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Can science answer moral questions?

Woke up at 9 am... It is pretty early for me considering the fact I worked until 1 am yesterday :)

Today I have been asked to check TED conference published recently on youtube and express my opinion. The question of whether science should be an authority on moral issues raised by Sam Harris led to vivid discussion with my friend.

Does a husband beating his wife somewhere in Syria understand that it is against commonly accepted moral and bad?
Does a dog owner kicking his dog realize it’s contradicts human ethic?
Do they actually have a right for these horrible things? Should everyone consider that as a wrongdoing or maybe we should be free to do whatever we want depending on the society we live in?
Sam Harris, “an outspoken proponent of skepticism and science” with a degree in philosophy and a Ph.D. in neuroscience, believes that science can answer moral questions. He proposes the idea to create a universal system where science dictates morality. Beating women and children is bad executing gays is wrong, exploding buses is also bad and has to be accepted by each member of society. From one point of you it would probably make world much better place to live.



But think about it… What is immoral for one group can be moral for another one and it is not always bad.

However my smart friend is looking at the whole idea of dispute much broader. He believes that Harris, arguing about relationship between science and morality, goes into the wrong direction. People don’t think how they live, they know how they live and they don’t need any special moral system to regulate them. “Don’t we remember from the history when the morals were tried to be determined by the science?! It brought to humanity such systems as fascism and communism…. “ The question they what to get answer is why we live? This will help people to choose right principles.”

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