Sam Harris on Morality without God

Harris's The Moral Landscape represents perhaps the most ambitious attempt by any New Atheist to demonstrate that morality does not require God. His central thesis is that moral questions are, at bottom, questions about the well-being of conscious creatures, and that well-being is a natural phenomenon that can be studied scientifically. Just as there are right and wrong answers in medicine (which promotes health) and nutrition (which promotes physical flourishing), there are right and wrong answers in morality (which promotes conscious well-being).

He directly challenges the claim — made most prominently by William Lane Craig — that without God, moral values are merely subjective preferences with no binding authority. Harris argues that the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity is less sharp than Craig assumes. The worst possible misery for everyone is objectively bad in the same way that the most painful disease is objectively bad for health. If the theist refuses to accept this, Harris argues, they are not demonstrating that secular morality lacks foundations — they are demonstrating that they have an unreasonably narrow conception of objectivity.

Harris also addresses the practical track record. Secular moral reasoning has driven every major moral advance in human history: the abolition of slavery, the emancipation of women, the recognition of children's rights, the expansion of the moral circle to include other species. In each case, religion resisted and eventually capitulated. Morality without God is not a theoretical possibility — it is the historical norm for moral progress.