The Moral Landscape : How Science Can Determine Human Values

Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins ignited a worldwide debate about the validity of religion through their recent bestsellers. In their aftermath, Sam Harris discovered that most people, from secular scientists to religious fundamentalists, agree on one point: science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, science's failure to address questions of meaning and morality has become the primary justification for religious faith. Now, in this controversial new book, Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values. Bringing a fresh, secular perspective to age-old questions of right and wrong, and good and evil, Harris shows that we know enough about the human brain and how it reacts to events in the world to say that there are right and wrong answers to the most pressing questions of human life. Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality. Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the frontlines of our 'culture wars', Harris delivers a startling argument about the future of science and about the real basis of human relationships.

Sam Harris is the author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason.