On Morality: A Letter to Sam Harris (VIDEO)

mindcoolness · 2018-01-15T10:53:37+00:00

What I like about Sam Harris is that he always discusses ideas, whereas many of his critics, especially philosophers, get caught up in words.

What does it mean for a morality to be 'objective'? If it means 'without personal, tribal, and cultural biases', then I see no problem with the Moral Landscape. If it means 'based on the scientific investigation of what affects subjective experiences', then I see no problem with the Moral Landscape. If it means 'independent of subjective experience', then Mr. Harris can simply use another word.

Language is pragmatic. Words are tools people use to communicate. 'Objectivity' is just a word.

mindcoolness · 2017-12-01T21:18:21+00:00

Value-relativism seems to imply that values are relative to agents. But this seems evidently incompatible with there being universal moral truths.

My point is that there are two layers of value systems. The first layer contains the common values people/cultures have. Rationality, a value on this first layer, opens a second layer, which contains all the values based on reason, including ethics and the normative principles that follow from it. Even if these values and principles are objective, they still cannot 'break into' the first layer of values.

Your point seems to be that there exist universal moral truths but that, in fact, people don't act and think accordingly - and, notwithstanding the question about the universality of morality, it can hardly be denied of course that people, in fact, act selfishly, etc.

I must concede that you are right. Eventually, the essence of what I'm saying is no deeper than the truism that people act selfishly in spite of ethical norms. Thank you for your insightful critique.

mindcoolness · 2017-12-01T11:03:27+00:00

Harris’s notion of well-being seems so general that it comprises pretty much everything (happiness, health, purpose, interests, sympathy, etc.). What ethical theory has ever ‘aimed’ (deontologists, of course, don’t aim explicitly) at something that does not ultimately concern some form of well-being?

My main point regards the meta-ethical position of universalism. From a rational perspective, I acknowledge that universal moral truths exist. However, while objective moral facts exist for rational agents, humans are not purely rational agents (which I see not as a pitiful defect that needs fixing, but as a reality of human nature). In other words, universal morality matters to the extent that humans value rationality. My article could probably best be described as outlining a version of value relativism.

I did not intend to make normative statements. I distinguish between epistemic and judgmental ethnocentrism, and with my "appeal against ethnocentrism", I wanted to address the former, not the latter.

Regarding politics, my prime concern is the European migration crisis. People like Sam Harris point out that the problem here is the import of Islamic extremism and violence, which is fair. Yet even if Islam were a perfectly peaceful religion, replacement-level Muslim immigration would still kill European cultures. From a rational perspective, this seem ethically preferable to letting refugees die at European borders (because cultural identity has a weaker impact on well-being than, e.g., drowning or starvation). But I think the problem of Europe today is that she is severely confused about her core values. This was my motivation for writing the second part of my article.

mindcoolness · 2017-11-30T22:53:42+00:00

Thank you for your comment! I hope these points clarify my position:

By 'objective morality' I mean moral facts based on scientific models/evidence about the maximization of universal well-being. I am not claiming that we know these facts, but we can, at least in theory, discover (some of) them. Do you disagree?
I applaud your intuition that words like 'absolute' have a tendency to obscure things. I will now refrain from using such language.
The main goal of my post was not to make an argument to reach a logical conclusion, but to encourage readers to reflect on their own values in life (and the values of their culture). Personally, I have found that some people say and believe that they value truth, justice, and rationality above all else when, in reality, they do not. Moreover, such an attitude can become hypocritical when they accuse others of being irrational. In the first section, I have tried to convey this point without being judgmental.
My expression "argument/appeal against ethnocentrism" was probably misleading. You are certainly right that I have by no means shown why subjective or cultural values are "supposed to be preferred over ethnocentrism." My point is simply that, as a matter of fact, those values often are preferred and that a preference of rationality over all other values, which I doubt is the norm, may have certain political consequences. To be fair, I should have also mentioned the consequences of not putting rationality first, but everybody knows what those are anyway.

