“When someone says that science is “in no sense” committed to ontological objectivity, the only reasonable interpretation of this is that it is not committed to ontological objectivity, full stop. “
Yes, he could have been more precise: “science is in no sense *solely* committed to ontological objectivity”
He understands “ontological objectivity” to mean real physical objects that multiple people can experience. To deny that science is concerned with this would be insane.
His punchline is that science can also concern itself with ontological subjectivity - including states of subjective well being. Hence, his science of morals.
This is a simple misunderstanding- why dig in and hold him to a view he demonstrably does not hold and that stems from misspeaking ?
The general structure of Harris’s remark is something like this: “There’s a distinction between X and Y. Science is X, but it isn’t Y.” There is simply no plausible interpretation of such a remark that would result in “Science is Y, but it’s not just Y.” Your interpretation makes little sense. The broader context of the surrounding remarks only reinforce my interpretation, so it isn’t simply a matter of me ignoring the surrounding context.
//He understands “ontological objectivity” to mean real physical objects that multiple people can experience. To deny that science is concerned with this would be insane.//
Harris himself characterized ontological objectivity as concerned with both physical and non-physical things. He then characterizes it as only concerned with physical things. Harris outright contradicted himself. I have not seen you address this claim.
Searle’s distinction between ontological objectivity and subjectivity turns on a distinction between “modes of existence.” One set of things have an “objective” mode of existence: tables, trees, chairs, etc., and others have a “subjective” mode of existence: pains, pleasures, memories, and so on. On Searle’s view, one can have epistemically objective knowledge of ontologically subjective states, and this seems to be what Harris wants to emphasize that we can obtain.
Harris’s way of framing his position on the matter involves a clear statement that science is not committed to ontological objectivity. I agree that that seems like a pretty weird thing for Harris to say, but he said it. I’m happy to grant that he made a mistake here. Actually, two mistakes: he both contradicted himself and then stated something that seems inconsistent with his views, so one should conclude he probably didn’t mean it. But note what I end up saying in section 3.0:
I don’t say “Harris is committed to denying that science is committed to ontology objectivity, and that’s silly.” I say if Harris meant what he seemed to be saying this would cause such internal tensions in his broader views that I’m hesitant to conclude he actually endorsed what he seemed to be endorsing. But, because he contradicts himself and seems to muddle his distinctions so much, it’s hard to tell.
The tl;dr of my critique is that Harris botches all his distinctions so it’s difficult to figure out what his view is.
//This is a simple misunderstanding- why dig in and hold him to a view he demonstrably does not hold and that stems from misspeaking ?//
Do you think Harris misspoke here, then? Your original point seemed to be that Harris had made an ambiguous remark that I had not understood. I have argued that the remark was not ambiguous, and that my interpretation was a reasonable one. If I am correct, then while Harris may not endorse the view that science is not committed to ontological objectivity, that he appears to endorse this would be largely Harris’s fault, not my own. Calling this my confusion, even if you say it’s an understandable one, is not a great way to frame this.
If Harris said somewhere that he thinks “consciousness is in no sense physical” and I interpret this to mean “Harris claims that consciousness is not physical,” it’d be pretty weird to say I was the confused one. In this situation, either Harris does think that, in which case I’d be correct, or he doesn’t, in which case it’s Harris who is confused, and not me.
There is a respect in which I’m not certain of Harris’s actual position is, but I have made it very clear that I am aware of the fact that I’m not sure what Harris’s position is. I attribute this to Harris’s lack of clarity, and not my poor reading comprehension or ignorance of the topic.
His comment is more of the structure: "Ontology can be divided into two categories: things that are ontologically objective (i.e., molecules, plants and animals, planets) and things that are ontologically subjective (i.e., headaches, ecstasy). Science is not committed to ontological objectivity-- in the same way that Donald Trump is not committed to Melania (i.e., we can reason scientifically about both ontologically objective and subjective facts; Donald bangs other women). This meaning is perfectly clear in Sam's podcast: "Science is fully committed to epistemological objectivity. That is, to analyzing evidence and argument without subjective bias. But it is in no sense committed to ontological objectivity. It isn’t **limited to** studying objects, that is, purely physical things and processes."
