The Moral Landscape (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

• Collins: Add a description of this character.
• Slovic
• Adam
• Burton
• Haidt

Quotes edit see section history

• “Meaning, values, morality, and the good life must relate to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures--and, in our case, must lawfully depend upon events in the world and upon states of the human brain. Rational, open-ended, honest inquiry has always been the true source of insight into such processes. Faith, if it is ever right about anything, is right by accident.”

• “Notice that I do not mention morality in the preceding paragraph, and perhaps I need not. I began this book by arguing that, despite a century of timidity on the part of scientists and philosophers, morality can be linked directly to facts about the happiness and suffering of conscious creatures. However, it is interesting to consider what would happen if we simply ignored this step and merely spoke about "well-being." What would our world be like if we ceased to worry about "right" and "wrong," or "good" and "evil," and simply acted so as to maximize well-being, our own and that of others? Would we lose anything important?”

• “As it turns out, to denigrate the Taliban at a scientific meeting is to court controversy.”

• “Moral relativism is clearly an attempt to pay intellectual reparations for the crimes of Western colonialism, ethnocentrism, and racism, This is, I think, the only charitable thing to be said about it.”

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• human well-being entirely depends on events in the world and on states of the human brain.

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• As with all matters of fact, differences of opinion on moral questions merely reveal the incompleteness of our knowledge; they do not oblige us to respect a diversity of views indefinitely.

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• Meaning, values, morality, and the good life must relate to facts about the well-being of conscious creatures—and, in our case, must lawfully depend upon events in the world and upon states of the human brain. Rational, open-ended, honest inquiry has always been the true source of insight into such processes. Faith, if it is ever right about anything, is right by accident.

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• Here is our situation: if the basic claims of religion are true, the scientific worldview is so blinkered and susceptible to supernatural modification as to be rendered nearly ridiculous; if the basic claims of religion are false, most people are profoundly confused about the nature of reality, confounded by irrational hopes and fears, and tending to waste precious time and attention—often with tragic results. Is this really a dichotomy about which science can claim to be neutral?

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• In my experience, mistaking no answers in practice for no answers in principle is a great source of moral confusion.

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• I am arguing that 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. My claim is that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics, and such answers may one day fall within reach of the maturing sciences of mind.

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• Multiculturalism, moral relativism, political correctness, tolerance even of intolerance—these are the familiar consequences of separating facts and values on the left.

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• Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, we will see that there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality. Indeed, I will argue that morality should be considered an undeveloped branch of science.

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• This pious uncoupling of moral concern from the reality of human and animal suffering has caused tremendous harm.

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• The more we understand ourselves at the level of the brain, the more we will see that there are right and wrong answers to questions of human values.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• United States
• Islam
• Good Life
• Africa
• Europe
• Rome

Organizations edit see section history

• Catholic Church: Add a description of this organization.
• National Academy of Sciences
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• President's Council on Bioethics
• Scripps Survey Research Center
• BioLogos Foundation

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Sam Harris (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 501

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Religion & Spirituality › Religious Studies › Sociology
• Books › Science › History & Philosophy

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• TED: Harris's TED talk on the relationship between science and human values

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history