To the Editor:
Re “Why We Celebrate a Killing,” by Jonathan Haidt (Op-Ed, May 8):
As we hear more and more about why celebrating the killing of Osama bin Laden is morally right or wrong, several psychologists and neuroscientists have taken it upon themselves to explain the science behind why feelings of joy are natural in a situation like this and have even been selected for through evolution.
Scientific explanations of why something is do not have any bearing on whether it ought to be. Just because something is natural doesn’t mean that it is morally acceptable.
This is obvious when it comes to an issue like sexual predation: men may have strong sexual urges, but most of those cannot be acted on in a morally defensible way. Science can guide our morality, but it does not determine it.
Morality must be determined by philosophy rather than facts alone. We can choose whether we want to celebrate the killing of a monster, but no science will ever justify that decision.
GRIGORI GUITCHOUNTS
Cambridge, Mass., May 9, 2011
The writer is a neuroscientist.
Note from KBJ: The letter writer is exactly right. David Hume (1711-1776) taught us long ago that you can't infer an "ought" from an "is." An argument with an evaluative conclusion must have at least one evaluative premise. Those who reason from how things are to how they ought to be are therefore reasoning enthymematically. Their suppressed premise, which is preposterous, is that things ought to be as they are. I have no idea why philosophers, of all people, are interested in neuroscience. It has no bearing—none, zero, nada—on how we ought to live.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 