There are a few dogmas and double standards and really regrettable exports from philosophy that have confounded the thinking of scientists on the subject of morality.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the influence of flawed philosophical ideas on scientific understanding of morality.
Sam Harris highlights the shortcomings in philosophical dogmas and double standards that have misled scientific inquiry into morality. He suggests that these flawed ideas create confusion, making it challenging for scientists to reach a clear understanding of moral issues, implying the necessity for a more coherent approach that combines philosophy and science.
In practice
In a lecture on ethics, one might use this quote to emphasize the need for clearer definitions and understanding in discussions of morality.
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person's thoughts.
What I'm asking you to entertain is that there is nothing we need to believe on insufficient evidence in order to have deeply ethical and spiritual lives.
The core of science is not a mathematical modeling--it is intellectual honesty. It is a willingness to have our certainties about the world constrained by good evidence and good argument.
It is time that we admitted that faith is nothing more than the license religious people give one another to keep believing when reasons fail.
It is taboo in our society to criticize a persons religious faith... these taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed. This is really my concern. My concern is that our religions, the diversity of our religious doctrines, is going to get us killed. I'm worried that our religious discourse- our religious beliefs are ultimately incompatible with civilization.
It is time that scientists and other public intellectuals observed that the contest between faith and reason is zero-sum.
Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an island of make-believe and the same island come true.
The present Hindu society is organised only for spiritual men, and hopelessly crushes out everybody else. Why? Where shall they go who want to enjoy the world a little with its frivolities? Just as our religion takes in all, so should our society. This is to be worked out by first understanding the true principles of our religion and then applying them to society. This is the slow but sure work to be done.
How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibilty, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyesβhow such people think nothing of abusing a man with low intelligence.
All that you think is rain is not. Behind the veil angels sometimes weep.
A great empire and little minds go ill together.
An individual, in promoting his own interest, may injure the public interest; a nation, in promoting the general welfare, may check the interest of a part of its members.
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