People have known for thousands of years that meditation offers tremendous relief. Some say that what it offers goes beyond mere relief. Some say that meditation is a path to infinite and eternal bliss. Besides various different possibilities on the subjective side, interpretations of what occurs physiologically, neurologically and cosmologically through meditation also vary. One model that would be plausible for the atheist or agnostic would be the idea that meditation is made possible by an accident in the shaping of the brain through evolution. The theory would be that evolution accidentally left a door through which a human being, by directing his attention in a certain way, can escape for more or less prolonged periods from the sense of self and the suffering it entails (the idea will be further explained a little later).
Between here and the heading “4. what do right and wrong actually consist of . . .,” I have sometimes paused to explain, in red, the significance that the immediately-preceding text has for the sequence of logic. By reading only the below red sentences A through I, a reader will get a clear outline of the argument in this portion of the article.
Objective Moral Truth
Whatever one’s views of what occurs physiologically and neurologically, or one’s metaphysical views of what happens cosmologically (that is, whether we speculate about meditative experiences in the way that materialists do, as purely the functions of neurons, or in the way that spiritualists do, as a deepened apprehension of a non-material soul, or communion with a non-material higher power), those who have experienced the deep peace of meditation usually consider transcendent experience (or some final culmination thereof) to be the highest good possible for humans (“good” in the sense of “benefit” – the highest good being the most positive human experience).[1] And the experience of the highest good is an empirical and measurable (at least theoretically measurable) standard. Moreover, those people accept that some meditative technique or other is the best means of attaining such experience. A step that follows from that is to ask what auxiliary behaviors can create the most conducive conditions for progress in meditation – what behaviors, what lifestyle choices, in terms of diet, hygiene, exercise – and in terms of morality? I think we can identify certain moral principles, adherence to which will best lead us to transcendent experience – that is, they will lead at least the individuals who practice them to transcendent experience. There can be broad agreement that if a moral principle leads a person to the highest good possible for any human being, sustained over a sufficient amount of that person’s life (without somehow simultaneously doing an amount of harm proportional to the good that will result), that moral principle can reasonably be defined as an objectively-correct moral principle, and there is such a thing as objective moral truth. The consensus will be even stronger if that moral principle not only leads its adherent to the highest good, but also leads to many attaining that highest good. (Further defense of this “broad agreement” idea later.)
A. So objectively-correct moral principles can exist, and if a principle that can lead toward transcendent experience for anyone (without somehow simultaneously doing an amount of harm commensurate to the good that will result) does exist, it is an example of an objectively-correct moral principle.
What I will try to do in this article: Positing transcendent experience as the highest human good, the idea that IF a moral principle can lead to such experience, especially for a sufficient number of people, it can be defined as an objectively-correct moral principle, and there is such a thing as objective moral truth, has been defended above by “broad agreement,” and will be further defended later. I aim to show now that objective morality does exist; show that an objective moral principle can be identified by a correct moral intuition, and that such intuitions do exist; provide at least one example of such an objective moral principle; and discuss what a correct moral intuition is ontologically.
(In thinking about transcendent experience as the highest good possible for humans, we should not make what atheist meditation teacher Sam Harris calls “one of two mistakes”: “Scientists generally start with an impoverished view of spiritual experience, assuming that it must be a grandiose way of describing ordinary states of mind—parental love, artistic inspiration, awe at the beauty of the night sky.”[2])
The personal good of some individuals cannot be the absolute highest good, objectively the highest good of all, so though a moral principle that leads toward transcendent experience for any individual is an example of an objectively-correct moral principle, its correctness is not as strongly established as a principle which, if any individual adheres to it, will lead toward transcendent experience for many.
However, it turns out that attaining that highest good of transcendent experience for oneself positions one to help others also attain that highest good, and in most cases if not all, those who have attained it will go on to help others attain it (and to some extent will automatically help others simply by their example of having attained it using particular methods). Thus if adherence by an individual to a certain moral principle will lead that individual to transcendent experience (without somehow simultaneously doing an amount of harm commensurate to the good that will result), that will be an example not only of an objectively-correct moral principle, but of one of those objectively-correct moral principles whose correctness is most strongly established.