His entire thesis, in Moral Landscape, is an attempt to convince people that we can reason scientifically about subjective facts. It would be very strange for him to predicate that thesis on the claim that science is unconcerned with ontologically objective facts (molecules, etc.) You are leaning into this uncharitable misreading by insisting that the words, "X is not committed to Y" can never plausibly be interpreted as "X is not exclusively committed to Y", and must instead mean "X utterly eschews Y". But you're wrong even as to this point about word usage. Consider the sentence: "Jim is not committed to vegetarianism". On your interpretation, this could only mean "Jim eschews all vegetables." This makes no sense.
"Harris himself characterized ontological objectivity as concerned with both physical and non-physical things"
Again, you are simply reading uncharitably. He writes:
"Ontology relates to questions about what exists. For instance, is there only one type of stuff in the universe? Are there only physical things, or are there really existent things which are not physical? For instance, do numbers exist beyond their physical representations, and if so, how?"
Admittedly, a more felicitous wording would have been:
"Ontology relates to questions about what exists. For instance, is there only one type of stuff in the universe? Are there only [OBJECTIVE] physical things, or are there really existent things which are not PHYSICALLY INSTANTIATED (i.e. ONTOLOGICALLY SUBJECTIVE THINGS)? For instance, do numbers exist beyond their physical representations, and if so, how?"
Ask yourself, does his argument escape your criticism if you read it as I've suggested? Yes. He's paraphrasing Searle: does your interpretation track with what Searle argues? No. So rather than sneer at a strawman just adhere to the principle of charity and admit you've got this wrong.
You’re right. I did misinterpret Harris. A plausible reading of Harris is that he’s using the term “committed” in the sense of being “exclusively dedicated to.” On this reading, Harris would be saying that science is exclusively dedicated to epistemological objectivity ( as opposed to epistemological subjectivity), but it is not exclusively dedicated to ontological objectivity (since it is concerned with both ontological objectivity and ontological objectivity). In other words, while science is all about epistemological objectivity alone (i.e., approaching things in as unbiased a manner as possible in such a way that we can decisively resolve scientific questions), it is not all about ontological objectivity alone, because it is not only concerned with the study of mountains and tables, but with pain, pleasure, and other states of conscious beings.
I don’t take this to be an obvious or straightforward use of the term “committed,” but it makes more sense than how I was taking his remarks. As such, I was definitely mistaken in claiming that only my interpretation was the correct one.
I will update the original blog post to highlight this error and offer a different line of critique given this more accurate interpretation of Harris’s remarks.
// You are leaning into this uncharitable misreading by insisting that the words, "X is not committed to Y" can never plausibly be interpreted as "X is not exclusively committed to Y", and must instead mean "X utterly eschews Y".//
This is a bit of a misread. It is not my view that it can *never* plausibly mean that; I took it to not mean that *in this case*.
// But you're wrong even as to this point about word usage. //
I'm not wrong about this because I don't think this.
//Ask yourself, does his argument escape your criticism if you read it as I've suggested? Yes. //
It does avoid the problem of what struck me as a contradiction.
Here's a question for how you read Harris: does Harris think that ontologically subjective entities (like pains and pleasures) are non-physical?
//So rather than sneer at a strawman just adhere to the principle of charity and admit you've got this wrong. //
As you can see, I am acknowledging my errors here. It would be nice if you would not characterize me as "sneering." I wrote a very long essay that outlines many problems with Harris's remarks. It's unfortunate my opening remarks were misinterpretations and mistakes, but I do not take myself to be "sneering" at Harris. Please don't try to read tone or attitude into someone's critique when you aren't in a position to know how they feel or what their attitude is.
I credit you, sincerely, on acknowledging your error. As to the 'sneering' charge, I think your tone comes across as quite clearly condescending. Try your tone on from the receiving end. We're agreed that you fundamentally misinterpreted Harris/Searle, and persisted in that misinterpretation through several attempts at clarification, by myself and others. How would you take it if I summarized this as evidence that you 'have notidea what you're talking about", and that your confusion is evidence of "why superficial engagement with academic philosophy won't cut it"?
