Harris’ Moral Landscape

Synonyms

Ethics; Moral values; Morality; Utilitarianism

Definition

In Sam Harris’ (2010) book, The Moral Landscape, he argues that human values can be interpreted scientifically through the examination of what contributes to the well-being or suffering of conscious creatures.

Introduction

Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris argues in his book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (2010), that a scientific approach to morality will be able to establish objective truths about what is right and wrong in terms of what causes conscious human and nonhuman animals to thrive or suffer. Because conscious beings are governed by the laws of nature and are responsible for conceptions of moral values, he proposes that morality can be construed and developed as a natural science. In Harris’ view, applying an empirical approach to morality is reasonable because “human well-being entirely depends on events in the world and on states of the human brain” (2010, p. 2). To...