B. Those who have attained transcendent experience will likely go on to help others attain it, so if a principle that can lead toward transcendent experience for anyone (without somehow simultaneously doing an amount of harm commensurate to the good that will result) does exist, it will be an example not only of an objectively-correct moral principle, but of one of those objectively-correct moral principles whose correctness is most strongly established.
One way to know whether any such moral principles do exist is to identify one or more of them. One way to identify such a moral principle is if we have tried living any principle and have observed the results. But it would be better if we can identify such a principle in advance of trying it out. And if we can in any way identify such a principle, that principle will be priceless for us because it will help us attain transcendent experience; and moreover identifying that one principle will also establish that in fact there do exist moral principles that qualify as objectively-correct moral principles.
Let’s ask a number of related questions together:
1. Can we identify such principles in advance (that is, other than by trying them out), and if so, how?
2. If they are identified in advance by correct moral intuitions, how did those intuitions originate, how to explain their existence?
3. How can one explain the efficacy of those particular objectively-correct principles that lead to transcendent experience – how do they do that?
4. What do right and wrong, the presumed freight carried by those principles, actually consist of – what are they metaphysically or ontologically?
My answers to questions 1-3 will be closely related to each other, and my answers to 2 and 3 will be so intertwined that I will take those questions together.
1. Can we identify such principles in advance (that is, other than by trying them out), and if so, how?
Above I tried to show that we can arrive at a yes answer to “can we identify such principles in advance?,” and that regarding “how?,” we can do it with certain reasoning beginning with “those who have experienced the deep peace of meditation. . . . the highest good possible . . .” In other words, through certain reasoned criteria we can identify such principles in advance.
Moral Intuitions: But I subscribe to an intuitionist view and think that ultimately, correct moral principles of any kind (not only leading to transcendent experience) can be known only through correct moral intuitions (at the link, see especially Appendix B). An example of a moral intuition, soon to be discussed, is a feeling supporting the principle “You ought to serve others at the cost of X degree of hardship for yourself.” “Right” and “wrong” are feelings, and reasoning, rational argumentation, is not a vehicle that can carry feeling. A moral intuition, correct or incorrect, is a pre-logical and pre-verbal sense of right or wrong that comes out of our unconscious, as a form of qualia, in some way we cannot understand. When we experience a feeling supporting a principle such as “You ought to serve others at the cost of X degree of hardship for yourself,” we certainly can’t fully understand the origin introspectively, and the world can’t yet understand it neurologically. Our unconsciouses were likely influenced by the rational arguments we have heard, but ultimately we don’t know what shaped or influenced our unconsciouses.
C. Objectively-correct moral principles do in fact exist if we can identify some of them, and we would be able to come close to identifying some through some reasoned criteria that I have given, but as I have explained, ultimately we would be able to identify them only through correct moral intuitions.
2. If they are identified in advance by correct moral intuitions, how did those intuitions originate, how to explain their existence?
3. How can one explain the efficacy of those particular objectively-correct principles that lead toward transcendent experience – how do they do that?
I think that the roots of moral intuitions are inborn. Psychology researcher Paul Bloom, author of Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, said in an interview[3] that while some moral ideals “are the product of culture and society” and “not in the genes,” “there also exist hardwired moral universals – moral principles that we all possess. And even those aspects of morality . . . that vary across cultures are ultimately grounded in these moral foundations.” Even if Bloom overestimates the role of the genes in the “hardwired” moral senses, and underestimates the role of culture in those moral senses, and overestimates how universal those moral senses are across cultures, it would be safe to say that most of us do have senses of right or wrong that come out of our unconsciouses in ways we cannot understand. Those senses are also sometimes called moral intuitions, or simply a conscience. And as Bloom shows, the principles identified by those moral intuitions are often altruistic in nature. After a little more discussion, we will consider whether altruistic moral principles can lead one toward transcendent experience.