As far as this: "and persisted in that misinterpretation through several attempts at clarification, by myself and others. "
It can take some effort to recognize a mistake. This does not mean that one is condescending or operating in bad faith (you didn't suggest the latter, but quite a few people on reddit have). I think Harris's way of expressing himself was extremely unclear and that his choice of words was (and it seems you may partially agree) less than ideal. This led me to think Harris was confused in some ways where he doesn't appear to have been confused. This doesn't mean he isn't confused or ill-informed or wrong in the other ways I've outlined.
With respect, you may simply be projecting your assumptions about my tone onto me. A lot of Harris's defenders seem to think his critics are a bunch of disingenuous, hateful, and nasty people. I don't know who you are or what you think about Harris, but I have tried to be as charitable as I could to someone who I think is very confused, very wrong, and a very bad writer and communicator. I do think Harris doesn't know what he's talking about and that his positions make very little sense. Partial error on my part doesn't obviate that any more than a few misidentified fossils overturn evolution.
I think this is manifests in his writing and speaking on this matter. I think he's often hard to interpret. This will inevitably result in myself and others making interpretative errors. But that some of us make mistakes doesn't vindicate Harris's views or suggest he knows what he's talking about.
//We're agreed that you fundamentally misinterpreted Harris/Searle, and persisted in that misinterpretation through several attempts at clarification, by myself and others. //
I agree that I misunderstood what Harris meant by "committed," and I think that Harris did not contradict himself in the way I described (nobody challenged me on that, but I went back and reviewed my claims in light of these discussions. Note that this means I am proactive in self-correction; you don't have to twist my arm in every instance.)
I wouldn't say I have fundamentally misunderstood Harris in other respects, or that my many other criticisms are not on point. I stand by my charge that Harris is very confused and ill-informed about metaethics and moral philosophy, and that his position is very confused.
//. How would you take it if I summarized this as evidence that you 'have notidea what you're talking about", and that your confusion is evidence of "why superficial engagement with academic philosophy won't cut it"?//
I would wonder why you think a single mistake is an indication that someone has no idea what they're talking about, rather than taking the rest of what they say into account. What I wrote is nearly 15,000 words. Is it all riddled with mistakes and errors? Have you looked?
I slogged through more of your 15,000 words. I think there are other misinterpretations etc. A few notes:
1. SH is not confused about moral realism; nothing he’s written suggests he thinks it means “moral facts are made true by our attitudes or preferences.” In explaining moral realism, he often says its punchline is that it is possible for individuals or entire cultures to be wrong about questions of morality (e.g., the fundamentalist Islamic belief that women ought to live out their public lives draped in cloth bags). This would make no sense if he believed that moral facts are self-validated by our attitudes or preferences.
2. SH’s familiarity with emotivism? You notice Connor making this clarification about what emotivists hold: “Well to be clear it’s not a statement about how we feel, it is the expression of the feeling.” You seem to infer that, since this clarification was necessary, this is some evidence that SH is confused about emotivism. But at no point did SH say anything confused about this. You seem to think, if Sam understood the topic, he would have rushed in to clarify why he used the word ‘statement’ with respect to moral attitudes, since they’re not (cognitive) statements, on the emotivist view, but are simply boo and hurray-like ejaculations. Again, try to be more charitable: SH was simply echoing the wording in AO’s account of emotivism, which begins “When we make ethical statements…”
3. You have this section calling out his criticism of Mackie. SH alleges that Mackie conflates the two senses of ‘objective’. You reply with characteristic collegiality: “This is nonsense. Where does this supposed conflation occur?” Sam goes on to explain in very clear terms: Mackie has conflated them in supposing that, if moral facts are epistemically objective, they must ‘correspondingly’ be metaphysically objective. This is conflation: as SH and Searle explain, we can be epistemically objective about facts that are metaphysically subjective (e.g., science can objectively study my subjective experience of pain).
