The Rocks of Golgotha
The hidden agreement in the Peterson and Harris debates
Four years ago Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris met in Vancouver to have a debate mediated by Bret Weinstein about truth and morality. While being able to agree on a few things the debates ended with an agreement to disagree on their major points. After watching the debates again it they both seemed to be saying the same thing: that morality emerges from the preferences of biological beings; that morality isn’t True but that it is true enough.
Early in the second debate Bret Weinstein defines his idea of “metaphorical truth” as: “concepts that are literally false but that if you behave as if they were true you come out ahead….The universe has left them true in some sense other than a purely literal one.” (Debate 2, 0:15:45) Metaphorical truths are true enough to achieve a desired goal.
At the beginning of the first debate Harris says “I am a moral realist. And realism means that there are in fact right and wrong answers.” (D1, 0:10:30) Later on Sam explains how he derives his morality from facts. He says “The worst possible misery for everyone is bad. …Imagine a universe where every conscious mind…is tuned to the worst possible experience for that mind for as long as possible. No silver lining. …That is bad.” (D1, 1:04:25)
In the second debate Peterson says “I am trying to ground values in facts in my own way.” Peterson (Debate 2, 0:20:00) Peterson later makes the claim that values are “the consequence of processes of evolution that occurred over vast expanses of time and that structure your perception of reality in ways that it wouldn’t be structured if you only lived for the amount of time that you are going to live. And that’s part of the problem of deriving values from facts…you can’t derive the right values from the facts that portray themselves to you in your lifespan.” (D1, 1:26:45) What Peterson seems to be implying here is that it is not the person but their evolved biology that derives values. Harris, in his example of the worst possible world, is also depending on the opinion of evolved biological beings. The tortured bodies in Sam’s hypothetical hell would consider it bad but the rocks they lie on would not.
Peterson responds to Sam’s thought experiment by saying “But that doesn’t make it a factual claim.” (D1, 1:05:30) Sam then agrees by saying “Every claim…you can trace it all the way down to something we can't justify. This is true of math and physics…” (D1, 1:06:00) But if Peterson is also claiming that values come from evolved biology then his morality is also not a factual claim.
Both Peterson and Harris also refer to a fundamental layer of morality. Peterson says “The moral systems come out of a moral substrate as old as life itself.” (D1, 2:05:00:) While Sam points to “a more fundamental landscape that subsumes the religious landscapes.” (D1 1:40:30) At one point Bret tells Sam that “You are going to have to accept at some point that your morality is arbitrarily grounded,” (D1, 1:06:00) which would also have to apply to Peterson.
Peterson and Harris both argue for a morality, not grounded in fact, that emerges from evolved biological preferences for beliefs and actions that promote survival. It is life speaking through the many mouths of morality. To life it doesn’t matter whether a man or a myth, a theist or an atheist carries the cross of life as long as each generation resurrects into the next to continue carrying it uphill.
It matters to life and that’s all that matters. True enough is good enough, because all the while, under the teeming, trying masses of life, the rocks of Golgotha remain truly indifferent.
Hal I really enjoyed this piece, and although I agree whole heartedly with idea of ‘emergence’, I’d like to add that I don’t think ‘it’s just us’. Perhaps in terms of summarizing that debate, it represents well the conclusion. But I also thought in response to it, if we continue to think biologically, in a system where we animals eat animals and plants, our survival is contingent on the mutual flourishing of the whole tree of life. I think when we look outside the west we see systems of morality that go beyond the anthropocentric and are able to extend their responsibilities, to Land and Spirits. I think that Jung starts to see this necessity when the ‘contents’ of his subconscious tell him they are as real as he(red book). I think this makes things much harder than a merely anthropological morality, but maybe also simpler... What are the values that emerge out of the preferences of being, when the eternal is without quality? Asking that reminds me that in a Christian cosmology, commandements were handed ‘down’.