What it means to be 'human'.

Dear Sir:

     The fact that I beat a drum has nothing to do with the fact that I do theoretical physics.  Theoretical physics is a human endeavor, one of the higher developments of human beings--and this perpetual desire to prove that people who do it are human by showing that they do other things that a few other humans do (like playing bongo drums) is insulting to me.
     I am human enough to tell you to go to hell.

Sincerely,
Richard P. Feynman

I just said that ethical values lie outside the scientific realm. I have to defend that, because many people think the other way. They think that scientifically we should get some conclusions about moral values.

I have several reasons for that. You see, if you don't have a good reason, you have to have several reasons, so I have four reasons to think that moral values lie outside the scientific realm. First, in the past there were conflicts. The metaphysical positions have changed, and there have been practically no effects on the ethical views. So there must be a hint that there is an independence.

Second, I already pointed out that, I think at least, there are good men who practice Christian ethics and don't believe in the divinity of Christ. Incidentally, I forgot to say earlier that I take a provincial view of religion. I know that there are many people here who have religions that are not Western religions. But in a subject as broad as this it is better to take a special example, and you have to just translate to see how it looks if you are an Arab or a Buddhist, or whatever.

The third thing is that, as far as I know in the gathering of scientific evidence, there doesn't seem to be anywhere, anything that says whether the Golden Rule is a good one or not. I don't have any evidence of it on the basis of scientific study.

And finally I would like to make a little philosophical argument this I'm not very good at, but I would like to make a little philosophical argument to explain why theoretically I think that science and moral questions are independent. The common human problem, the big question, always is "Should I do this?" It is a question of action. "What should I do? Should I do this?" And how can we answer such a question? We can divide it into two parts. We can say, "If I do this what will happen?" That doesn't tell me whether I should do this. We still have another part, which is "Well, do I want that to happen?" In other words, the first question"If I do this what will happen?"is at least susceptible to scientific investigation; in fact, it is a typical scientific question. It doesn't mean we know what will happen. Far from it. We never know what is going to happen. The science is very rudimentary. But, at least it is in the realm of science we have a method to deal with it. The method is "Try it and see"we talked about thatand accumulate the information and so on. And so the question "If I do it what will happen?" is a typically scientific question. But the question "Do I want this to happen"in the ultimate momentis not. Well, you say, if I do this, I see that everybody is killed, and, of course, I don't want that. Well, how do you know you don't want people killed? You see, at the end you must have some ultimate judgment.

You could take a different example. You could say, for instance, "If I follow this economic policy, I see there is going to be a depression, and, of course, I don't want a depression." Wait. You see, only knowing that it is a depression doesn't tell you that you do not want it. You have then to judge whether the feelings of power you would get from this, whether the importance of the country moving
> in this direction is better than the cost to the people who are suffering. Or maybe there would be some sufferers and not others. And so there must at the end be some ultimate judgment somewhere along the line as to what is valuable, whether people are valuable, whether life is valuable. Deep in the endyou may follow the argument of what
will happen further and further alongbut ultimately you have to decide "Yeah, I want that" or "No, I don't." And the judgment there is of a different nature. I do not see how by knowing what will happen alone it is possible to know if ultimately you want the last of the things. I believe, therefore, that it is impossible to decide moral questions by the scientific technique, and that the two things are independent.

And so there must at the end be some ultimate judgment somewhere along the line as to what is valuable, whether people are valuable, whether life is valuable

I always thought I was a good father, being proud of both my kids and not trying to push them into any particular direction. I did not want them to be professors like me. I would be just as happy if they were truck drivers or ballet dancers, provided they really enjoyed what they were doing. But then they always find a way to hit back at you. My son Carl for instance. He is a student at MIT and what does he want to do? He wants to be a God-damned philosopher.

Feynman did often ridicule philosophers, but they deserved it.  I think there's a lot to learn from Feynman's criticisms of the field of philosophy---for example, the story about "essential objects" is a great example of how philosophy so often goes wrong.