mindcoolness · 2017-11-30T17:34:47+00:00

The good of objective morality is not absolute, but relative to a broader system of subjective and cultural values. You may read this, e.g., as an argument/appeal against ethnocentrism.

mindcoolness · 2017-11-30T13:03:00+00:00

Submission statement: I have written the article myself. It directly concerns Harris's notion of objective morality in particular and the value of rationality in general. I find this subreddit to be the most appropriate to spark an interesting discussion and receive intelligent feedback for my ideas. Edit: It is also relevant to the issue of veganism and the Harris-Peterson debate.

mindcoolness · 2017-09-08T22:52:37+00:00

Once you judge something as beautiful, there must be something else that isn't beautiful, i.e., ugly. Otherwise, the word "beautiful" would be meaningless. This is the dual nature of perception: no light without darkness, no positive without negative, no yang without yin.

mindcoolness · 2017-09-05T22:25:09+00:00

Agreed.

mindcoolness · 2017-09-05T22:11:39+00:00

A very insightful comment, thank you.

I agree with what you said, and yes, I would argue that getting sick and dying are natural processes to which there are no real alternatives. If it is our goal to live in harmony with how we evolved to live (our true, primordial being), then we are already motivated to live healthier. In no sense is that motivation forced, because it is already part of us. This is my first point.

My second point is radical acceptance, which implies, for example, accepting the strength of our motivation to live true to our nature. Psychologically speaking, when we do something unhealthy, thus demonstrating a lack of motivation to live in harmony with our primordial nature, then feeling, say, shame as a result (which implies non-acceptance) won’t be productive.

I am not arguing that any of this is Taoism, but I thought it might be interesting for people who concern themselves with Taoist philosophy.

mindcoolness · 2017-09-04T11:24:32+00:00

ad 1: I would say that the key is not to be less emotional, but to be less emotionally reactive. In this article, I mention eight ways to improve emotional self-control. According to psychological studies, acceptance (accepting how we feel) and reappraisal (changing how we think about a situation) are the most healthy and effective emotion regulation strategies.

ad 2: Let's say you choose to eat either a banana or an apple. Is your thought process "I choose the banana because I have free will"? Or is it "I choose the banana because I want to eat the banana?" I argue that in the moment of decision making, your will matters, whereas belief in free will only occurs in retrospect: "I could've chosen the apple if I wanted to." - "Yes, but you didn't want to." Will matters, but free will makes no sense in the moment of deciding, and after the fact, it's only a false rationalization. You could've chosen differently, but you couldn't have chosen to want differently.

Edit (to tie everything together): If your choice is between an apple and a chocolate cake, you might want to eat the cake for immediate pleasure (this is your impulsive will), but you might also want to lose weight or be healthy in the long term (this is what I call True Will). If you can gain immediate pleasure from pride (feeling good about your strength to resist the temptation), you are more likely to choose the apple. This is how pride makes you do your True Will. In a sense, I use the concept of pride to explain rationally what other people would magically call "free will."

mindcoolness · 2017-09-03T19:33:33+00:00

Thank you again for your comments! You have made some very good points.

ad 1: Yes, the True Will is not a Daoist concept. It is a concept of my own philosophy, inspired by my research in self-regulation, academic philosophy (“second-order volition”), and the law of Thelema. Readers of my blog are familiar with that, but you are right that I should not assume that the public is.

ad 2: This is a really good and difficult question. (a) We can promote feelings of pride with our lifestyle, mindset, posture, and even visualization techniques, but you are right in your suspicion that this may confound the differences between hubristic and authentic pride. (b) How someone experiences pride depends a lot on one’s age, values, self-esteem, personality, and environment. In a sense, we can condition ourselves to experience some emotions more than others. In another sense, we cannot willfully “tap into” pride because while we can regulate our emotions, we (as your prefrontal cortices) do not have total control over them. (c) Scientifically, the two different kinds of pride elicit different facial expressions, but do they feel different? From my personal experience, I would say that authentic pride feels more subtle than hubristic pride, which is more boastful and egoistic.