4. You have this section rebuking SH for his ‘boredom’ quip, where you write, “Where Sam and I differ is that I show my receipts. I read what philosophers have to say, quote them, and raise direct critiques of their work....[If you’re going to levy criticisms of modern metaethics…[d]emonstrate to your audience that you understand it, and that you’re dismissing it because you understand it and because you can present a good account of its deficiencies.” The trouble of course is that you’ve published 15,000 words on Moral Landscape that evince demonstrable confusion about one of its core claims.
5. ‘Only conscious states matter’. Here your criticism is “The bizarre thing about this claim is that Harris does not present any arguments for this claim at all. Instead, he simply asserts that it’s impossible to think of any alternative.” Sorry, but pointing out that it’s impossible to think of an alternative to P is an argument for P. Imagine a world with no consciousness — no possibility of experience that might vary from good to bad; a universe of rocks What could possibly occur in this universe that would matter, morally? If you can’t think of anything, that’s a good sign that conscious experience lies at the foundation of morality. I’m actually sympathetic to your point that his move of collapsing deontology into consequentialism is not a knock-down argument; although he does not present it as a knock-down argument.
6. Why doesn’t SH look to psychologists to assess whether deontologists are really consequentialists at a subconscious level? Because he’s making a philosophical claim: when carefully examined, most of the deontological principles and ‘virtues’ we embrace share one thing in common— they tend to promote well-being or prevent suffering for conscious creatures. He has some illustrious company in reasoning this way —e.g., David Hume in ‘Enquiry concerning the principles of morals’, Henry Sidgwick in ‘The Methods of Ethics’.
7. SH has never claimed that there is a “singular, shared essence or phenomena, consciousness, around which a variety of supposedly unified experiences gravitate.” He is open to the possibility that what we call ‘consciousness’ might contain a spectrum of radically different experiences— some even unfathomable to our human brains (cf., his referencing of Nagel’s, ‘What is it like to be a bat?’)
8. Gastronomic realism: SH argues explicitly that there can aesthetic ‘facts’ — e.g., if you grew up being fed nothing but a plate of mud, and as a result came to think this was good food, you would be in the grip of a gastronomical error. Whether you know it or not, there are higher peaks available to you on the gastronomical landscape.
“When someone says that science is “in no sense” committed to ontological objectivity, the only reasonable interpretation of this is that it is not committed to ontological objectivity, full stop. “
Yes, he could have been more precise: “science is in no sense *solely* committed to ontological objectivity”
He understands “ontological objectivity” to mean real physical objects that multiple people can experience. To deny that science is concerned with this would be insane.
His punchline is that science can also concern itself with ontological subjectivity - including states of subjective well being. Hence, his science of morals.
This is a simple misunderstanding- why dig in and hold him to a view he demonstrably does not hold and that stems from misspeaking ?
The general structure of Harris’s remark is something like this: “There’s a distinction between X and Y. Science is X, but it isn’t Y.” There is simply no plausible interpretation of such a remark that would result in “Science is Y, but it’s not just Y.” Your interpretation makes little sense. The broader context of the surrounding remarks only reinforce my interpretation, so it isn’t simply a matter of me ignoring the surrounding context.
//He understands “ontological objectivity” to mean real physical objects that multiple people can experience. To deny that science is concerned with this would be insane.//
Harris himself characterized ontological objectivity as concerned with both physical and non-physical things. He then characterizes it as only concerned with physical things. Harris outright contradicted himself. I have not seen you address this claim.
Searle’s distinction between ontological objectivity and subjectivity turns on a distinction between “modes of existence.” One set of things have an “objective” mode of existence: tables, trees, chairs, etc., and others have a “subjective” mode of existence: pains, pleasures, memories, and so on. On Searle’s view, one can have epistemically objective knowledge of ontologically subjective states, and this seems to be what Harris wants to emphasize that we can obtain.
Harris’s way of framing his position on the matter involves a clear statement that science is not committed to ontological objectivity. I agree that that seems like a pretty weird thing for Harris to say, but he said it. I’m happy to grant that he made a mistake here. Actually, two mistakes: he both contradicted himself and then stated something that seems inconsistent with his views, so one should conclude he probably didn’t mean it. But note what I end up saying in section 3.0:
I don’t say “Harris is committed to denying that science is committed to ontology objectivity, and that’s silly.” I say if Harris meant what he seemed to be saying this would cause such internal tensions in his broader views that I’m hesitant to conclude he actually endorsed what he seemed to be endorsing. But, because he contradicts himself and seems to muddle his distinctions so much, it’s hard to tell.
