Few ideas in the development of ethics theory have garnered as much debate as the naturalistic fallacy. Those who argue in favor of it are usually moral relativists, while its detractors often argue for some form of moral absolutism. It is the atheists who are often accused of moral relativism, which is assumed to be so reprehensible by the accusers that it is in itself considered to be enough of an argument for supernatural religion. But sometimes even scientists and atheists are moral absolutists, committing the naturalistic fallacy in their zeal to provide an easy answer to the problems of ethics.
Sam Harris, the author of “The End of Faith” and “Letter to a Christian Nation” and heralded as one of the “four horsemen of the apocalypse”, recently spoke at the 3rd annual gathering of scientists and philosophers to discuss religion- Beyond Belief- Candles in the Dark. In this essay I will briefly describe the essence of the naturalistic fallacy, present a defense of the concept and provide a refutation of Harris' thesis.
The Fallacy:
The term 'naturalistic fallacy' was first used by G.E. Moore in his book Principia Ethica. Moore's argument concludes that ethics is non-naturalistic. That is, it does not exist outside of the observer, as a property of the universe. “Good”, Moore argues, is not an intrinsic quality of nature and is therefore indefinable as such.
Moore's general statement of the fallacy is inclusive of properties outside of ethics, such as color. He argues that certain propositions/objects are understood by us only as properties that are experienced. This makes them subjective and non-naturalistic in the sense that they cannot be objectively defined outside of their experienced states. In the case of color the fallacy lies in confusing the experience of 'color', which is non-naturalistic, with the physical properties of light, objects and visual perception, which are naturalistic. However, Moore's focus is on ethics. In this case, the fallacy arises because naturalistic objects such as pleasure, fitness, common good, survival etc are confused with subjective experiences such as “good” and “bad”.
Hume, Is and Ought:
Before Moore, David Hume had already laid down the framework for the naturalistic fallacy in his “Is-ought Problem”. The problem is this: One can’t go from “is” statements about the natural world to making “ought” statements about it, claiming that the “ought” follows from the “is”. The “is” statements here are factual statements about the natural world and the “ought” statements are value statements about it.
Since Hume, numerous philosophers from varied disciplines have tried to defeat the premise of the fallacy. However, the idea that morality is outside of naturalistic science (although it is influenced by it) has come to be accepted by the scientific establishment. Eminent philosophers of science such as Karl Popper have defended the idea that there is an inherent contradiction in the idea of an objective morality.
Sam Harris' Talk:
In his talk titled “Can We Ever Be Right About Right and Wrong?”, Harris argues that scientists are mistaken in upholding the naturalistic fallacy. I have been one of Harris' biggest fans as well as his harshest critic. This talk invoked both my admiration for his ability for passionate verbiage and my critical disagreement with his arguments. As usual there was the hyperbole that Harris has become known for, but there were some interesting points as well. Overall, the arguments were disappointing, to say the least. Harris ends up making the same flawed justifications as others before him, in his attempt to define an objective ethics..
Harris begins the talk by interpreting the naturalistic fallacy to mean that the understanding we get from science can not "guide our lives". This is a black and white perspective that few scientists would agree with. Harris falsely equates "scientific reticence at the concept of norms", to a complete separation of reason and values. He says that this has "divorced science from the most important questions in human life". This is, at best, a ridiculous overstatement. It is true that the utility of science is in describing the natural world. That is all that lies within its scope. What we do with that information garnered by reason lies beyond reason itself. However, a truly naturalistic philosophy informs our understanding of ethics by increasing our understanding of concepts such as sentience, suffering, consciousness, pain etc., even though the ethics doesn’t flow from reason.
Harris says that religious people talk about how the theory of evolution leads to selfishness and he says that we should address this. Firstly, this sort of moral justification does not have any place in scientific naturalism. But let us consider the purely moral aspect for a moment. If one looks at history, it was those who made the naturalistic fallacy in the name of science - the Eugenicists, the Leninists, the Nazis and the Objectivists- who actually lend credence to the claims of the religious people. Harris conveniently ignores this bit of our history. The best case in point is the objectivists. Their argument for objective morality follows the same line of reasoning as Harris but leads to completely different moral ends. This is itself more evidence for the relative nature of morality.
