Moral Philosophy is Alchemy

Sam Harris Isn't Pasta Man

In The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, Sam Harris makes the argument that we have a double standard at play. In science we don’t take cultural preferences and personal opinions as support for the validity of claims. Good science is good science. At a physics conference, we don’t feel the need to take all conceptions of physics seriously. If someone came along who had pasta physics, where all their claims within physics are brought back to their relation to pasta. This person would have no place at a modern physics conference. We would feel in no way compromised in our conception of physics because this man over here has pasta physics. “What are we to do? He thinks physics is pasta. Who are we to say otherwise?” And yet, this is exactly what we do with morality. Thus, the double standard. If someone walks in and has their own conception of morality, with a litany of historical justifications, we feel as though the whole enterprise of moral truth is comprised. Who are we to say what’s right and wrong? Johnny over here likes torturing turtles. His grandpa liked torturing turtles too. Imagine that. And his whole village believes its right to do so. They think we should all just maximize the number of tortured turtles in this universe. Who are we to say otherwise? Clearly morality is just a social construct.

Academic philosophy quips, “that’s a false equivalence. Morality isn’t a science.” To which Sam’s book replies, “that’s a false premise.”

During a 2024 conversation on the Alex O’Connor podcast, Sam was questioned about his book’s conclusions. He was asked, that given how the philosophical community has responded to his book, who is the one walking into the conference? It certainly seems as though Sam is the one walking in with pasta physics. But things aren’t what they seem. Harris clarifies that the argument he was making wasn’t that truth is a matter of consensus. It’s possible for everyone to be wrong. It’s possible for no one to knows what they’re missing.

It’s not that the conference possesses truth because they have the majority. Pasta physics man isn’t wrong because he’s alone in his beliefs. The point is that we assess the truth of claims by the values of good science and sound reasoning. Good science passes the standards that we require of it. People who have their own conceptions are fine to do so, but the validity of their claims will stand or fall on their own merits. They will need to pass the same standards that we require of all others. Are the results replicable? How much data are we working with? Are the variants accounted for? How does the data change with the control of each variant? Has this undergone exhaustive peer review? And so on. We have a process. In morality we have failed to establish such standards. This pervasive moral confusion is all due to humanities failure to see something. That something, is the science of morality. This whole time, we didn’t know what we were missing. Turns out, we were missing something rather important.

Sam Harris isn’t pasta man. He’s one of the early chemists, and he’s walking into an alchemy conference. As we’ve seen, the alchemists aren’t too happy about it. The science of morality introduced in the The Moral Landscape is correct. It provides the missing piece in the consequentialist puzzle. It answered all the utilitarian riddles. The alchemists will cling to their sentiments and fantasies for as long as they can. They’ll grapple to maintain their position. Fight all they might, it’ll make no difference. The days of alchemy are numbered. Alchemists will linger for the better part of the next century, burning every chemist at the stake. They’ll laugh among themselves about how the chemists are ignorant of this or that rune. How the chemists know nothing of the lore behind the countless schools of alchemy. All the while, the chemists will be making tangible progress. The alchemists will jest to quell their fear. They’re terrified that their learnings of recipes and potions will be meaningless. They want their knowledge of histories and ancient tombs to be worth something. Well, it can be worth something. But only to the extent to which it meets the standards of good science. The rest will enter the pages of history, along side humanities other misadventures.

“Another false equivalence.” The academic philosopher sighs. “Chemists aren’t alchemists. And they don’t claim to be providing truths of alchemy. Sam Harris is a moral theorist claiming to be providing truths of morality.”

Alright then. Let’s take this analogy home. The science of chemistry is what alchemy always thought it was but failed to be. Chemistry achieves the same ends that alchemy aspired towards, but only to the extent to which reality permits. The truths of chemistry are what accounted for all successful alchemy, without exception. Analogously, the truths of the moral landscape are what accounted for all successful moral philosophy, without variants. Morality has long been maltreated and misused by the misguided. The term alchemy wasn’t worth battling over. That region of the map is diseased with superstition. The sciences gladly relinquished that land without a fight. This time, they won’t be so generous. Morality is the correct term to capture the phenomenon. The war of ideas will be fought on this ground.

Philosophy losing land to science is nothing new. Every scientific field we now harvest was once within the kingdom of philosophy. Physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology, all of it. The nature of mind was one of the more recent provinces lost to science. It has now splintered into the domains of psychology, psychiatry, and neuroscience. Morality is the next state to fall. This region is worth all the rest. For the ore within its earth is the substance of value itself. Few citizens of philosophy know of its existence. Those who are aware, know not how to mine it. For the extraction of this ore requires the tools of another kingdom.

Institutions will lag in their adoption of the moral science. Society at large is not primed for the transition. Cowardice disguised as prudence will lead universities to refrain from the recognition of this truth. They will fear the social and economic consequences that would follow a public acknowledgment. Lone individuals and quiet collectives will do the work that institutions dare not. Organizations have lost their spine, and cannot bear the weight of public scrutiny. It will be on the shoulders of concealed pioneers that the science of morality will progress. Until society is ready for moral science to be done in open air, it will remain disguised as works of alternate purpose.

Much work awaits. Establishing chemistry as a scientific discipline doesn’t therefore provide the world with the findings of chemistry. The science still needs to be done. But the transition has begun. There’s no going back from here. The winds have shifted.

There is a reality of morality. All the rest is just misguided. Just alchemy. Let’s talk chemistry.