The tl;dr of my critique is that Harris botches all his distinctions so it’s difficult to figure out what his view is.
//This is a simple misunderstanding- why dig in and hold him to a view he demonstrably does not hold and that stems from misspeaking ?//
Do you think Harris misspoke here, then? Your original point seemed to be that Harris had made an ambiguous remark that I had not understood. I have argued that the remark was not ambiguous, and that my interpretation was a reasonable one. If I am correct, then while Harris may not endorse the view that science is not committed to ontological objectivity, that he appears to endorse this would be largely Harris’s fault, not my own. Calling this my confusion, even if you say it’s an understandable one, is not a great way to frame this.
If Harris said somewhere that he thinks “consciousness is in no sense physical” and I interpret this to mean “Harris claims that consciousness is not physical,” it’d be pretty weird to say I was the confused one. In this situation, either Harris does think that, in which case I’d be correct, or he doesn’t, in which case it’s Harris who is confused, and not me.
There is a respect in which I’m not certain of Harris’s actual position is, but I have made it very clear that I am aware of the fact that I’m not sure what Harris’s position is. I attribute this to Harris’s lack of clarity, and not my poor reading comprehension or ignorance of the topic.
His comment is more of the structure: "Ontology can be divided into two categories: things that are ontologically objective (i.e., molecules, plants and animals, planets) and things that are ontologically subjective (i.e., headaches, ecstasy). Science is not committed to ontological objectivity-- in the same way that Donald Trump is not committed to Melania (i.e., we can reason scientifically about both ontologically objective and subjective facts; Donald bangs other women). This meaning is perfectly clear in Sam's podcast: "Science is fully committed to epistemological objectivity. That is, to analyzing evidence and argument without subjective bias. But it is in no sense committed to ontological objectivity. It isn’t **limited to** studying objects, that is, purely physical things and processes."
His entire thesis, in Moral Landscape, is an attempt to convince people that we can reason scientifically about subjective facts. It would be very strange for him to predicate that thesis on the claim that science is unconcerned with ontologically objective facts (molecules, etc.) You are leaning into this uncharitable misreading by insisting that the words, "X is not committed to Y" can never plausibly be interpreted as "X is not exclusively committed to Y", and must instead mean "X utterly eschews Y". But you're wrong even as to this point about word usage. Consider the sentence: "Jim is not committed to vegetarianism". On your interpretation, this could only mean "Jim eschews all vegetables." This makes no sense.
"Harris himself characterized ontological objectivity as concerned with both physical and non-physical things"
Again, you are simply reading uncharitably. He writes:
"Ontology relates to questions about what exists. For instance, is there only one type of stuff in the universe? Are there only physical things, or are there really existent things which are not physical? For instance, do numbers exist beyond their physical representations, and if so, how?"
Admittedly, a more felicitous wording would have been:
"Ontology relates to questions about what exists. For instance, is there only one type of stuff in the universe? Are there only [OBJECTIVE] physical things, or are there really existent things which are not PHYSICALLY INSTANTIATED (i.e. ONTOLOGICALLY SUBJECTIVE THINGS)? For instance, do numbers exist beyond their physical representations, and if so, how?"
Ask yourself, does his argument escape your criticism if you read it as I've suggested? Yes. He's paraphrasing Searle: does your interpretation track with what Searle argues? No. So rather than sneer at a strawman just adhere to the principle of charity and admit you've got this wrong.
You’re right. I did misinterpret Harris. A plausible reading of Harris is that he’s using the term “committed” in the sense of being “exclusively dedicated to.” On this reading, Harris would be saying that science is exclusively dedicated to epistemological objectivity ( as opposed to epistemological subjectivity), but it is not exclusively dedicated to ontological objectivity (since it is concerned with both ontological objectivity and ontological objectivity). In other words, while science is all about epistemological objectivity alone (i.e., approaching things in as unbiased a manner as possible in such a way that we can decisively resolve scientific questions), it is not all about ontological objectivity alone, because it is not only concerned with the study of mountains and tables, but with pain, pleasure, and other states of conscious beings.