D. There are good scientific reasons to think that moral intuitions (including any that support objectively-correct principles) are inborn and include some that support altruistic moral principles. We should consider whether inborn altruistic moral principles can lead one toward transcendent experience.
The most obvious explanation for any universally-inborn moral intuitions of any kind would be Neo-Darwinian: that such intuitions are, or at one time were, of value in humans’ survival, or more specifically are or were of value in certain individuals’ propagating their genes (propagating all their genes, not only those behind all kinds of intuitions). Evolutionary success alone might not mean the success of any persons other than one’s own descendants, but in fact as we have seen our inborn intuitions often identify principles that are altruistic in nature. Yet Bloom only seems to argue for altruistic principles or any principles that might promote the mere survival of others, and does not discuss the possibility of principles aimed at what I have called “the highest good possible for humans,” transcendent experience. I think our inborn moral intuitions of all kinds are indeed of value in humans’ survival, and it seems that some of them support principles that are altruistic in nature, but are there any intuitions that are also of value in the maximization of transcendent experience? Inborn intuitions programmed in us by some Neo-Darwinist process might largely answer the questions “how can we identify in advance principles that will lead us to live longer, more fertile lives” and “how did those intuitions originate,” but what about the questions “how can we identify in advance principles that will lead us to transcendent experience” and “how did those intuitions originate?”
Anything that contributes to our survival also helps facilitate, of course, an experience for which survival is a prerequisite. But do some inborn moral intuitions identify principles that in other ways also lead us to transcendent experience? I think the answer is yes. I think, as mentioned, that we have inborn moral intuitions that tell us to adopt various moral principles (however we interpret metaphysically the origin of those intuitions). Since the intuitions exhort us like that, we have to follow those principles to get peace of mind, and more importantly, some of those principles, the altruistic ones (for instance, “You ought to serve others at the cost of X degree of hardship for yourself”), force us to experiment with selfless actions. We may initially follow such principles only to get peace from our nagging consciences, but then by following the principles we learn about the further peace that comes from forgetting to worry about ourselves. That lesson reinforces our intuitions about the principles, but not only that – that newfound calming of the choppy waters on the surfaces of our minds results in our seeing deeper into that “lake” than we had been able to before. As we lose identification with our normal mental ongoings and the “choppiness” they cause, that detachment enables us to see those thoughts, emotions, and perceptions (including our sense of self) as objects that are not really what we are. And then automatically we will want to lose even further our identification with those objects, and we will begin to learn to orient our minds, point our attention, in ways that will further that project – even if we have no meditation teacher. In other words, people discovered – maybe partly through following altruistic principles that evolution may not have given us for that reason – that somehow they could escape from their evolution-given sense of self, and discovered that an auxiliary behavior to earn that highest good was, unavoidably, putting others first.
It is well-known that worrying about oneself makes one unhappy, while self-forgetfulness constitutes a liberation from those worries. As the abstract of a 2008 psychology study said,
. . . we hypothesized that spending money on other people may have a more positive impact on happiness than spending money on oneself. Providing converging evidence for this hypothesis, we found that spending more of one’s income on others predicted greater happiness both cross-sectionally (in a nationally representative survey study) and longitudinally (in a field study of windfall spending). Finally, participants who were randomly assigned to spend money on others experienced greater happiness than those assigned to spend money on themselves.[4]
We so often hear, correctly, that the main recipe for happiness in life is to lose oneself in a greater cause.
So self-sacrifice leads toward transcendent experience. And it’s reasonable to think transcendent experience, even if humans first only stumbled across it, is evolutionarily adaptive (in terms of natural selection operating at the group level, which we will get to), primarily because it serves as a reward for altruistic behavior, whose value Darwin defended, and perhaps secondarily because of the presence of beatific individuals in the society, offering moral guidance oriented toward altruism.
