Reading this felt like watching a secular sermon slowly realize it borrowed its liturgy from the very traditions it tried to exorcise. Harris wanted to build a cathedral of reason and ended up erecting a TED Talk with mood lighting.
The irony is thick. His Moral Landscape needed the soil of myth and the water of compassion, but all it had was the sterile light of lab equipment. You can’t derive “ought” from “is” any more than you can hug someone with a spreadsheet.
This piece doesn’t just critique Harris. It peels back the illusion that modernity can float on moral fumes without drawing from the deep wells it inherited. Maybe it’s time we admit: our reason isn’t rootless. It grows from stories we pretend we’ve outgrown.
Harris’s project seems like a sort of reflection of natural law theory, but trying to remove God from it, or more precisely, assuming God isn’t necessary to make it coherent.
Great piece, really loved the reference to the “follow the science” idea, which at the time produced similarly divergent actions as the UK government’s advice to “use common sense”.
I was wondering though: while I couldn’t agree more with your critique of Harris’ idea that morality can be purely derived from science, the other part of his argument was that morality was a landscape. I.e. there are many different peaks, but whether you are in a peak or a valley is a fact. Curious how you think about that, I find that a more interesting thought, kind of a synthesis of moral relativism and objectivism.
Ironically I think that actually illustrates the importance of metaphor when talking about stuff like this, because a landscape does give you some sense that to get to a better point you might have to go through a valley first etc, although I think you also have to go further into those metaphors as much as rationalising them. Jesus often told parables as a response to questions that seemed to demand a direct answer, I think there's a good reason for that.
Reading this felt like watching a secular sermon slowly realize it borrowed its liturgy from the very traditions it tried to exorcise. Harris wanted to build a cathedral of reason and ended up erecting a TED Talk with mood lighting.
The irony is thick. His Moral Landscape needed the soil of myth and the water of compassion, but all it had was the sterile light of lab equipment. You can’t derive “ought” from “is” any more than you can hug someone with a spreadsheet.
This piece doesn’t just critique Harris. It peels back the illusion that modernity can float on moral fumes without drawing from the deep wells it inherited. Maybe it’s time we admit: our reason isn’t rootless. It grows from stories we pretend we’ve outgrown.
Beautifully written and deeply needed.
Harris’s project seems like a sort of reflection of natural law theory, but trying to remove God from it, or more precisely, assuming God isn’t necessary to make it coherent.
Great piece, really loved the reference to the “follow the science” idea, which at the time produced similarly divergent actions as the UK government’s advice to “use common sense”.
I was wondering though: while I couldn’t agree more with your critique of Harris’ idea that morality can be purely derived from science, the other part of his argument was that morality was a landscape. I.e. there are many different peaks, but whether you are in a peak or a valley is a fact. Curious how you think about that, I find that a more interesting thought, kind of a synthesis of moral relativism and objectivism.
Ironically I think that actually illustrates the importance of metaphor when talking about stuff like this, because a landscape does give you some sense that to get to a better point you might have to go through a valley first etc, although I think you also have to go further into those metaphors as much as rationalising them. Jesus often told parables as a response to questions that seemed to demand a direct answer, I think there's a good reason for that.
That’s fair, and of course valleys can be absolutely beautiful too.
Well written. Harris and Peterson have both aged rather badly. What was initially interesting and challenging has become trite and shallow.
I wonder what will come next?
The Moral Landscape remains one of the worst books on moral philosophy ever written. It's unfortunate so many people take it seriously.