Domino Valdano

essius just linked me to great piece written by Sean Carroll on the subject. His views on ethics are pretty much identical to mine, from what I can tell:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/05/03/you-cant-derive-ought-from-is/

I think they also represent the views of most mainstream scientists on the subject.

Of course, after my debates with easwaran, and after watching Sam Harris's TED talk (that Sean links to) I am a little more open to the idea that philosophers may one day work out some kind of sensible objective morality. I don't think it will ever be completely objective, but perhaps there is a way that some of morality could be seen as objective. But if someone comes up with a way to do this, I expect it will take years of detailed complex philosophical arguments, to come up with a consistent way to do it... I don't think it's anything you could just run into the lab and do. I mean, let's say an experimentalist measures some type of brainwave activity, and then publishes a paper claiming that it proves some kind of activity is morally wrong. Why should anyone believe him? We would at least need some philosophers to publish joint papers arguing why what he measured should be connected to morality.

Another example of a similar thing would be interpreting quantum mechanics. I don't think it's an issue that science can settle by itself, you need philosophers to weigh in on it because there are so many things that depend on basic assumptions that need to be sorted out. Of course, in the case of quantum mechanics, I think we are way closer to having an answer than in the case of morality.