Researcher Bloom opens his book with:
a writer living in Dallas heard that an acquaintance of hers was suffering from kidney disease. . . . Virginia Postrel . . . flew to Washington, D.C., and had her right kidney transplanted into Sally’s body. . . Virginia and Sally were not even close friends. . . . while I admit that I retain both of my kidneys, I have sacrificed to help others and taken risks for causes that I felt were right. In all of these regards, I am perfectly typical.[5]
But were those moral intuitions inborn? In Bloom’s experiments, three-month-old babies, for instance (too young, he suggests, to have learned the attitudes from their parents), show a preference for a cartoon character who is serviceful (and automatically to an extent sacrificing) over one who hinders.[6] For myself, I have had such intuitions for as long as I can remember, coming out of my unconscious in some way I could not understand – even if I have often not been good at listening to them. There is a very good basis for believing that many or all of us are born already with the seeds, for instance, of “You ought to serve others at the cost of X degree of hardship for yourself.”
So we are likely indeed to have intuitions and genes for self-sacrifice that will lead us to seek and eventually find transcendent experience, which is the highest good, the grounding for an objectively-correct moral principle.
E. So since scientific research indicates that we can identify in the best way – correct intuitions, better than reasoning – moral principles that lead one to the highest good, we have established that there are in fact such principles. And such principles are objectively-correct moral principles. Objectively-correct moral principles do in fact exist.
[1] http://interfaithradio.org/Story_Details/Sam_Harris__The_Full_Interview 01:06: “Spirituality really relates to the far end, the far positive end, of the continuum of human experience, so the deepest states of well-being, personally or collectively, that we can experience. I think that the project of finding out what those are and how to access them can be called spirituality. So we’re talking about experiences like self-transcendence, unconditional love, etc. Bliss, rapture . . .”
[2] Sam Harris, Waking Up, first chapter.
[3] https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-roots-of-good-and-evil
[4] Science 21 March 2008: Vol. 319 no. 5870 pp. 1687-1688. DOI: 10.1126/science.1150952. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5870/1687
[5] Paul Bloom, Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil (Broadway Books, 2013), p. 1.
[6] Ibid., p. 26.
Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash
The Objective Morality of Transcendent Experience Part 1
Acyutananda
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The Objective Morality of Transcendent Experience Part 2
The Objective Morality of Transcendent Experience Part 1
People have known for thousands of years that meditation offers tremendous relief. Some say that what it offers goes beyond mere relief. Some say that meditation is a path to infinite and eternal bliss. Besides various different possibilities on the subjective side, interpretations of what occurs physiologically, neurologically and cosmologically through meditation also vary. One model that would be plausible for the atheist or agnostic would be the idea that meditation is made possible by an accident in the shaping of the brain through evolution. The theory would be that evolution accidentally left a door through which a human being, by directing his attention in a certain way, can escape for more or less prolonged periods from the sense of self and the suffering it entails (the idea will be further explained a little later).
Between here and the heading “4. what do right and wrong actually consist of . . .,” I have sometimes paused to explain, in red, the significance that the immediately-preceding text has for the sequence of logic. By reading only the below red sentences A through I, a reader will get a clear outline of the argument in this portion of the article.
Objective Moral Truth
Whatever one’s views of what occurs physiologically and neurologically, or one’s metaphysical views of what happens cosmologically (that is, whether we speculate about meditative experiences in the way that materialists do, as purely the functions of neurons, or in the way that spiritualists do, as a deepened apprehension of a non-material soul, or communion with a non-material higher power), those who have experienced the deep peace of meditation usually consider transcendent experience (or some final culmination thereof) to be the highest good possible for humans (“good” in the sense of “benefit” – the highest good being the most positive human experience).[1] And the experience of the highest good is an empirical and measurable (at least theoretically measurable) standard. Moreover, those people accept that some meditative technique or other is the best means of attaining such experience. A step that follows from that is to ask what auxiliary behaviors can create the most conducive conditions for progress in meditation – what behaviors, what lifestyle choices, in terms of diet, hygiene, exercise – and in terms of morality? I think we can identify certain moral principles, adherence to which will best lead us to transcendent experience – that is, they will lead at least the individuals who practice them to transcendent experience. There can be broad agreement that if a moral principle leads a person to the highest good possible for any human being, sustained over a sufficient amount of that person’s life (without somehow simultaneously doing an amount of harm proportional to the good that will result), that moral principle can reasonably be defined as an objectively-correct moral principle, and there is such a thing as objective moral truth. The consensus will be even stronger if that moral principle not only leads its adherent to the highest good, but also leads to many attaining that highest good. (Further defense of this “broad agreement” idea later.)
