The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human ValuesNew York Times Bestseller: “Makes a powerful case for a morality that is based on human flourishing and thoroughly enmeshed with science and rationality.” —Steven Pinker, author of Enlightenment Now Sam Harris’s first book, The End of Faith, ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion. In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people—from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists—agree on one point: science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, our failure to address questions of meaning and morality through science has now become the primary justification for religious faith. In this highly controversial book, Sam Harris seeks to link morality to the rest of human knowledge. Defining morality in terms of human and animal well-being, Harris argues that science can do more than tell how we are; it can, in principle, tell us how we ought to be. In his view, moral relativism is simply false—and comes at an increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality. Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our “culture wars,” Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation. “Backed by copious empirical evidence.” —Scientific American “I was one of those who had unthinkingly bought into the hectoring myth that science can say nothing about morals. To my surprise, The Moral Landscape has changed all that for me. It should change it for philosophers too. Philosophers of mind have already discovered that they can’t duck the study of neuroscience, and the best of them have raised their game as a result. Sam Harris shows that the same should be true of moral philosophers, and it will turn their world exhilaratingly upside down.” —Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene |
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activity altruism answers anterior cingulate cortex argue argument behave behavior bias biological claim Cogn cognitive Cohen Collins conscious creatures consider context culture Daniel Dennett Dennett difference disbelief E. O. Wilson effects emotional ethical evolution evolutionary experience facts and values faith feel fMRI FOXP2 function goals Haidt happiness Harris human brain human well-being Huntington's disease imagine instance insula intuitions Kahneman lie detection lives magnetic resonance imaging maximize mental mind moral landscape moral realism moral relativism moral truth MPFC Nature neural correlates Neuroethics neuroimaging Neuron Neuropsychologia norms notion numbers one’s orbitofrontal cortex Oxford oxytocin person philosophical physical prefrontal cortex principle problem processing proposition Psychol psychopaths questions rational reality reasoning regions religion religious beliefs response right and wrong Sam Harris scientific scientists seems sense simply social society specific split-brain subjects suffering tend things thought true understanding well-being of conscious York