between science and human values.

Now, it's generally understood that

questions of morality --

questions of good and evil and right and wrong --

are questions about which science officially has no opinion.

It's thought that science can help us

get what we value,

but it can never tell us what we ought to value.

And, consequently, most people -- I think most people

probably here -- think that science will never answer

the most important questions in human life:

questions like, "What is worth living for?"

"What is worth dying for?"

"What constitutes a good life?"

So, I'm going to argue

that this is an illusion -- that the separation between

science and human values is an illusion --

and actually quite a dangerous one

at this point in human history.

Now, it's often said that science

cannot give us a foundation for morality and human values,

because science deals with facts,

and facts and values seem to belong to different spheres.

It's often thought that there's no description

of the way the world is

that can tell us how the world ought to be.

But I think this is quite clearly untrue.

Values are a certain kind of fact.

They are facts about the well-being of conscious creatures.

Why is it that we don't have ethical obligations toward rocks?

Why don't we feel compassion for rocks?

It's because we don't think rocks can suffer. And if we're more

concerned about our fellow primates

than we are about insects, as indeed we are,

it's because we think they're exposed to a greater range

of potential happiness and suffering.

Now, the crucial thing to notice here

is that this is a factual claim:

This is something that we could be right or wrong about. And if we

have misconstrued the relationship between biological complexity

and the possibilities of experience

well then we could be wrong about the inner lives of insects.

And there's no notion,

no version of human morality

and human values that I've ever come across

that is not at some point reducible

to a concern about conscious experience

and its possible changes.

Even if you get your values from religion,

even if you think that good and evil ultimately

relate to conditions after death --

either to an eternity of happiness with God

or an eternity of suffering in hell --

you are still concerned about consciousness and its changes.

And to say that such changes can persist after death

is itself a factual claim,

which, of course, may or may not be true.

Now, to speak about the conditions of well-being

in this life, for human beings,

we know that there is a continuum of such facts.

We know that it's possible to live in a failed state,

where everything that can go wrong does go wrong --

where mothers cannot feed their children,

where strangers cannot find the basis for peaceful collaboration,

where people are murdered indiscriminately.

And we know that it's possible to move along this continuum

towards something quite a bit more idyllic,

to a place where a conference like this is even conceivable.

And we know -- we know --

that there are right and wrong answers

to how to move in this space.

Would adding cholera to the water be a good idea?

Probably not.

Would it be a good idea for everyone to believe in the evil eye,

so that when bad things happened to them

they immediately blame their neighbors? Probably not.

There are truths to be known

about how human communities flourish,

whether or not we understand these truths.

And morality relates to these truths.

So, in talking about values we are talking about facts.

Now, of course our situation in the world can be understood at many levels --

from the level of the genome

on up to the level of economic systems

and political arrangements.

But if we're going to talk about human well-being

we are, of necessity, talking about the human brain.

Because we know that our experience of the world and of ourselves within it

is realized in the brain --

whatever happens after death.

Even if the suicide bomber does get 72 virgins in the afterlife,

in this life, his personality --

his rather unfortunate personality --

is the product of his brain.

So the contributions of culture --

if culture changes us, as indeed it does,

it changes us by changing our brains.

And so therefore whatever cultural variation there is

in how human beings flourish

can, at least in principle, be understood

in the context of a maturing science of the mind --

neuroscience, psychology, etc.

So, what I'm arguing is that

value's reduced to facts --

to facts about the conscious experience

of conscious beings.

And we can therefore visualize a space

of possible changes in the experience of these beings.

And I think of this as kind of a moral landscape,

with peaks and valleys that correspond

to differences in the well-being of conscious creatures,

both personal and collective.

And one thing to notice is that perhaps

there are states of human well-being

that we rarely access, that few people access.

And these await our discovery.

Perhaps some of these states can be appropriately called

mystical or spiritual.

Perhaps there are other states that we can't access

because of how our minds are structured

but other minds possibly could access them.

Now, let me be clear about what I'm not saying. I'm not saying

that science is guaranteed to map this space,

or that we will have scientific answers to every

conceivable moral question.

