landscape, right? In that book Harris takes as an unquestionable premise that it is morally better that every sentient creature experience well-being rather than that every sentient creature feel crappy. From this unique premise, Harris purports to derive his "moral landscape" utilitarian theory. But the premise can't be supported by empirical scientific investigation. Harris is the first to admit this. In fact he pretends that only intuition can support it and that he doesn't know how to respond to someone who would deny it. So, Harris himself recognizes that his utilitarian theory can not rest entirely on a predictive/causal model of the behavior of human beings (and other sentient creatures). You need, in addition to any such model, however perfect or imperfect it might be, some premise or principle about what it is best to do. But deciding what is best to do, or arguing for the validity of moral principles is traditionally regarded to be a topic for practical reason. Harris rather regards it as a matter of faith in his own intuition and he simply voices astonishment that anyone else's intuition could be different.

He does insist, though, that any moral system requires some unquestioned premise. But this is merely to assume moral foundationalism. Principles of morality need not be structured similarly to a mathematical axiomatic system. Practical reason need not rest on rules of deductive inference at all.

so, im really confused about this practical / theoretical understanding thing. Id appreciate if you could explain further.
The way i see it (this should help you set me straight) is that we all create models of other peoples behaviors in our minds (theoretical models) these models are based on our real world experiences of people (derived practically)...
I dont see the difference, practical reasoning seems to just be intuition? surely not... you surely are not appealing to intuition over reasoning. — PeterPants

Even if you could somehow acquire a perfect "model" of a fellow human being and thereby know exactly how different "interventions" on them would "produce" different behaviors and emotional responses, you would still not know what to do since this theoretical knowledge would not speak to the reasons why you should intervene in a way that produces such results. The aim of practical reason is to decide what to do and this is governed just as much by the evaluation of the desirability of the ends as it is with the effectiveness of the means (or their permissiveness). Theoretical reason is completely silent regarding both permissiveness (duties, commitments, responsibilities, etc.) and the valuation of ends.

reason is reason, there is no theoretical/practical reasoning, what are you talking about? — PeterPants

Deciding what to believe isn't the same as deciding what to do. Of course, both of those abilities rest on rational abilities, broadly construed, but they are still distinctive ways of making use of them.

if someone harms me, i hold them responsible, i expect them to apologize if they are a moral agent, i ask for them to make amends, all for pragmatic reasons, but i dont blame them, i blame their environment, their imperfect genes, the whole multitude of variables that led them to their current situation. — PeterPants

This is strange, and I doubt if you can really live up to this lofty (however misguided) ideal. Your pragmatism seems to be grounded on an utilitarian reconstruction of the pont of ordinary reactive attitudes. But you are claiming (as Harris does) some sort of detached, emotionally withdrawn, purely theoretical stance on your own daily social intercourses, rather on the likeness of Star Trek's Mr Spock.

It seems to me that Sam Harris often fails to distinguish practical from theoretical reason and thereby seeks to substitute to our practical understanding of our interactions with our fellow human beings a theoretical understanding of the causes of our behaviors. He wants us to treat each other like we were dogs. Hence, his utilitarianism, combined with this theoretical-instrumentalist stance, yields an understanding of the point of morality rather similar to what is depicted (critically) in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and (uncritically) in B. F. Skinner's Walden Two. (A Clockwork Orange also comes to mind)

Just because aliens have landed doesn't mean it's an "invasion". Endorse multiculturalism (and multispeciesm) and don't spoil your interstellar vacations.

my argument is more about blame, the only place i see a lack of free will having an effect on how we think, is in blame.
i dont blame anymore, i recognize that peoples flaws have reasons, reasons beyond their control. 'bad' people are sick people, they need help not hatred. — PeterPants

To praise and blame people just is to hold them responsible. When you are holding someone responsible for having acted badly, because in this instance her having acted badly wasn't purely accidental but rather reflects badly on her character, then you are blaming her. If the blame is merited, then it ought to be met by that person with some sense of shame or regret. Feeling ashamed or regretful just is for one to recognize that the blame is merited, and being on that account motivated in making amends and trying to do better in the future. The social configuration of those emotions and "reactive attitudes" (as Peter Strawson calls them) not only enable people to make progress on the path towards greater rational and moral autonomy, it is also in part constitutive of those rational and social abilities. She can't be rational who doesn't hold herself responsible (i.e. isn't happy or unhappy about herself) for her successes or mistakes in reasoning. She can't either display moral awareness who wouldn't feel any shame for her own misdeeds.

Rewards and punishments likewise can be social practices that scaffold autonomous abilities and partially constitute them. Parking tickets punish people who park illegally while respecting their autonomous choices to do so in some circumstances. (Sam Harris would probably see this as a second best solution to some form of brainwashing or brain surgery that would entirely remove people's abilities to park illegally in any circumstance.) And, of course, rewards and punishments are effective with dogs who can't be reasoned with, or with children who can't reason yet. But in the latter case, they also instill in them the more mature reactive attitudes that lead them on the path towards greater rational and moral autonomy.

what if we make a computer that changes its own program, put it in a robot and it ends up killing people, it it then personally responsible for its actions? was it not an unfortunate series of events originating in a lack of foresight on whoever originally made the robot? — PeterPants

Daniel Dennett says that we are "wet robots". He may be called a mechanicist-compatibilist since he endorses a view of the universe (and all the living things in it) being a set of complicated mechanisms. I don't personally endorse this metaphysical picture, but I think he has a point. The neural circuits inside of our brains (and inside of an intelligent robot's computer) could perfectly well run deterministic algorithms and this fact alone would not have any incidence on our freedom and responsibility. If a robot would become a killer robot then maybe its creators would share some of the blame. That would not necessarily absolve the robot. Likewise, if you hire a hit man to kill someone, then you are responsible for the murder just as much as the hit man is. Responsibility isn't a buck that must stop in just one single place. It is more a matter of social, moral and political decision to decide how responsibilities for rational actions must spread out among multiple agents (where some of the agents -- parents for instances -- hold some responsibility for raising or supervising other agents on their way to the acquisition of greater rational and moral autonomy).

People's being responsible for what they do therefore isn't independent of the way they are being held responsible according to (sometimes freely endorsed) social norms. But just because those two things are being created together doesn't mean that responsibility isn't real. It just means that it only exists withing a determinate social context. (And, analogously, it can also hold withing the practical perspective of a single rational agent -- on a desert island, say -- who choses to lead a rationally integrated life and to hold herself responsible for her own past shortcomings).

great then you agree with me, so why are you arguing against me?
wait... but you DID defend that sophomoric and ridiculous conception just before.. didnt you?
You implied that we could do multiple different things, based on our decisions entirely abstracted from determined reality... didnt you? — PeterPants

You misunderstand. I argued the exact opposite: that you ought not to construe the free human agent as an entity that can control the unfolding of the universe from some ethereal standpoint outside of it (and from outside of her own body and brain). It is from within the universe, as an integral part of it, that the embodied human agent exerts control over her own future. And you have not shown how the deterministic laws that govern physical systems (while abstracting away most of their significant functional features) preclude human beings from having such abilities to freely and responsibly determine their own futures.