Here is a Ted Talk on how science can answer moral questions. I wanted to post it alongside a few thoughts.
Can science solve moral questions?
A paper was published in psychology about the WEIRDest people in the world. Their point was that researches oftentimes draw their sample sizes from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, populations and generalize the results to any population. But WEIRD populations are oftentimes outliers. They think what they're discovering is what it means to be human, but they're actually finding is what it means to be in a WEIRD society.
This relates to this kind of benthamite utilitarianism that Sam Harris talks about. WEIRD populations oftentimes don't see more to morality than care (and fairness). Intellectuals are oftentimes the WEIRDest people of WEIRD cultures, leading so a much less thick sense of morality. I can only imagine someone from India listening to this TED Talk thinking, "this guy doesn't capture morality AT ALL."
Throughout the world and throughout history morality has been about rocks. And not because they got morality from a voice in a whirlwind, but because it feels right to them. Paul said the law is written on their hearts, and this sits well with Christians because they look at their hearts and they say, "yeah, that feels right".
Morality is oftentimes about sanctity. People with a strong sense of sanctity think homosexuality is wrong. You can see it in the type of language they use. It's unnatural, perverted, disgusting, and degraded. The less common answer is that a voice in a whirlwind said so. People with weaker senses of sanctity think that it must have come from a whirlwind because they just don't get it. But they can get it. It's still there. Look at environmentalism which goes far beyond concern for animals and pollution which might hurt other people. They like to rationalize it down to care when you press them, but the language they use is all about concern for rocks; destroying the planet, staining the earth, mankind's blotch on the environment, its about sanctity.
In fact, if you try to build any kind of thought experiment that tests for moral senses other than care, they almost always rationalize for why what they're really doing is caring for other life. So naturally you can change the thought experiment to eliminate any potential for the right answer to help another. What happens? They get frustrated reject thought experiments all together.
Take loyalty. Adultery is betrayal. What reasons to people give for disagreeing with adultery? "It hurts the person being cheated on." Okay they both take pills that wipe their memories of the event so neither can confess, and they're in a completely secluded area. What reason? "because they might get pregnant" Okay, neither person is capable of having children. What reason? "this is stupid, thought experiments never happen in real life" Ugh.
Interestingly, nobody ever feels the need to give reasons why care is good. Care is the only socially approved moral foundation that one doesn't need to rationalize for. Other moral foundations are rationalized down to care, and care just stands there invincible. Is there any more reason to believe in care than in sanctity or loyalty?
This guys just says of course care is morality, and that's it. It's just not true that for most people morality doesn't capture concern for non-living rocks. And his care for human life is no more or less arbitrary than concern for things like sanctity, loyalty, fairness, liberty, authority.
