New Atheists Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Wrong on Morality

This video was created by Christian Jackson. Taken from "Tribalism and Family Relationships" with Onkar Ghate, Yaron Brook and Tara Smith

#SamHarris #RicharDawkins #MoralitywithoutGod

[stealingfire]

The Ayn Rand clips at the end are always a nice touch.

[ChuddmasterZero]

Yaron, I am a huge fan of yours. HUGE!
But I believe this is a total mis-characterisation of Dawkins’ and Harris’ views on morality. BOTH of them claim that reason is the foundation of human morality. Evolution is not the mechanism that ‘grants’ morality, evolution is simply the name we give to the rational interaction between organisms and their environment. I would say that evolution is entailed by a wider rational view of the world and an understanding that logic and reason are foundational to the operation of all natural systems.
So I think it is unfair to suggest that Dawkins and Harris attribute the development of morality to anything other than reason. When Dawkins in particular discusses early systems of ‘morality’ that would have emerged within primitive human societies, it is precisely the strength of his reasoning that makes the explanation so compelling.

[kdemetter]

There's a significant misunderstanding here : Richard Dawkins might say we get our sense of morality from evolution.
He doesn't mean by that we should let evolution guide our moral decision making. What he means by that is that we evolved our sense of morality evolutionarily. Just like we've evolved to have capacity for reason.

He's not a biological essentialist ( something isn't good just because evolution made it so) . He does believe in reason as the tool for getting to morality
He's probably still an altruist though : he believes it is good to sacrifice for others.

[wolfheideger]

But Dawkins doesn't believe in objective morality in the sense that 'there exist objective moral facts'. This is a quote from his book, 'River Out of Eden'(1995):



The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference

[Ozzyman]

Morality has always been a stumbling block for theists. They just have no way of explaining why any act can be right or wrong. They have to borrow from simple humanism. An atheist has no such problem.

[rmz]

Interesting how they sound very similar to her in their ideas. It almost sounded like you were saying they were miles apart. Hmmmm

[AleksandarIvanov]

Richard Carrier's argument for objective morality seems pretty solid.
Could you comment on it at some point ?

[fork]

Reason is just one of the many tools. What makes a fireman go inside a burning building to rescue a crying child risking his own life? Self esteem? Self virtue? Reason? Logic? What else other than intrinsic morality?

[oterdverg]

Sam is wrong on morality, yes, but he is right on free will. The argument is simple: Every individual is a product of genes, environment and randomness, factors which the individual didn't choose. Your counterargument, Yaron, if I understand it correctly, is that humans can use reason and that gives them freedom. But the human capacity to reason is also a product of genes, and reasoning skills are better utilized in different environments. So ultimately Sam is right.