I don't think, for instance, that you will one day consult

a supercomputer to learn whether you should have a second child,

or whether we should bomb Iran's nuclear facilities,

or whether you can deduct the full cost of TED as a business expense.

(Laughter)

But if questions affect human well-being

then they do have answers, whether or not we can find them.

And just admitting this --

just admitting that there are right and wrong answers

to the question of how humans flourish --

will change the way we talk about morality,

and will change our expectations

of human cooperation in the future.

For instance, there are 21 states in our country

where corporal punishment in the classroom is legal,

where it is legal for a teacher to beat a child with a wooden board, hard,

and raising large bruises and blisters and even breaking the skin.

And hundreds of thousands of children, incidentally,

are subjected to this every year.

The locations of these enlightened districts, I think, will fail to surprise you.

We're not talking about Connecticut.

And the rationale for this behavior is explicitly religious.

The creator of the universe himself

has told us not to spare the rod,

lest we spoil the child --

this is in Proverbs 13 and 20, and I believe, 23.

But we can ask the obvious question:

Is it a good idea, generally speaking,

to subject children to pain

and violence and public humiliation

as a way of encouraging healthy emotional development

and good behavior?

(Laughter)

Is there any doubt

that this question has an answer,

and that it matters?

Now, many of you might worry

that the notion of well-being is truly undefined,

and seemingly perpetually open to be re-construed.

And so, how therefore can there be an

objective notion of well-being?

Well, consider by analogy, the concept of physical health.

The concept of physical health is undefined.

As we just heard from Michael Specter, it has changed over the years.

When this statue was carved

the average life expectancy was probably 30.

It's now around 80 in the developed world.

There may come a time when we meddle with our genomes

in such a way that not being able to run a marathon

at age 200 will be considered a profound disability.

People will send you donations when you're in that condition.

(Laughter)

Notice that the fact that the concept of health

is open, genuinely open for revision,

does not make it vacuous.

The distinction between a healthy person

and a dead one

is about as clear and consequential as any we make in science.

Another thing to notice is there may be many peaks on the moral landscape:

There may be equivalent ways to thrive;

there may be equivalent ways to organize a human society

so as to maximize human flourishing.

Now, why wouldn't this

undermine an objective morality?

Well think of how we talk about food:

I would never be tempted to argue to you

that there must be one right food to eat.

There is clearly a range of materials

that constitute healthy food.

But there's nevertheless a clear distinction

between food and poison.

The fact that there are many right answers

to the question, "What is food?"

does not tempt us

to say that there are no truths to be known about human nutrition.

Many people worry

that a universal morality would require

moral precepts that admit of no exceptions.

So, for instance, if it's really wrong to lie,

it must always be wrong to lie,

and if you can find an exception,

well then there's no such thing as moral truth.

Why would we think this?

Consider, by analogy, the game of chess.

Now, if you're going to play good chess,

a principle like, "Don't lose your Queen,"

is very good to follow.

But it clearly admits some exceptions.

There are moments when losing your Queen is a brilliant thing to do.

There are moments when it is the only good thing you can do.

And yet, chess is a domain of perfect objectivity.

The fact that there are exceptions here does not

change that at all.

Now, this brings us to the sorts of moves

that people are apt to make in the moral sphere.

Consider the great problem of women's bodies:

What to do about them?

Well this is one thing you can do about them:

You can cover them up.

Now, it is the position, generally speaking, of our intellectual community

that while we may not like this,

we might think of this as "wrong"

in Boston or Palo Alto,

who are we to say

that the proud denizens of an ancient culture

are wrong to force their wives and daughters

to live in cloth bags?

And who are we to say, even, that they're wrong

to beat them with lengths of steel cable,

or throw battery acid in their faces

if they decline the privilege of being smothered in this way?

Well, who are we not to say this?

Who are we to pretend

that we know so little about human well-being

that we have to be non-judgmental about a practice like this?

I'm not talking about voluntary wearing of a veil --

women should be able to wear whatever they want, as far as I'm concerned.

But what does voluntary mean

in a community where,

when a girl gets raped,

her father's first impulse,

rather often, is to murder her out of shame?