Free Will

Continuing with Harris's book (the moral landscape), I have now read the chapter he entitled "good and evil" in which he tackles the issue of free will and accountability - from a scientific perspective rather than a moral law perspective.  He argues that "questions of human well-being run deeper than any explicit code of morality" - the latter which he asserts is a relatively very recent development. He sees a progression from genetic changes in the brain which allowed for increasingly complex interactions which became the basis for cultural norms and laws etc.  He considers that "clearly, morality is shaped by cultural norms to a great degree".

Harris restated his reasons for dismissing revealed religion as a source of moral guidance namely: "there are many revealed religions....and they offer mutually incompatible doctrine; the scriptures of many religions...countenance patently unethical practices like slavery (counter to wellbeing); the faculty we use to validate religious precepts...is something we bring to scripture; and that reasons given for believing 'revealed scripture' are either risible or non-exisitent'.

In this chapter, he uses a number of scenarios and examples of how we judge good and evil and moral accountability - and points to the driving focrces that genetics, upbringing and tumors (for example) can have on the brain (outside of the indiviudal control) that can shape 'evil' behaviour.  He discusses the illusion of free will - while somehow still prescribing to human responsibility and a scientific basis for acting out human values..."our sense of free well presents a compelling mystery - on the one hand it is impossible to make sense of it in casual terms - on the other hand - there is a  powerful subjective sense that we are the authors of our own actions".

Of course, I am only half way through the book - so I shall see how he builds on all of this.  It has been the subject of a number of articles in the New Scientists over recent years - the issue of the mind, and conciousness and free will - and all makes for fascinating discussion and implications.

on with the journey