News and Opinion

Sunday night’s debate at Secular Hall was highly entertaining if a little narrow in its range. About 25 people attended. Ross Longhurst proposed the motion “This House Believes We Should Not Vote” and Richard Johnson opposed. Ross took the unreconstructed Marxist-Leninist view of the socio-economic system in which we live – it is capitalism with a ruling class that calls the tune whichever party is elected to ‘govern’ and however sincere its leaders might seem to be in seeking to advance the interests of the common people. The usual litany of facts was called upon to justify the claims: the common (private) schooling of the wealthy; nepotism; interlocking directorships of companies; a media that is owned by capitalists and promotes the capitalist system; extra-parliamentary pressure being applied by bankers, industrialists, landowners, etc; concessions to working class demands only made when it benefits the long-term interests of the ruling class; etc. Thus, voting only leg...

This follows from the end-point of the thread on the ‘morality of war’, picking up on Sam Harris’s views about ‘morality’ having a scientifically factual grounding in ‘the maximization of human flourishing’. A few paraphrased quotes from Harris: “That science can’t tell us about human values is an illusion. Values are a certain type of fact. Separation between science and human values is a dangerous illusion. Science can tell us how the world ought to be. Why no ethical obligations to rocks? – because they cannot suffer. We have concerns about other living things because they can suffer. All versions of human morality are reducible to a concern with conscious experience. Even religion that focuses on the life-after-death experience is similarly concerned. Failed states can be improved. We know there are right and wrong answers to how to move along the continuum – would adding cholera to the water help things? No. Would blaming things on the ‘evil eye’ help? ...