I don’t take this to be an obvious or straightforward use of the term “committed,” but it makes more sense than how I was taking his remarks. As such, I was definitely mistaken in claiming that only my interpretation was the correct one.
I will update the original blog post to highlight this error and offer a different line of critique given this more accurate interpretation of Harris’s remarks.
// You are leaning into this uncharitable misreading by insisting that the words, "X is not committed to Y" can never plausibly be interpreted as "X is not exclusively committed to Y", and must instead mean "X utterly eschews Y".//
This is a bit of a misread. It is not my view that it can *never* plausibly mean that; I took it to not mean that *in this case*.
// But you're wrong even as to this point about word usage. //
I'm not wrong about this because I don't think this.
//Ask yourself, does his argument escape your criticism if you read it as I've suggested? Yes. //
It does avoid the problem of what struck me as a contradiction.
Here's a question for how you read Harris: does Harris think that ontologically subjective entities (like pains and pleasures) are non-physical?
//So rather than sneer at a strawman just adhere to the principle of charity and admit you've got this wrong. //
As you can see, I am acknowledging my errors here. It would be nice if you would not characterize me as "sneering." I wrote a very long essay that outlines many problems with Harris's remarks. It's unfortunate my opening remarks were misinterpretations and mistakes, but I do not take myself to be "sneering" at Harris. Please don't try to read tone or attitude into someone's critique when you aren't in a position to know how they feel or what their attitude is.
I credit you, sincerely, on acknowledging your error. As to the 'sneering' charge, I think your tone comes across as quite clearly condescending. Try your tone on from the receiving end. We're agreed that you fundamentally misinterpreted Harris/Searle, and persisted in that misinterpretation through several attempts at clarification, by myself and others. How would you take it if I summarized this as evidence that you 'have notidea what you're talking about", and that your confusion is evidence of "why superficial engagement with academic philosophy won't cut it"?
As far as this: "and persisted in that misinterpretation through several attempts at clarification, by myself and others. "
It can take some effort to recognize a mistake. This does not mean that one is condescending or operating in bad faith (you didn't suggest the latter, but quite a few people on reddit have). I think Harris's way of expressing himself was extremely unclear and that his choice of words was (and it seems you may partially agree) less than ideal. This led me to think Harris was confused in some ways where he doesn't appear to have been confused. This doesn't mean he isn't confused or ill-informed or wrong in the other ways I've outlined.
With respect, you may simply be projecting your assumptions about my tone onto me. A lot of Harris's defenders seem to think his critics are a bunch of disingenuous, hateful, and nasty people. I don't know who you are or what you think about Harris, but I have tried to be as charitable as I could to someone who I think is very confused, very wrong, and a very bad writer and communicator. I do think Harris doesn't know what he's talking about and that his positions make very little sense. Partial error on my part doesn't obviate that any more than a few misidentified fossils overturn evolution.
I think this is manifests in his writing and speaking on this matter. I think he's often hard to interpret. This will inevitably result in myself and others making interpretative errors. But that some of us make mistakes doesn't vindicate Harris's views or suggest he knows what he's talking about.
//We're agreed that you fundamentally misinterpreted Harris/Searle, and persisted in that misinterpretation through several attempts at clarification, by myself and others. //
I agree that I misunderstood what Harris meant by "committed," and I think that Harris did not contradict himself in the way I described (nobody challenged me on that, but I went back and reviewed my claims in light of these discussions. Note that this means I am proactive in self-correction; you don't have to twist my arm in every instance.)
I wouldn't say I have fundamentally misunderstood Harris in other respects, or that my many other criticisms are not on point. I stand by my charge that Harris is very confused and ill-informed about metaethics and moral philosophy, and that his position is very confused.
