Can Science Demonstrate Racism or Genocide is Morally Wrong?

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@NLENTS, to restate your position, you are arguing for utilitarianism with benefits and harms established by scientific inquiry.

This, however, is equivocating badly between utilitarianism and science. It is not possible to derive that the “right” thing to do is the greatest good for the greatest number. Also, in practice, there are always trade offs that arise. It is not clear how science helps us resolve them. In fact, science usually heightens our awareness of the tradeoffs.

You even allude to this at time…

@NLENTS

This is all “how I see it,” and of course I’m aware that lots disagree, but this is grounded in scholarship on moral philosophy and it came to me through the writings of Sam Harris, a neuroscientist. Here goes…

Moral philosophy is NOT science. One cannot derive moral philosophy from science, though a moral philosophy might be able to make use of science to help make assessments. This, it seems, is what you are arguing for here. No one will disagree with this. However, it seems to be a grand equivocation to say that a moral philosophy that makes use of science IS science’s determination.

You also haven’t really answered my questions:

@swamidass

How could science demonstrate that genocide is morally wrong?

How could science demonstrate that racism is wrong?

How could science demonstrate that all humans have universal rights?

You say…

@NLENTS

Any act, decision, etc., can be viewed as morally wrong if it leads to more total net suffering (or less net flourishing), and morally right if it reduces total net suffering (or increases total net flourishing).

So, does this mean that if genocide reduces net suffering it is morally good? How do you establish scientifically that utilitarianism is morally correct? How you justify throwing away the enlightenment concerns over utilitarianism because of the tyranny of the majority (remember John Stuart Mills)? How do you decide who’s utility function is the correct one?

To be clear, you offer several high level statements about moral philosophy. Great. However, moral philosophy is not science. So all these “hows” have to answered somehow with the scientific method.