P/S/A - Sam Harris offering money for a little good philosophy

Sam Harris is here offering a substantial amount of money to anyone who can show a flaw in the philosophy of 'The Moral Landscape' in 1000 word or less, or at least the best attempt.

More accurately, he is "offering a substantial amount of money to anyone who can" convince him to publicly acknowledge that there is a "flaw in the philosophy of 'The Moral Landscape' in 1000 word or less." This is quite a different feat from merely finding a flaw.

Up to $20,000 is on offer, although that's only if you change his mind. Whilst we know that this is very difficult, note how few people offer large sums of money for the privelage of being disproven.

I'm not so sure this is a wise decision if you are trying to improve your epistemic rationality. What he has just done, is to give himself a $10,000 reason not to change his mind.

Sam did something similar on his tour for the book. He invited people to come up and correct his views on his book.

It's was either clueless, or fundamentally dishonest. Sam can add 2 and 2. The problems with his book, like most others, are primarily conceptual, and impossible to correct in a 30 second response to Sam after his lecture. He chose not to engage the professional literature on his rehash of utilitarianism and moral objectivism, and then invites people to correct him in a 30 second response to his lecture. Unserious.

I don't think any of his fundamental moves pass a laugh test. But it's extremely difficult to help a conceptually confused person see the error of their ways. We can't do it for him. He has to decide to face serious interrogation by his critics, where he attempts to clarify his own argument, and sees if he can do it. He's shown no indication of a willingness to do this. Instead, he'll just read essays, cram them into his conceptual confusion, and dismiss them, most likely claiming that they didn't understand his argument, where I'd argue that neither did he. What a pointless exercise.

Here's my response. I had a LW-geared TL:DR which assumed shorter inferential distance and used brevity-aiding LW jargon, but then I removed it because I want to see if this makes sense to LW without any of that.

This debate boils down to a semantic confusion.

Lets consider the word "heat(1)". Some humans chose the word "heat" to mean "A specific subset of environmental conditions that lead to the observation of feeling hot, of seeing water evaporate..." and many other things too numerous to mention.

Once "heat" was defined, science could begin to quantify how much of it there was using "temperature". We can use our behavior to increase or decrease the heat, and some behaviors are objectively more heat-inducing than others.

But who defined heat in the first place? We did. We set the definition. It was an arbitrary decision. If our linguistic history had gone differently, "heat" could have meant any number of things.

If we were lucky, a neighboring culture would use "heat(2)" to mean "the colors red and yellow" and everyone would recognize that these were two separate words that meant different things but happened to be homonyms with a common root - since most warm things are red or yellow, it's easy to see how definitions diverge. No one would be so silly as to argue about heat(1) and heat(2). If we were unlucky, a neighboring culture might decide to use "heat(3)" to mean "subjective feelings resulting from temperature-receptor activation", and we'd have endless philosophical debates about what heat really is. All this useless debate because one culture decided to use "heat(3)" to refer to the subjective feeling of being hot, while another culture decided to use "heat(1)" to refer to a complex phenomenon which causes a bunch of observable effects, one of which is usually but not always the subjective experience of feeling hot.

One day, a group of humans which included one named Sam Harris decided to define "Good(1) and Best(1)" as "Well-Being among all Conscious Beings". (Aside - In an effort to address the central theme and avoid tangents, let's just assume that "Conscious Beings" here means "regular humans" and not create hypothetical situations containing eldritch beings with alien goals. Since we haven't rigorously defined "Well-Being" and "Conscious-Being", we won't go into the question of whether "Well-Being" is a coherent construct for all "Conscious Beings" . We can deal with that problem later - that's not the central issue. For now, we will simply go by our common intuitions of what those words mean.)

Can you measure "well-being" in humans? Sure you can! You can use questionnaires to measure satisfaction, you can measure health and vibrancy and do all sorts of things. And you can arrange your actions to maximize these measurements, creating the Best(1) Possible Universe. And some hypothesis about what actions you aught to take to reach the Best(1) Possible Universe are incorrect, while others are correct.

One day, a group of humans which did not include one named Sam Harris decided to define "Good(2)" as "The sum of all my goals". Can science measure that? Actually, yes! - I can measure my emotional response to various hypothetical situations, and try to scientifically pinpoint what my goals are. I can attempt to describe my goals, and sometimes I will be incorrect about my own goals, and sometimes I will be correct - we've almost all been in situations where we thought we wanted something, and then realized we didn't. Likewise, there is a certain set of actions that I can take to maximize the fulfillment of my goals, to reach my Best(2) Possible Universe. And I can use observation and logic to measure your goals as well, and calculate your Best(2) Possible Universe.