//. How would you take it if I summarized this as evidence that you 'have notidea what you're talking about", and that your confusion is evidence of "why superficial engagement with academic philosophy won't cut it"?//
I would wonder why you think a single mistake is an indication that someone has no idea what they're talking about, rather than taking the rest of what they say into account. What I wrote is nearly 15,000 words. Is it all riddled with mistakes and errors? Have you looked?
I slogged through more of your 15,000 words. I think there are other misinterpretations etc. A few notes:
1. SH is not confused about moral realism; nothing he’s written suggests he thinks it means “moral facts are made true by our attitudes or preferences.” In explaining moral realism, he often says its punchline is that it is possible for individuals or entire cultures to be wrong about questions of morality (e.g., the fundamentalist Islamic belief that women ought to live out their public lives draped in cloth bags). This would make no sense if he believed that moral facts are self-validated by our attitudes or preferences.
2. SH’s familiarity with emotivism? You notice Connor making this clarification about what emotivists hold: “Well to be clear it’s not a statement about how we feel, it is the expression of the feeling.” You seem to infer that, since this clarification was necessary, this is some evidence that SH is confused about emotivism. But at no point did SH say anything confused about this. You seem to think, if Sam understood the topic, he would have rushed in to clarify why he used the word ‘statement’ with respect to moral attitudes, since they’re not (cognitive) statements, on the emotivist view, but are simply boo and hurray-like ejaculations. Again, try to be more charitable: SH was simply echoing the wording in AO’s account of emotivism, which begins “When we make ethical statements…”
3. You have this section calling out his criticism of Mackie. SH alleges that Mackie conflates the two senses of ‘objective’. You reply with characteristic collegiality: “This is nonsense. Where does this supposed conflation occur?” Sam goes on to explain in very clear terms: Mackie has conflated them in supposing that, if moral facts are epistemically objective, they must ‘correspondingly’ be metaphysically objective. This is conflation: as SH and Searle explain, we can be epistemically objective about facts that are metaphysically subjective (e.g., science can objectively study my subjective experience of pain).
4. You have this section rebuking SH for his ‘boredom’ quip, where you write, “Where Sam and I differ is that I show my receipts. I read what philosophers have to say, quote them, and raise direct critiques of their work....[If you’re going to levy criticisms of modern metaethics…[d]emonstrate to your audience that you understand it, and that you’re dismissing it because you understand it and because you can present a good account of its deficiencies.” The trouble of course is that you’ve published 15,000 words on Moral Landscape that evince demonstrable confusion about one of its core claims.
5. ‘Only conscious states matter’. Here your criticism is “The bizarre thing about this claim is that Harris does not present any arguments for this claim at all. Instead, he simply asserts that it’s impossible to think of any alternative.” Sorry, but pointing out that it’s impossible to think of an alternative to P is an argument for P. Imagine a world with no consciousness — no possibility of experience that might vary from good to bad; a universe of rocks What could possibly occur in this universe that would matter, morally? If you can’t think of anything, that’s a good sign that conscious experience lies at the foundation of morality. I’m actually sympathetic to your point that his move of collapsing deontology into consequentialism is not a knock-down argument; although he does not present it as a knock-down argument.
6. Why doesn’t SH look to psychologists to assess whether deontologists are really consequentialists at a subconscious level? Because he’s making a philosophical claim: when carefully examined, most of the deontological principles and ‘virtues’ we embrace share one thing in common— they tend to promote well-being or prevent suffering for conscious creatures. He has some illustrious company in reasoning this way —e.g., David Hume in ‘Enquiry concerning the principles of morals’, Henry Sidgwick in ‘The Methods of Ethics’.
7. SH has never claimed that there is a “singular, shared essence or phenomena, consciousness, around which a variety of supposedly unified experiences gravitate.” He is open to the possibility that what we call ‘consciousness’ might contain a spectrum of radically different experiences— some even unfathomable to our human brains (cf., his referencing of Nagel’s, ‘What is it like to be a bat?’)
8. Gastronomic realism: SH argues explicitly that there can aesthetic ‘facts’ — e.g., if you grew up being fed nothing but a plate of mud, and as a result came to think this was good food, you would be in the grip of a gastronomical error. Whether you know it or not, there are higher peaks available to you on the gastronomical landscape.