Right and Wrong.

Today I watched a debate, or not really a debate as it is more of a discussion in which some people have some different views, entitled Can Science Tell Us Right From Wrong? I would say the main reason I watched this is for social stimulation. This is my tribe doing what my tribe does, try to work out how to make the world better because it is interesting to do so. In the same way that some people get together once a week to play pinochle I like to be around people who think and discuss in this manner. I grew up with this at the dinner table and only through substantial time and experience have I found that this is unusual, and often disturbing and uncomfortable for people.

The people in this discussion, and in the audience, are not a selection of people at random. To a very large extent these people are self-selected to be pre-disposed towards agreement with the statement. The person most antagonistic towards the premise that science can tell us right from wrong is the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge. Such a person is unlikely to state that right and wrong has been eternally the same and given to us by God in a burning bush.

What the conversation really comes down to is what does "right" and "wrong" actually mean? The crux of the matter is whether you believe science can determine what these terms mean. I think the best analogy for morality in this regard is health, and this is brought up by Sam Harris. He says there is not a debate about whether science can determine what is the right or wrong thing to do with regard to health. It is generally accepted that science can determine what is healthy or not. I think this is an excellent point. I think there are some things that everyone can agree are good things morally, for example that the basic physical needs for health are met. I think increased health, decreased fear, decreased pain, increased peace, less stress, more compassion, these are all things that can be generally understood as being right or wrong.

A scientific determination of morality would consist of understanding what people consider good, and then determining what are the most effective ways to achieve goodness. The problem with this is that people are often mistaken about what makes them happier. Science actually does better than the intuition of humans at determining the truth. Intuition says that changes in material situation are largely responsible for happiness, when actually people's happiness is remarkably constant across a lifetime regardless of their material situation. Someone who becomes partially paralyzed is likely to live the rest of their life at a similar level of happiness to before their accident after an adjustment period.

I think what is right and wrong is going to be able to be determined scientifically as a the actions that lead to and away from an underlying biological state. I think that scientists are going to be able to identify a state within the brain that those who experience that state all describe as good. I think that a certain level of various brain chemicals and a certain level of neuron activity in certain places will be considered by those experiencing it as universally good. Further research will be able to determine which actions increase the chances of such a brain state being maintained or approximated for the largest amount of time.

The problem with this situation will probably be that the reported best state in terms of happiness and well being for humanity is not a sustainable state. I think it most likely that a brain state taking on qualities of religious and spiritual insight, the serotonin increase of smoking marijuana, and an increase in opiates in the brain would be universally thought of as a good state to be in by those experiencing it. However, stoned hari krishnas are very bad at maintaining the machinery of society that produces things like science, technology, food and other important attributes of happiness.

So, in terms of the scientific determination of right and wrong I think that it is absolutely capable of determining one version of right and wrong. This is in the same way that science has a method of determining how humans came to exist. I think in the same way that the majority of people in the USA disagree with the scientific explanation of how we came to exist I believe that most people would reject the scientific version of right or wrong. I think in the same way that people don't want to think love is the experience of a certain set of brain chemicals and neurons firing, people don't want to think of the rightness of something being determined by what proportion of chemicals it produces in people's brains.

This sort of science is really in its infancy. It is only very recently that scientists started having the tools, and in many cases the interest, to investigate happiness. I think scientific morality really comes down to how do people become and remain happy. I think science will make enormous strides in this regard over the next few decades. I think in the free market of ideas a scientific method of morality/happiness will out-compete alternative methods of determining morality, but it will take a very long time to do so.