But can my goals themselves be incorrect? No - my goals are imbedded in my brain, in my software. My goals are physically a part of the universe. You can't point to a feature of the universe and call it "incorrect". You can only say that my goals are incompatible with yours, that our Best(2) Possible Universes are different. Mine is Better(2) for me, yours is Better(2) for you.

Our culture is unlucky, because Good(1) and Good(2) are homonyms whose definitions are far too close together. It doesn't make sense to ask which definition is "correct" and which is "wrong", any more than it makes sense to ask whether "Ma" means Mother (English) or Horse (Chinese). The entire argument stems from the two sides using the same word to mean entirely different things. It's a stupid argument, and there are no new insights gained from going back and forth on the matter of which arbitrary definition is better. If only Good(1) and Good(2) didn't sound so similar, there would be no confusion.

(Note: Of course, I've ridiculously oversimplified both Good(1) and Good(2), and I haven't gone into Good 1.1, Good 1.2, Good 2.1, Good 2.2, etc. But I think it's safe to say that most definitions of Good currently fall into either camp 1 or camp 2, and this argument is a misunderstanding between the definitional camps)

Constructing a response after reading his response to critics would be good. His core reservations presented seem to be:

If you can say that there's no correct morality, why can't you say that there's no correct math, or no correct science?

If there's two different visions of well-being, isn't this just a small difference? ("This is akin to trying to get me to follow you to the summit of Everest while I want to drag you up the slopes of K2" [...] "In any case, I suspect that radically disjoint peaks are unlikely to exist for human beings.")

And he presents some rationalizations that seem to be ingrained:

"Is it unscientific to value health and seek to maximize it within the context of medicine? No. Clearly there are scientific truths to be known about health." That is, he conflates "there are truths" with "there is a truth of the sort I want."

Later he conflates 'an ideal world by my egalitarian values is possible' with 'so don't bother thinking about other peoples' values,' specifically citing selfish values. This is the logically even worse version of objection #2.

Precommitting to lose $18,000 if you (publicly) change your mind is a really good way to make sure you don't do so.

ETA: Looks like it's a $9,000 precommit, not $18,000. See this comment. I still find this pretty funny.

What can convince a philosopher to change her mind, anyway? I mean, it's not like there is an experiment that can be conclusively set up. Is it some logical argument she is unable to find a fault in? If so, then how come there are multiple schools of philosophy disagreeing on the basics? Can someone point to an example of a (prominent) philosopher changing his/her mind and hopefully the stated and unstated reasons for doing so?

This is an interesting way to setup a lottery while promoting one's ideas.

The error with Harris' main point is hard to pin down, because it seems to me that his main fault is that his beliefs regarding morality aren't clearly worked out in his own head. This can be seen from his confusion as to why anyone would find his beliefs problematic, and his tendency to hand-wave criticism with claims that "it's obvious".

Interpreted favourably, I agree with his main point, that questions about morality can be answered using science, as moral claims are not intrinsically different from any other claim (no separate magisteria s'il vous plaît). Basically, what all morality boils down to is that people have certain preferences, and these preferences determine whether certain actions and outcomes are desirable or not (to those people that is). I agree with Harris that the latter can be deduced logically, or determined scientifically. Furthermore, the question of what people's preferences are in the first place can be examined using for example neuroscience. In this sense, questions of morality can be entirely answered scientifically, assuming they are formulated in a meaningful way (otherwise the answer is mu).

The problem is that Harris' main position can also be taken to mean that science can determine what preferences people ought to have in the first place, which is not possible as this is circular, and this is the main source of criticism he receives. Unfortunately Harris does not seem to get this as he never addresses the issue: In an example of super-intelligent aliens for example, he states that it is "obviously" right for us to let them eat us if this will increase total utility. This implies that everyone should feel compelled to maximise total utility, though he supplies no argument as to why this should be the case. Unfortunately I am not confident I could convince Sam Harris of his own confusion, however.

I suspect that a winning letter to Sam Harris would interpret his position favourably, agree with him on most points, and then raise a compelling new point that he has not yet thought of that causes him to change his mind slightly but which does not address the core of his problem.

note how few people offer large sums of money for the privelage of being disproven.

The usual reason for doing so is signalling: look how sure I am of my ideas, I am willing to put my money on the line. Most people who see this offer (aptly called a "challenge") won't hear "he would be happy to be disproven, what a rational fellow"; they will hear "he is sure he can't be disproven, what a confident fellow".

