A Christian Response to “The New Science of Morality” – Part II

Sam Harris, author of The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (forthcoming) continues describing “the New Science of Morality” in Edge 325:

And yet, on the subject of morality, we seem to think that the possibility of differing opinions, the fact that someone can come forward and say that his morality has nothing to do with human flourishing — but depends upon following shariah law, for instance — the fact that such position can be articulated proves, in some sense, that there’s no such thing as moral truth. Morality, therefore, must be a human invention. The fact that it is possible to articulate a different position is considered a problem for the entire field. But this is a fallacy.

Perhaps. But how so?

We have an intuitive physics, but much of our intuitive physics is wrong with respect to the goal of understanding how matter and energy behave in this universe. I am saying that we also have an intuitive morality, and much of our intuitive morality may be wrong with respect to the goal of maximizing human flourishing — and with reference to the facts that govern the well-being of conscious creatures, generally.

Ok, so how does one know if “our intuitive morality may be wrong with respect to the goal of maximizing human flouring”? After all, if the first standard was insufficient to provide us with the truth, how can we know that any new standard is any more reliable?

So I will argue, briefly, that the only sphere of legitimate moral concern is the well-being of conscious creatures. I’ll say a few words in defense of this assertion, but I think the idea that it has to be defended is the product of several fallacies and double standards that we’re not noticing. I don’t know that I will have time to expose all of them, but I’ll mention a few.

Thus far, I’ve introduced two things: the concept of consciousness and the concept of well-being. I am claiming that consciousness is the only context in which we can talk about morality and human values.

Well, it’s the only context in which we can talk about anything. Unconscious people don’t talk much! I think Harris may be mean something deeper, such as autonomous self-consciousness (like Descartes’ starting point) when he uses the general term “consciousness.”

Why is consciousness not an arbitrary starting point? Well, what’s the alternative? Just imagine someone coming forward claiming to have some other source of value that has nothing to do with the actual or potential experience of conscious beings. Whatever this is, it must be something that cannot affect the experience of anything in the universe, in this life or in any other.

Yes, Harris seems suckered into Descartes ergo to the max. Consciousness and self-consciousness in no way requires that the epistemological starting point for our entire thought and for the entire enterprise of human be our autonomous mind. When God breathed life into Adam, Adam was just as conscious (if not more conscious) and aware of God’s presence than his own, and the fact that he had five toes on each of his feet; Adam’s senses were drenched in revelation, and there was no sin to get in the way of interpreting it rightly. God-consciousness was in no way secondary to self-consciousness.

Here are a few observations from Van Til:

For Adam in paradise God-consciousness could not come in at the end of a syllogistic process of reasoning. God-consciousness was for him the presupposition of the significance of his reasoning on anything. (Van Til’s Apologetic, 222)

We are ourselves the proximate starting point for all our knowledge. In contrast to this, however, we should think of God as the ultimate starting point of our knowledge. (Introduction to Systematic Theology, 324)

In the second place we deal with the fallen or regeneration consciousness. It builds upon the nontheistic assumption. It in effect denies its creaturehood. It claims to be normal. It will not be receptive of God’s interpretation; it wants to create its own interpretation without reference to God. It will not reconstruct God’s interpretation. It will construct only its own interpretation. It seeks to be creatively constructive. It thus tries to do the impossible with the result that self-frustration is written over all its efforts. There is no unity and never will be unity in nontheistic thought; it has cut itself loose from God metaphysically… (The Defense of the Faith, 72)

As Christian theists, we could certainly never allow that the universe was originally known to man before God was known to man. The cosmo-consciousness, the self-consciousness, and the God-consciousness would be naturally simultaneous…Man would at once with the first beginning of his mental activity see the true state of affairs as to the relation of God to the universe as something that was known to him…He would know that God is the Creator of the universe as soon as he knew anything about the universe itself. (Introduction to Systematic Theology, 134)

Therefore, to be fully self-conscious is to be conscious of creatureliness. All other states of consciousness and self-awareness that does not involve this relationship with the Creator of the creature’s conscious mind indicates corruption by sin; it’s a hollow existence. It’s like a car without an engine, a “netbook” computer without an internet or ethernet card.