A. So objectively-correct moral principles can exist, and if a principle that can lead toward transcendent experience for anyone (without somehow simultaneously doing an amount of harm commensurate to the good that will result) does exist, it is an example of an objectively-correct moral principle.
What I will try to do in this article: Positing transcendent experience as the highest human good, the idea that IF a moral principle can lead to such experience, especially for a sufficient number of people, it can be defined as an objectively-correct moral principle, and there is such a thing as objective moral truth, has been defended above by “broad agreement,” and will be further defended later. I aim to show now that objective morality does exist; show that an objective moral principle can be identified by a correct moral intuition, and that such intuitions do exist; provide at least one example of such an objective moral principle; and discuss what a correct moral intuition is ontologically.
(In thinking about transcendent experience as the highest good possible for humans, we should not make what atheist meditation teacher Sam Harris calls “one of two mistakes”: “Scientists generally start with an impoverished view of spiritual experience, assuming that it must be a grandiose way of describing ordinary states of mind—parental love, artistic inspiration, awe at the beauty of the night sky.”[2])
The personal good of some individuals cannot be the absolute highest good, objectively the highest good of all, so though a moral principle that leads toward transcendent experience for any individual is an example of an objectively-correct moral principle, its correctness is not as strongly established as a principle which, if any individual adheres to it, will lead toward transcendent experience for many.
However, it turns out that attaining that highest good of transcendent experience for oneself positions one to help others also attain that highest good, and in most cases if not all, those who have attained it will go on to help others attain it (and to some extent will automatically help others simply by their example of having attained it using particular methods). Thus if adherence by an individual to a certain moral principle will lead that individual to transcendent experience (without somehow simultaneously doing an amount of harm commensurate to the good that will result), that will be an example not only of an objectively-correct moral principle, but of one of those objectively-correct moral principles whose correctness is most strongly established.
B. Those who have attained transcendent experience will likely go on to help others attain it, so if a principle that can lead toward transcendent experience for anyone (without somehow simultaneously doing an amount of harm commensurate to the good that will result) does exist, it will be an example not only of an objectively-correct moral principle, but of one of those objectively-correct moral principles whose correctness is most strongly established.
One way to know whether any such moral principles do exist is to identify one or more of them. One way to identify such a moral principle is if we have tried living any principle and have observed the results. But it would be better if we can identify such a principle in advance of trying it out. And if we can in any way identify such a principle, that principle will be priceless for us because it will help us attain transcendent experience; and moreover identifying that one principle will also establish that in fact there do exist moral principles that qualify as objectively-correct moral principles.
Let’s ask a number of related questions together:
1. Can we identify such principles in advance (that is, other than by trying them out), and if so, how?
2. If they are identified in advance by correct moral intuitions, how did those intuitions originate, how to explain their existence?
3. How can one explain the efficacy of those particular objectively-correct principles that lead to transcendent experience – how do they do that?
4. What do right and wrong, the presumed freight carried by those principles, actually consist of – what are they metaphysically or ontologically?
My answers to questions 1-3 will be closely related to each other, and my answers to 2 and 3 will be so intertwined that I will take those questions together.