I haven't read Harris's book and don't know anything about it. However, I do feel that a genuine "challenge" should have a formal verification procedure for proposed answers, or at least a third party to judge them. Judging answers by whether they convince Harris himself requires extremely high confidence in his skills as a rationalist, even apart from his incentives.

On the other hand, what purpose is served by publishing the best answer even if it fails to convince him? He may end up publishing an answer that he thinks is completely wrong (and necessarily saying so), and maybe most other people will think it's wrong too (but that some other answer is right). The submitter will be rewarded with 1000$ although he hadn't convinced anyone, and nobody will change their opinions.

Well, now he has another reason not to change his mind. Seems unwise, even if he's right about everything.

I believe that many commenters here interpreted Harris uncharitably. He is not giving himself more reasons to not change his mind. He is not interested in an independent judge deciding who is right. He seems to want to genuinely figure out whether he is missing anything important -- to him! Not to other people. That's why he goes into a lot of effort to list, steelman and address all previously made arguments he can think of. If you think you have found an argument he did not bring up, he would likely be interested in hearing it. If you think that you have found an issue with his steelmanning attempt of an existing argument, he would likely be interested in hearing it.

I agree with Sam Harris on many topics, and I really enjoyed the Moral Landscape. If you need a proofreding sparring coach to tell you how they feel about your argument. I'm available for such task.

shoot me a mail at diegocaleiro at the provider gmail. I'll be glad to be shown why do people dislike Sam's arguments so much anyway.

I'd be willing to give this a shot, but his thesis, as stated, seems very slippery (I haven't read the book):

"Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds—and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe."

This needs to be reworded but appears to be straightforwardly true and uncontroversial: morality is connected to well-being and suffering.

"Conscious minds and their states are natural phenomena, fully constrained by the laws of Nature (whatever these turn out to be in the end)."

True and uncontroversial on a loose enough interpretation of "constrained".

"Therefore, there must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science."

This is the central claim in the thesis - and the most (only?) controversial one - but he's already qualifying it with "potentially." I'm guessing any response of his will turn on (a) the fact that he's only saying it might be the case and (b) arbitrarily broadening the definition of science. Nevertheless, moral questions aren't (even potentially) empirical, since they're obviously seeking normative and not factual answers. But given that this is obvious, it's hard to imagine that one could change his mind. It's rather like being invited to challenge the thesis of someone who claims scientific theories are works of fiction. You've got your work cut out when somebody has found themselves that far off the beaten path. I suspect the argument of the book runs: this philosophical thesis is misguided, this philosophical thesis is misguided, etc, science is good, we can get something that sort of looks like morality from science, so science - i.e., he takes himself to be explaining morality when he's actually offering a replacement. That's very hard to argue against. I think, at best, you're looking at $2000 for saying something he finds interesting and new, but that's very subjective.

"On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life."

Assuming "what they deem important in life" is supposed to be parsed as "morality" then this appears to follow from his thesis.

It seems like he's groping towards the concept of CEV?

Read the short FAQ underneath. At first glance it seems the book might be right about a lot of things. Damn.

I don't have the book, so I don't think I'm eligible for the prize. Suffice to say that I've read his summary on "Response to Critics", and anybody who can't refute the tripe philosophy shown there (maybe he's got better in the book, I can't be sure) doesn't deserve to be considered anything more than a crap philosopher.

EDIT: Making criticisms as I go.

1- There is a fundamental difference between the question of science and the question of morality. Scientific inquiry percieves facts which are true and useful except for goals which run directly counter to science. Morality perceives 'facts' which are only useful to those who wish to follow a moral route.

2- Say I were a psycopath obsessed with exterminating all humanity for some reason. I do research on a weapon to do so using every principle of Science known about how to do it, testing hypotheses scientifically, making dry runs, having peer review through similiarly psycopath colleagues, etc etc. Although most people would be outraged, they probably wouldn't call it unscientific.

Harris could object that this is further from what most people associate science with. However, scientific research is associated with a lot of things- white coats for example. Why should morality be any better?

I might also point out that many projects seen in reality as scientific would be unscientific under Harris's definition.

3- As far as I can tell, Harris does not account for the well-being of animals. This is an ethical question his pseudo-philosophy cannot answer. It merely assumes humans are all that matters. He also cannot account for why all humans should be considered equal despite years of history showing humans usually don't consider them such.

4- Much human morality has little or no relationship to well-being. Say A murders B's entire family in cold blood. Not only B, but many others who witnessed the deed will have a moral desire for A to be punished independent of, and contrary to, human well being. Deterrent is nowhere in their brains.