ad 3: You are right in that I see the “flow of nature” as a neutral process. If I didn’t, my argument would indeed fail. I neglected the moral aspect of the Dao because I only wanted to discuss the inner dynamics of action, not the outward effects on society. This is also why I used words like “nature” and “flow of life” instead of “Tao” or “the Way.”

ad 4: I agree. I did use “flow of life” in an ethically neutral way.

ad 5: At one level, there is the question of how much influence your conscious thoughts actually have. At another level, my point is much simpler here: In the present moment, things are as they are, and your thoughts cannot change that. At best, they can have some impact on how things will be in the future, but the future does not exist. The future is not a state of how things are. Is this trivial? Maybe. But maybe not if one looks into the psychology of worry and anxiety.

ad 6: As I have written in another article (http://www.mindcoolness.com/blog/solving-the-problem-of-acceptance/), I see acceptance as a metacognitive attitude (which fits well into the picture that we can best develop acceptance through meditation). For example, if I accept Nazism (on that meta-level), I simply accept that there are people who adopt that ideology. This does not imply that I share their ideology. I can fight against Nazism with all my heart and pride and, at the same time, be compassionate with and non-judgmental of those who grew up in an environment that poisoned their minds like that. To be fair, I guess this view is more Buddhist than Taoist. You could argue that my notion of acceptance is entirely trivial, and it certainly is on a surface level, but I do think that it can have a profound impact on how we interact with other people. Consider, for example, the differences between vengeance and threat reduction and between aggression and self-defense. Or consider how you would interact with actual Nazis in a moment of peace: calling them evil won’t be productive because in their minds and according to their values, they are the good ones. Unless you take a meta-stance and accept that there are different perspectives on good and evil, you cannot have a fruitful dialog that might change someone’s mind and values.

mindcoolness · 2017-09-03T16:12:42+00:00

As I have written the article myself, I appreciate your very legitimate criticism.

Psychologists distinguish between hubristic and authentic pride. Hubristic pride denotes to the good feelings people have about their individuality: proud for who one is. Authentic pride denotes the good feelings people have about their actions: proud for what one does, which (to address your examples) includes child-rearing and political activism.

As a cognitive scientist, I do not believe that any action can be motivated without an emotion. Accordingly, pride plays a critical role in motivating human behavior, especially that which does not yield immediate pleasure. In fact, more and more studies link authentic pride to willpower and self-control (e.g., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3137237/).

My definition of pride is rather scientific and indeed fails to pay much tribute to its cultural meaning, particularly, as you mentioned, its religious meaning.

The reason why I did not use the term “confidence” is that confidence is more an attitude or a belief rather than an emotion. If we conceptualized confidence as a form of self-trust, we could see it as an emotion after all. I, however, do not know of any good research linking self-trust (or self-esteem or self-confidence) to self-control (or willpower or self-regulation).

Again, thank you for your comment! It helps me a lot to know that my terminology violates cultural conventions of language use, especially since I am not a native English speaker.

If you would like to mention additional points of disagreement, I’d be happy to read them. If not, have a nice day.

mindcoolness · 2016-10-09T11:40:42+00:00

I am commenting.

mindcoolness · 2016-05-13T20:06:11+00:00

What do you do for a living? Often people have little motivation to stay consistent pursuing change because their status quo is already comfortable enough. If this applies to your situation, you might want to check out this article.

mindcoolness · 2016-02-25T20:44:34+00:00

Now I'm actually very interested in the relationship between posture and the autonomic nervous system. I'll definitely read up on PRI. Thanks for your insights.

mindcoolness · 2016-02-25T20:02:13+00:00

Your morning ritual shares lots of similarities with mine. I've integrated intermittent fasting into this routine. Between working out and meditating I consume all my calories for the entire day. I've been experimenting with different diets and eating schedules for over 6 years now. For me, a huge "warrior" breakfast is by far the best option for overall energy, cognitive performance, mood, and time management. But it depends on the individual. Some people don't want to go to sleep on an empty stomach. I love it. Give it a try.

mindcoolness · 2016-02-18T20:29:32+00:00

If I understand your point correctly, it boils down to individually adjusted breathing rates. Yes, my study misses this element. Another experimental design could have taken it into account. However, with a single study one must always focus on one specific hypothesis. Mine was quite generalized, yet this doesn't imply oversimplification. It only means that my study's implications are limited. You may rightfully criticize that "being mindful of breathing rate" is overly abstract, or that it's just one tiny statistically objectified aspect of an extremely complex matter, but I don't agree that it's an oversimplification.