But, acknowledging this most basic truth about human existence is not the only problem with Harris’s argument – assuming, of course, that he means “autonomous self-consciousness” under the general rubric of “consciousness.” He presents a straw man. He says “Why is consciousness not an arbitrary starting point? Well, what’s the alternative? Just imagine someone coming forward claiming to have some other source of value that has nothing to do with the actual or potential experience of conscious beings.”  It’s like he is saying, “Why should we fly Florida? Well, what’s the alternative? Just imagine someone coming forward offering you a new set of shoes so you can walk to Florida which is so slow that you’ll never get their in time for thanksgiving.”

Our response is obvious: what’s wrong with driving to Florida if flying is out of the picture? Nothing, of course. And, what’s wrong with Christian theism, which offers a “source of value” that gives justice to human experience, if autonomous self-consciousness might actually be arbitrary? Nothing…unless you have an anti-religion agenda. In short,  Harris is asserting his position against the backdrop of the absurd, hoping everyone will see the rationality of atheistic neurophilosophy. But it doesn’t work and his alternative is by no means the only or best alternative.

Harris then mocks any alternative source of value (Christianity, theism, etc.):

If you put this imagined source of value in a box [i.e. Christianity], I think what you would have in that box would be — by definition — the least interesting thing in the universe. It would be — again, by definition — something that cannot be cared about. Any other source of value will have some relationship to the experience of conscious beings. So I don’t think consciousness is an arbitrary starting point. When we’re talking about right and wrong, and good and evil, and about outcomes that matter, we are necessarily talking about actual or potential changes in conscious experience.

I think King David, in the attitude of Psalm 14 would respond to this by saying “how incredibly absurd.” We are supposed to believe that “right and wrong” and “outcomes that matter” (who determines what “matters”?) are nothing more than “actual or potential changes in conscious experience” according to this atheist neuroscientist. It has absolutely nothing to do with God’s law and purpose for creation. Nothing to do with objective norms established into the fabric of our universe. Nothing to do with conscience, corruption, or sin. Neurons pulsing in the cortex, that’s all morality comes down to in “the New Science of Morality.”

I would further add to that the concept of “well-being” captures everything we can care about in the moral sphere.

Hitler and Stalin cared about a lot of things in the moral sphere, all under the category of “well-being.” But, are we really to believe they were the right things? I’m not sure we’ll ever be told…

The challenge is to have a definition of well-being that is truly open-ended and can absorb everything we care about.

Indeed,  trying to define objective morals without an objective standard is a bit tricky!

This is why I tend not to call myself a “consequentialist” or a “utilitarian,” because traditionally, these positions have bounded the notion of consequences in such a way as to make them seem very brittle and exclusive of other concerns — producing a kind of body count calculus that only someone with Asperger’s could adopt.

Consider the Trolley Problem: If there just is, in fact, a difference between pushing a person onto the tracks and flipping a switch — perhaps in terms of the emotional consequences of performing these actions — well, then this difference has to be taken into account. Or consider Peter Singer’s Shallow Pond problem: We all know that it would take a very different kind of person to walk past a child drowning in a shallow pond, out of concern for getting one’s suit wet, than it takes to ignore an appeal from UNICEF. It says much more about you if you can walk past that pond. If we were all this sort of person, there would be terrible ramifications as far as the eye can see. It seems to me, therefore, that the challenge is to get clear about what the actual consequences of an action are, about what changes in human experience are possible, and about which changes matter.

In thinking about a universal framework for morality, I now think in terms of what I call a “moral landscape.” Perhaps there is a place in hell for anyone who would repurpose a cliché in this way, but the phrase, “the moral landscape” actually captures what I’m after: I’m envisioning a space of peaks and valleys, where the peaks correspond to the heights of flourishing possible for any conscious system, and the valleys correspond to the deepest depths of misery.

What Harris envisions is a land without God’s law, and in that land, there is no bottom to the deepest depths of misery.

As Christian neuro-theologians, let us meditate instead on Psalm 1, which demonstrates a consciousness centered on the law of God and its good, ethical consequences, and a consciousness that is not:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.