Saturday, December 18, 2010

Sam Harris: Can Science Determine Human Values?


Complete Video at FORA.tv
November 10,2010 at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, CA
In this highly anticipated, explosive new book, the author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation calls for an end to religion's monopoly on morality and human values. In The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values to dismantle the most common justification for religious faith -- that a moral system cannot be based on science.

6 comments:

  1. More awesomeness from Sam.

    The self-importance of some of the people who came forward to ask questions is annoying.

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  2. I finished this book about a month ago so I've had time to think about it. Still, all I can really say is that it's well worth the time it takes to read it, so please do. Whether one comes out convinced by it or not, it should get people to think about morality - and that, I think, is a good thing whichever conclusion one comes to.
    I have some problems with it but it also raises a few points that I've been dying to see in print, so I'm glad it's out and I have no problem recommending it.

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  3. Hey David !
    just wanted to say that ive had more access to the site recently and thank you ! its been my only voice of reasonhere , as you know im surrounded by a hundred diffrent sects of irrationality here and its good to have some logic injected into my system every now and then.

    cheers once again and hope alls well (more will follow)

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  4. I've also read his books, and find him to be quite sane and rational. Also a very well spoken man. I do agree with many of his points in The Moral Landscape, and agree that science, in principal, can and will determine answers to many moral questions.

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  5. What's up with calling Richard Dawkins everything else than Richard Dawkins, is this some kind of internet meme that i have missed out on?

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  6. I appriciate what he's trying to do, but his basic premise of "reducing th esuffering of conscious beings" is so subjective.  I mean it assumes some arbitrary line of consciousness that will probably tick off the animal rights activists.  It promotes collective good over individual rights, so there goes the libertarians.  And it also aims at suffering reduction over increasing joy, so it's very likely to tend toward overly restrictive views of pleassure.  Honestly I like what he's trying to do, but his original premise is just so flawed, that anything he builds on it is going to be too.

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