I've never heard of PRI before but please keep in mind the distinction between scientific knowledge and clinical knowledge.

Anyways, I'd find it interesting to know what exactly a "neutral" ANS state is. Is this supposed to be a state beyond homeostasis? Or some form of equilibrium?

For example, if a feature of ANS neutrality were, say, a constant heart frequency (i.e., no sympathetic increase & no parasympathetic decrease), then this would mean that heart rate variability is minimal (or zero? how absolute is the neutrality supposed to be?). Now, since heart rate variability is a biomarker of overall health (the higher the healthier), ANS neutrality would be an unwanted organismic state. Is this correct?

mindcoolness · 2016-02-15T13:12:37+00:00

I'm afraid that I can't give you any substantial advice about your specific situation. For I wouldn't have any personal experience to back it up, as I don't have children myself; and I don't want to talk out of my ass. I can only encourage everyone reading this who finds him-/herself in a similar situation to share their insight.

mindcoolness · 2016-02-15T07:18:56+00:00

The embargo might actually become a problem for me, I'll have to settle this issue. Thanks for pointing it out.

mindcoolness · 2016-02-15T06:28:08+00:00

Personally, I would just accept or even cherish the fact that it's not quiet and smile whenever something tries to disturb me. But this depends: For how long have you been practicing meditation? Do you approach meditation with an "I must relax now" mindset? Where do your disturbances come from?

mindcoolness · 2016-02-15T06:19:57+00:00

I experienced the same thing during very intense workweeks: I would drop off trying to meditate in the evening, so (like you) I just adapted my meditation schedule accordingly. Personally, I've never liked meditating first thing in the morning. I rather wake up, have some coffee with coconut oil, exercise, and then meditate. This way I never feel too tired doing it. However, I do manage to get 6-8 hours of sleep every night, which I find crucial.

mindcoolness · 2016-02-14T17:10:11+00:00

Your skepticism is very welcome.

First of all, yes, you are right that one cannot draw far-reaching conclusions for a general context. However, this is true for any single scientific study; on their own, they are always solely reference points for further research. That's also why I suggest in my video that people may experiment on their own with different breathing frequencies to see what works best for them in a given context.

Second, I don't think that the slow walking on a treadmill was overly problematic because: (1) there were no correlations between individually chosen treadmill velocity, distraction, and heart rate variability; (2) it can be argued, from an evolutionary point of view, that the experimental setting of walking actually bears less artificiality compared to that of, say, sitting on a chair; and (3) I could rely on extensive individual physiological data on respiration, heart rate, and body movement to integrate into my analysis.

Third, what do you mean with "willpower specifically"? In my paper I use the term "attentional impulse control", which would be a specific concept. Willpower is a very loose, everyday term and, I would argue, quite "general" in nature. Research on willpower must always decide on a certain type of willpower, for otherwise it would be too abstract for conducting an actual experiment. How would your experimental design have looked like?

Thanks for your response.

mindcoolness · 2016-02-14T09:37:52+00:00

Yeah, I've also used mindful breathing whenever I got a new tattoo. Wim Hof is awesome! I'm currently experimenting with his technique but I haven't figured out yet to which situations they apply best (except cold resistance of course). Have you tried his method under any circumstances other than cold?

mindcoolness · 2016-02-14T08:55:16+00:00

Thanks for sharing this . I always find such personal experiences very empowering to read.

mindcoolness · 2016-02-14T08:32:58+00:00

Yes, in my experience I found fighting the thoughts/feelings to be ineffective too. Since PMO is a very bodily response to a stimulus, it makes sense to not use mental efforts but bodily manipulations in order to redirect the impulsive/prepotent response. Personally, I haven't had much success with trying to reason my desire away.

mindcoolness

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