The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values
by Sam Harris
Rating: 2.0 / 5 · Read · Finished 2025-12-19
Quick summary: The political right has moral objectivity based on scripture. The left has moral relativism. Harris says we should have moral objectivity based on well being of conscious beings. The moral landscape is an objective function. Peaks are well being. Valleys are suffering. Just as people can be wrong about facts, they can be wrong about values. He basically says that well being is differentiable. Which means it can be optimized. And that is morality.
Well-being is not well-defined, but neither is health, and yet we try to improve health.
My biggest gripe with his argument is that he either seems to be arguing something super obvious, or un-defendable. I’m not sure which. He says he doesn’t need to define well-being, and that in principle it can be optimized, even if we don’t know how. Well-being seems to be anything good, so you can’t argue against it, but it also doesn’t tell you much. And if it can be maximized in principle, but not practically, then what’s the point? I can only assume he means we should try to improve the human condition, which everyone can agree with. But is that all he’s saying?
I’m also a little annoyed that he reduces everything to well-being. He criticizes Moral Foundations Theory by saying each of the foundations is really just well-being. Victims of unfairness have their well-being reduced. Perpetrators of unfairness feel guilty and miss out on more satisfying lives. What is the point of this unifying theory? It’s games with words.
He compares Jonathan Haidt’s “emotional morality” to logical fallacies like the Monty hall problem. He quotes Haidt about people valuing purity, and concludes those people are just wrong. I think what Sam Harris is missing is that sometimes you have to throw out logic to live a good life. Sometimes the logical thing is the suppress logic. Later on, he admits that sometimes doing the irrational thing is rational for maximizing happiness (e.g. limiting our own choices so we feel better about our decision) but also condemns religion because it is irrational, even though religion is shown to be a huge boost for well being. Maybe this is not a critique of his argument, since he doesn’t assert he knows how to maximize well being. But again, what is the point of what is he saying, if he has nothing to say about how to live?
The book is very repetitive. I skimmed a lot near the end.
At the end of the book, He finally admits to a definition of well being. “People tend to be happier if they have good friends, basic control over their lives, and enough money to meet their needs. Loneliness, helplessness and poverty are not recommended.”
Interesting bit:
There was a study that showed conservatives would sacrifice one life to save 100, regardless of race but liberals were less likely to sacrifice non whites. And denied that race affected their thinking. Reminds me of LLMs controversy. And how LLMs don’t faithfully report their motivations.