Making Sense of Foundations of Morality | Episode 3 of The Essential Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, we try to trace morality to its elusive foundations. Throughout the compilation we take a look at Sam’s “Moral Landscape” and his effort to defend an objective path towards moral evaluation.

We begin with the moral philosopher Peter Singer who outlines his famous “shallow pond” analogy and the framework of utilitarianism. We then hear from the moral psychologist Paul Bloom who makes the case against empathy and points out how it is more often a “bug” in our moral software than a “feature.” Later, William MacAskill describes the way a utilitarian philosophy informs his engagement with the Effective Altruism movement.

The moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt then puts pressure on Sam’s emphasis on rationality and objective pathways towards morality by injecting a healthy dose of psychological skepticism into the conversation.

After, we hear a fascinating exchange with the historian Dan Carlin where he and Sam tangle on the fraught issues of cultural relativism.

We end by exploring the intersection of technological innovation and moral progress with the entrepreneur Uma Valeti, whom Sam seeks out when he encounters his own collision with a personal moral failure.

About the Series

Filmmaker Jay Shapiro has produced The Essential Sam Harris, a new series of audio documentaries exploring the major topics that Sam has focused on over the course of his career.

Each episode weaves together original analysis, critical perspective, and novel thought experiments with some of the most compelling exchanges from the Making Sense archive. Whether you are new to a particular topic, or think you have your mind made up about it, we think you’ll find this series fascinating.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're
0:12.1	hearing this, you are not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing
0:16.2	the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense
0:20.7	Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at samharis.org. There you'll find our private RSS feed
0:26.1	to add to your favorite pod catcher, along with other subscriber-only content. We don't run ads
0:31.2	on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.
0:35.8	So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
0:41.9	Welcome to the Essential Sam Harris. This is Making Sense of the Foundations of Morality.
0:57.2	The goal of this series is to organize, compile, and juxtapose conversations hosted by Sam Harris
1:04.0	into specific areas of interest. This is an ongoing effort to construct a coherent overview of
1:09.9	Sam's perspectives and arguments, the various explorations and approaches to the topic,
1:15.9	the relevant agreements and disagreements, and the pushbacks and evolving thoughts which his
1:20.8	guests have advanced. The purpose of these compilations is not to provide a complete picture of
1:27.6	any issue, but to entice you to go deeper into these subjects. Along the way, we'll point you to
1:34.2	the full episodes with each featured guest, and that the conclusion will offer some reading,
1:40.0	listening, and watching suggestions, which range from fun and light to densely academic.
1:47.1	One note to keep in mind for this series. Sam has long argued for a unity of knowledge where
1:53.2	the barriers between fields of study are viewed as largely unhelpful artifacts of unnecessarily
1:58.8	partitioned thought. The pursuit of wisdom and reason in one area of study naturally bleeds into,
2:05.5	and greatly affects others. You'll hear plenty of crossover into other topics as these dives
2:11.7	into the archives unfold, and you're thinking about a particular topic may shift as you realize
2:17.8	its contingent relationships with others. In this topic, you'll hear the natural overlap with
	...

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