dear dr. Harris please forgive me and
this goes for whatever audience this
video might attract for reading this but
I need to make this quick and coherent
and this is the fastest way of doing so
I want you to address some of the issues
that I believe made our discussion both
more trying and less valuable that
might've been a problem that many of the
people who now listen to it rightly
identify I think that our discussion
would perhaps be more productive if we
started from the realization that we're
both trying to address the same problem
what is the relationship between science
and ethics you see as X has nested
inside scientific realism now obviously
that's a contentious claim which is not
the same as it being wrong but the fact
that it's contentious read David Hume
and his problem with deriving a naught
from an is means that there is a real
problem there I see a scientific rate
realism is nested inside Darwinian
competition at least potentially not
necessarily I could be wrong but I am
trying to address the real problem and I
think the fact that you're addressing
the science / ethics problem indicates
that you see that there's a real problem
there - I also think we only got to the
problems with my formulation not the
problems with your solution for example
the problem with measuring well-being
you consider the enhancement of
well-being the proper aim of ethics
however the psychological measures of
well-being currently used are almost
only trait extraversion - trait
neuroticism that's happiness - sadness
well that's how well-being is currently
defined well that proposition is faulty
in every way it's a big problem it's a
measurement problem it's a scientific
realism problem you might say well we
need better measures of well-being and I
would say well exactly and those will
have to be nested inside the Darwinian
conundrum how should we act in the
world here's an answer individually so
that the family tries at the family
level so that society thrives at the
societal level so that the ecosystem
thrives and not just today tomorrow next
week next year and across time that's
the problem the developmental
psychologist Jean Piaget was trying to
address when he studied this moral
development of children Piaget was
interested in solving the problem of the
relationship between science and ethics
and he looked how he looked at how
ethics and children emerged and
transformed into adulthood that's what
drove his entire life he was trying to
formulate a scientific solution to the
problem of ethics and I've drawn a lot
of my thinking from that now I'm going
to jump to a level of analysis and what
I do so it will make many think I've
gone off the rails of this argument I
ask for your indulgence while I try to
put things together that have not yet
been put together this means that I have
to present many ideas simultaneously as
if looking at a picture or as if
describing a picture which is how these
ideas have frequently been represented
the individual who acts in this
equilibrate admirer is the mythological
hero
it's the mythological hero who confronts
the attention the unknown with attention
and intent to communicate it's the
archetypal hero who obtains the gold
from the eternal dragon the dragon of
chaos that's an evolved representation
of the predatory but promising domain
beyond the safety of the tree or the
campfire
it's the archetypal hero who distributes
the gold that he that he obtains from
the dragon to the community it's him who
rescues the useful virgin from the
predatory reptile that's st. George it's
the oldest story we know it's in the
ánewá elihss the Mesopotamian creation
myth upon which the opening lines of
Genesis are founded can you see an
evolutionary relationship that's the
archetypal hero at first a way of
behaving
second it's a representation of that way
of behaving third it's a way of
organizing society itself around that
action and representation fourth
it's that society that then selects
through masculine competition for the
best contender to that representation
and finally it's what is selected for by
women who peel off the top of the
masculine competition women outsource
the impossible cognitive task of mate
selection to the male dominance
hierarchy a hero emerges at the top of
the competition he gets all the girls
it's not what they thought which is
selected for and he human females
perform part of the selection process
their mother nature the selection
apparatus the choosey mater's that
female chimps are not the archetypal
hero might be regarded as a super meme
in Richard Dawkins terminology it's been
around so long that we have adapted
biologically to its existence just as we
have adapted in every way to the
presence of the 300 million year old
dominance hierarchy which is more
permanent more real even from a strictly
realist perspective than such evanescent
phenomena as M fib Ian's reptiles and
mammals it's even older than trees the
closer you are to that archetypal hero
the more likely you are at least as a
male to win the dominant hierarchy
contest that makes you attractive to
women
if Richard Dawkins who formulated the
idea of the meme was wiser he would have
been Carl Jung an archetype is the
ultimate meme in my opinion we need to
have a real conversation not an argument
it's not that I think you're wrong and
said I think that there's a real problem
here which we both recognize and are
both trying to solve if none of this
makes even the least bit of sense if it
doesn't at least pique your curiosity
you can't see that we're obsessed by the
same problem then we won't be able to
talk and that would be a shame you
are very sharp and precise I think in
patterns
somebody said listening to us would like
the right hemisphere of a single brain
talking to the left that's a good
metaphor there wouldn't be so many
people trying to get us to talk if we
didn't have something to discuss the
relationship between science and ethics
is vitally important if we had a real
conversation and no fault is implied on
your part we might be able to further
the solution to the problem thanks for
listening and watching