Sam Harris Quotes About Morality

Quotes about: Morality

• We can either have a twenty-first-century conversation about morality and the human well-being - a conversation in which we avail ourselves of all scientific insights and philosophical arguments that have accumulated in the last two thousand years of human discourse - or we can confine ourselves to a first-century conversation as it is preserved in the Bible.

  Sam Harris

  Philosophical, Years, Two

• Mahavira, the Jain patriarch, surpassed the morality of the Bible with a single sentence: Do not injure, abuse, oppress, enslave, insult, torment, torture, or kill any creature or living being. Imagine how different our world might be if the Bible contained this as its central precept.

  Sam Harris

  Our World, Abuse, Might

  "Letter to a Christian Nation". Book by Sam Harris, p. 23, 2006.

• Human well-being is not a random phenomenon. It depends on many factors - ranging from genetics and neurobiology to sociology and economics. But, clearly, there are scientific truths to be known about how we can flourish in this world. Wherever we can have an impact on the well-being of others, questions of morality apply.

  Sam Harris

  Impact, World, Morality

  "The Moral Landscape : Thinking About Human Values in Universal Terms" by Sam Harris, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 25, 2010.

• Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds - and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe.

  Sam Harris

  Mind, Suffering, Facts

  Sam Harris (2011). “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values”, p.195, Simon and Schuster

• The science of morality is about maximizing psychological and social health. It's really no more inflammatory than that.

  Sam Harris

  Maximizing, Morality, Ethics

  "Print: Atheism's Poster Boy Sam Harris on the Science of Morality". Interview with Olivia Koski, www.wired.com. November 29, 2010.

• To treat others ethically is to act out of concern for their happiness and suffering.

  Sam Harris

  Suffering, Morality, Treats

  Sam Harris (2005). “The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason”, p.186, W. W. Norton & Company

• We read the Golden Rule and judge it to be a brilliant distillation of many of our ethical impulses. And then we come across another of God’s teachings on morality: if a man discovers on his wedding night that his bride is not a virgin, he must stone her to death on her father’s doorstep (Deuteronomy 22:13-21).

  Sam Harris

  Father, Teaching, Night

• I consistently encounter people in academic settings and scientists and journalists who feel that you can't say that anyone is wrong in any deep sense about morality, or with regard to what they value in life. I think this doubt about the application of science and reason to questions of value is really quite dangerous.

  Sam Harris

  Thinking, People, Doubt

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. October 11, 2010.

• Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim Algebra, we will see tht there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality.

  Sam Harris

  Christian, Morality, Physics

  Sam Harris (2011). “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values”, p.4, Simon and Schuster

• It's simply untrue that religion provides the only framework for a universal morality.

  Sam Harris

  Morality, Framework, Universal

• The moral landscape is the framework I use for thinking about questions of morality and human values in universal terms.

  Sam Harris

  Thinking, Use, Landscape

• There must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science. On this view, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.

  Sam Harris

  Fall, Views, People

  Sam Harris (2011). “The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values”, p.195, Simon and Schuster

• It is rather more noble to help people purely out of concern for their suffering than it is to help them because you think the Creator of the Universe wants you to do it, or will reward you for doing it, or will punish you for not doing it. The problem with this linkage between religion and morality is that it gives people bad reasons to help other human beings when good reasons are available.

  Sam Harris

  Helping Others, Thinking, People

  "Beyond Belief: Science, Religion, Reason and Survival" symposium, November 2006.

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