1. Can we identify such principles in advance (that is, other than by trying them out), and if so, how?
Above I tried to show that we can arrive at a yes answer to “can we identify such principles in advance?,” and that regarding “how?,” we can do it with certain reasoning beginning with “those who have experienced the deep peace of meditation. . . . the highest good possible . . .” In other words, through certain reasoned criteria we can identify such principles in advance.
Moral Intuitions: But I subscribe to an intuitionist view and think that ultimately, correct moral principles of any kind (not only leading to transcendent experience) can be known only through correct moral intuitions (at the link, see especially Appendix B). An example of a moral intuition, soon to be discussed, is a feeling supporting the principle “You ought to serve others at the cost of X degree of hardship for yourself.” “Right” and “wrong” are feelings, and reasoning, rational argumentation, is not a vehicle that can carry feeling. A moral intuition, correct or incorrect, is a pre-logical and pre-verbal sense of right or wrong that comes out of our unconscious, as a form of qualia, in some way we cannot understand. When we experience a feeling supporting a principle such as “You ought to serve others at the cost of X degree of hardship for yourself,” we certainly can’t fully understand the origin introspectively, and the world can’t yet understand it neurologically. Our unconsciouses were likely influenced by the rational arguments we have heard, but ultimately we don’t know what shaped or influenced our unconsciouses.
C. Objectively-correct moral principles do in fact exist if we can identify some of them, and we would be able to come close to identifying some through some reasoned criteria that I have given, but as I have explained, ultimately we would be able to identify them only through correct moral intuitions.
2. If they are identified in advance by correct moral intuitions, how did those intuitions originate, how to explain their existence?
3. How can one explain the efficacy of those particular objectively-correct principles that lead toward transcendent experience – how do they do that?
I think that the roots of moral intuitions are inborn. Psychology researcher Paul Bloom, author of Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil, said in an interview[3] that while some moral ideals “are the product of culture and society” and “not in the genes,” “there also exist hardwired moral universals – moral principles that we all possess. And even those aspects of morality . . . that vary across cultures are ultimately grounded in these moral foundations.” Even if Bloom overestimates the role of the genes in the “hardwired” moral senses, and underestimates the role of culture in those moral senses, and overestimates how universal those moral senses are across cultures, it would be safe to say that most of us do have senses of right or wrong that come out of our unconsciouses in ways we cannot understand. Those senses are also sometimes called moral intuitions, or simply a conscience. And as Bloom shows, the principles identified by those moral intuitions are often altruistic in nature. After a little more discussion, we will consider whether altruistic moral principles can lead one toward transcendent experience.
D. There are good scientific reasons to think that moral intuitions (including any that support objectively-correct principles) are inborn and include some that support altruistic moral principles. We should consider whether inborn altruistic moral principles can lead one toward transcendent experience.
The most obvious explanation for any universally-inborn moral intuitions of any kind would be Neo-Darwinian: that such intuitions are, or at one time were, of value in humans’ survival, or more specifically are or were of value in certain individuals’ propagating their genes (propagating all their genes, not only those behind all kinds of intuitions). Evolutionary success alone might not mean the success of any persons other than one’s own descendants, but in fact as we have seen our inborn intuitions often identify principles that are altruistic in nature. Yet Bloom only seems to argue for altruistic principles or any principles that might promote the mere survival of others, and does not discuss the possibility of principles aimed at what I have called “the highest good possible for humans,” transcendent experience. I think our inborn moral intuitions of all kinds are indeed of value in humans’ survival, and it seems that some of them support principles that are altruistic in nature, but are there any intuitions that are also of value in the maximization of transcendent experience? Inborn intuitions programmed in us by some Neo-Darwinist process might largely answer the questions “how can we identify in advance principles that will lead us to live longer, more fertile lives” and “how did those intuitions originate,” but what about the questions “how can we identify in advance principles that will lead us to transcendent experience” and “how did those intuitions originate?”