Harris Makes the Fallacy:
When talking about collective human morality and how these collective moral emotions exist objectively, Harris says "we are still in the range of objectivity" here. This is true. But then his next statement "So it is possible to be mistaken about what will actually maximize human well-being and ....there is such a thing as moral high ground and it is possible not to be standing on it", he is moving from the is to the ought in an almost imperceptible switch. This argument has been made multiple times by philosophers over the past century. David Sloan Wilson is one of the more recent examples. Simply put, there is no objectivity to the idea that maximizing human well-being is a moral high-ground. Harris leads us to the edge of science, talking about the role of science in understanding human morality, and then makes the leap of logic by making the unsaid assertion that the maximization of "human well-being" is a given- is "good"- is an objective fact of the universe. Now, be sure that I'm not arguing that such a definition is not good. Just that it is not objectively so. Saying that it is would be making the naturalistic fallacy.
Demonstrating the Fallacy:
The naturalistic fallacy is based on the empirically demonstrable fact that “good” and “bad” are subjective. Harris goes to great lengths to define “good” and “bad” objectively. The problem with Harris' argument is that he is building the subjective position into the definition and claiming it to be objective. If health and well-being are a concern for the universe and would exist without humans or life, then his definition would be objective. This is, obviously, not true. To counter, I could very well define "good" as "the non-existence of the ugly act of self-replication called life". This would be defining "good" using a seemingly objective standard as Harris has, albeit with the opposite meaning, but I would still be making the naturalistic fallacy.
A proposition is not objective simply if its definition is objective (as Harris seems to think). Only the definition of this proposition would be objective, not the proposition itself. By Harris’ account, the subjective would cease to exist and everything becomes objective. This is because every naturalistic definition is objective and every subjective opinion can have a naturalistic definition.
The confusion arises in virtue of our strong but false intuition that emotions reflect objective truth. Let me use the example of abortion. There are many who feel that abortion is wrong at any cost. They can describe their emotional feelings from an objective perspective. This however does not make anti-abortion values themselves objectively true or moral. It only makes those people’s feelings about those values objectively true. Similarly, the fact that one can "feel" the nature of "good" may be objectively true but the value of “good” itself still remains subjective.
The difference between subjectivity and objectivity itself is a philosophical one that arises only because of our sentience. To the universe, subjectivity and objectivity do not exist because the universe is not sentient (as far as naturalistic science can tell!). In other words, the whole argument is about our emotions versus the universe outside of our emotions. This distinction exists because science needs to overcome the subjective bias of our minds. That is why it is so important in science to make the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity.
Values do not exist outside of the sentient observer. The universe, naturalism declares, does.
Morality without Objectivity:
When we remove the naturalistic fallacy, science informs us that ethi
cs is subjective.Understanding naturalistic ‘facts’, we can then work together to build a subjective moral code that is more consistent with the empirically observable fact that our morality is constantly evolving as cultures and our understanding of biology evolve. There are those on both the left and the right who have made the naturalistic fallacy before in order to support their claims. This just shows the subjective nature of morality even when one attempts to define it in objective terms.
The difficulty in interpreting our subjective morality is no reason to compromise science by altering the meaning of objectivity itself. In fact, this deliberation required to process moral solutions must be embraced instead of supplemented with easy moral fixes. As I have stated in many previous articles, it is only the ability for humans to reason and deliberate that gives us our morality.
Conclusion:
In Harris' conclusion, he returns to punch the straw-man that he builds up in the early part of the talk, by stating that scientists ignore morality because they are concerned with making the naturalistic fallacy.
It is disappointing to see that in this respect Harris join the ranks of the many intolerant and deluded religious people who have been calling for the end of moral relativism for decades. He doesn't seem to have a proper understanding of what moral relativism implies, equating it to moral indifference. It is a mistake to legitimize the false claims of the religious moral absolutists who proclaim that relativism leads to immorality- a conclusion that Harris himself leads us to believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary showing how social morals change as our knowledge of reality increases. It is even more disappointing to see Harris provide such weak arguments to attack what is undoubtedly one of the best established principles of naturalistic philosophy.