Anything that contributes to our survival also helps facilitate, of course, an experience for which survival is a prerequisite. But do some inborn moral intuitions identify principles that in other ways also lead us to transcendent experience? I think the answer is yes. I think, as mentioned, that we have inborn moral intuitions that tell us to adopt various moral principles (however we interpret metaphysically the origin of those intuitions). Since the intuitions exhort us like that, we have to follow those principles to get peace of mind, and more importantly, some of those principles, the altruistic ones (for instance, “You ought to serve others at the cost of X degree of hardship for yourself”), force us to experiment with selfless actions. We may initially follow such principles only to get peace from our nagging consciences, but then by following the principles we learn about the further peace that comes from forgetting to worry about ourselves. That lesson reinforces our intuitions about the principles, but not only that – that newfound calming of the choppy waters on the surfaces of our minds results in our seeing deeper into that “lake” than we had been able to before. As we lose identification with our normal mental ongoings and the “choppiness” they cause, that detachment enables us to see those thoughts, emotions, and perceptions (including our sense of self) as objects that are not really what we are. And then automatically we will want to lose even further our identification with those objects, and we will begin to learn to orient our minds, point our attention, in ways that will further that project – even if we have no meditation teacher. In other words, people discovered – maybe partly through following altruistic principles that evolution may not have given us for that reason – that somehow they could escape from their evolution-given sense of self, and discovered that an auxiliary behavior to earn that highest good was, unavoidably, putting others first.
It is well-known that worrying about oneself makes one unhappy, while self-forgetfulness constitutes a liberation from those worries. As the abstract of a 2008 psychology study said,
We so often hear, correctly, that the main recipe for happiness in life is to lose oneself in a greater cause.
So self-sacrifice leads toward transcendent experience. And it’s reasonable to think transcendent experience, even if humans first only stumbled across it, is evolutionarily adaptive (in terms of natural selection operating at the group level, which we will get to), primarily because it serves as a reward for altruistic behavior, whose value Darwin defended, and perhaps secondarily because of the presence of beatific individuals in the society, offering moral guidance oriented toward altruism.
Researcher Bloom opens his book with:
But were those moral intuitions inborn? In Bloom’s experiments, three-month-old babies, for instance (too young, he suggests, to have learned the attitudes from their parents), show a preference for a cartoon character who is serviceful (and automatically to an extent sacrificing) over one who hinders.[6] For myself, I have had such intuitions for as long as I can remember, coming out of my unconscious in some way I could not understand – even if I have often not been good at listening to them. There is a very good basis for believing that many or all of us are born already with the seeds, for instance, of “You ought to serve others at the cost of X degree of hardship for yourself.”
So we are likely indeed to have intuitions and genes for self-sacrifice that will lead us to seek and eventually find transcendent experience, which is the highest good, the grounding for an objectively-correct moral principle.
E. So since scientific research indicates that we can identify in the best way – correct intuitions, better than reasoning – moral principles that lead one to the highest good, we have established that there are in fact such principles. And such principles are objectively-correct moral principles. Objectively-correct moral principles do in fact exist.
[1] http://interfaithradio.org/Story_Details/Sam_Harris__The_Full_Interview 01:06: “Spirituality really relates to the far end, the far positive end, of the continuum of human experience, so the deepest states of well-being, personally or collectively, that we can experience. I think that the project of finding out what those are and how to access them can be called spirituality. So we’re talking about experiences like self-transcendence, unconditional love, etc. Bliss, rapture . . .”
[2] Sam Harris, Waking Up, first chapter.
[3] https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-roots-of-good-and-evil
[4] Science 21 March 2008: Vol. 319 no. 5870 pp. 1687-1688. DOI: 10.1126/science.1150952. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5870/1687
[5] Paul Bloom, Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil (Broadway Books, 2013), p. 1.
[6] Ibid., p. 26.
Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash
Acyutananda
My name is Acyutananda ("c" pronounced as in "ciao"). I am a yoga monk. I believe in the consistent life ethic. My blog is http://www.NoTerminationWithoutRepresentation.org
The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Human Defense Initiative.
Acyutananda
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