First published for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science.

The term ‘moral science’ is increasingly used in the work of rationalist thinkers. Traditionally in the realm of religion, our ever-increasing secularism has allowed for science advocates to attempt to theorise morality into science – or at least to theorise it into the world of the rational.

This idea is prominent in the work of many secular thinkers, from philosophers such as Patricia Churchland to the ever-popular Sam Harris. The latter produced what is probably the most widely read resource on the subject, entitled The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.

Harris’ work has not been without criticism, some of which is justified. It is not easy to see, for example, why the content of human values is able to be judged and determined scientifically at all. Science requires evidence and rational justification, whereas human values are entirely without justification unless we make additional ‘assumptions’ above and beyond rationality. For instance, one can rationally justify physical laws with reference only to evidence, but to rationally justify moral laws one has to make an extra assumption, over and above science, as to what principle should be adhered to (in other words, moral principles are not logically deducible from raw evidence).

If one can see this logical problem with ‘assumption making’ then this alone is enough to show why moral science is difficult to justify. However it isn’t immediately obvious to everyone why it is bad science to be making assumptions for the cause of morality; thankfully this point is also reasonably easy to explain. If I were to kill and eat my next door neighbour, and justify it to his wife on the grounds that I made the assumption that it is morally acceptable, we can see the problem with assumption making: it is subjective and entirely arbitrary (in the same way that one might have a favourite colour, one might have a preference for a certain action). Similarly, if I were to write this assumption down and call it the foundations of ‘moral science’, it doesn’t make the assumption any stronger.

Thus the idea of moral science creates a problem that is difficult to solve. Philosophers have grappled with it for centuries, and our most modern thinkers still have not adequately tamed it and have instead embraced different levels of assumption making. By making these assumptions and yet still calling it ‘science’, the scientific method – something which requires no arbitrary assumption making – is done an injustice. But there is an answer.

The theory of Rational Morality was my attempt to solve this problem of moral science in its more famous philosophical guise: the ‘is-ought’ conundrum. This is an age-old philosophical problem which argues that science can’t determine human values, as you can’t derive an ‘ought’ (what we should do) from an ‘is’ (the way something is).

The solution is not in some remarkable discovery, or genius breakthrough of logical formula – much to the pity of my book sales, and the desires of my publisher – but is rather in thinking around the problem. One need not show morality to be a system of naturally occurring and deducible facts like in physical or social sciences, in order for moral science to be advocated. If one needed to do this, morality could not be shown to be rational at all. Instead one simply needs to show that a rational theory of morality is possible, justifiable and more rationally able than the other moral theories on the table. So not just better than theological accounts, but also less-assumptive than many rights-theorists or utilitarian thinkers have come up with. The theory would then also have to be assumptive only to the degree that science is (i.e., assumptive only about the self-proving worth of rationality).

It would have to use the scientific method to develop a transparent set of social agreements about basic moral principles – whatever we agree those most basic of moral principles to be – instead of on the assumptions of natural moral facts (as there are no such things). To the non-philosopher, this translates as reducing the moral principles we wish our societies to be guided by to the most basic sets they can possibly be – however we wish this to look – and then using reason and science to build consistent moral rules, and make consistent moral decisions based on these most basic of principles. For example, we might look at our current principles about murder/violent crime and then reduce them to a basic principle that suffering and death should be avoided wherever possible. From there we would judge whether our laws were rationally consistent with what we socially agreed.

All be it a very different type of science, moral science can exist in a socially created space like this without contravening the rules of rationality, all the while allowing the most important of humanities problems to be exposed to the fruits of scientific method. Indeed, most areas of politics and morality need not be thought of as subjective at all once moral science is on the table, unless the problem is wholly without reason or evidence on either side. This doesn’t mean opponents of rationality will suddenly drop their beliefs and join us, but it does provide a consistent framework to stop people having to turn to religion or other methods in order to form moral beliefs. We shouldn’t underestimate the secular advantage this would have in future generations.

Moral science is important: it’s more rational than what we currently have, ie, a system where we just slightly amend historically decided ideas when we really have to. But more than this, it’s important because it gives us a chance to rationally judge moral issues – no longer having to allow for dangerous and often irrational subjective differences. What’s more, it allows for the whole method to be scientific in attitude; not allowing for certainty where there is none and helping to do away with as much potential for uncompromising aggression as possible.

Prior to the referendum on 18^th September, the debate on whether or not Scotland should be ‘independent’ will grow louder and more passionate. That’s a reasonably safe prediction, despite the level of the current volume on the subject.

Unfortunately the vast majority of the debate does, and will continue to, completely miss the point. At the very start there is the emotion inducing term of ‘independence’, which is illegitimate itself as it is promoting views that Scotland is governed by the will of other countries, when in actual fact it is nothing more than a union from which Scotland will gain ‘independence’. In any form of government, it is us asking representatives elsewhere to put across our views in a political forum: the case here is that the forum is currently in London rather than Edinburgh. There is no tyranny going on. Most decisions that are better passed down locally are often passed down, either to local councils or regional governments. There is also no sense of ‘our interests are ignored in Westminster’. The interests of a Scottish citizen (like myself) in Westminster are no more ignored than that of a London citizen: the forum’s location is just a geographical issue. Decisions are made in favour of the population itself, based on many different demographics (location being just one) and the vast, vast majority of decisions have absolutely no relevance to whether someone lives in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK. Those that do – such as healthcare organisation locally – are decided locally already. The idea of centralised government being necessarily problematic is nonsense. This kind of analysis gets completely lost in the rhetoric and confusion of independence.

This misunderstanding of what independence actually is hasn’t been helped by celebrities, who have imparted their usual lack of informed opinion; exemplified best by one particular Scottish swimmer in the commonwealth games, who after achieving a finish worthy of a gold medal, pronounced it was “for freedom” on exiting the pool. One truly wonders whether these celebrities, and the fan bases they are influencing, genuinely have any idea what independence actually means. Freedom will not be any greater or lesser after the referendum, it just means a different group of politicians in a separate geographical location will have a slightly different agenda for ruling the country with the same kind of dogmatic, party led approach. Let’s not also forget that the SNP, who would presumably be the party to take control of Scotland after any potential independence, already have control of most of the areas of life in which they would be able to make significant differences: healthcare, education – the areas where real change comes. It is strange that these areas of Scottish society have not improved since they came under independent control, yet they argue improvement would somehow occur when other less important areas of life become fully devolved. Make no mistake, the truth is that independence benefits the SNP, and few else. Scotland’s views are already represented at the world stage, it is just usually a UK party doing the representing rather than an MSP. Independence enhances the SNP’s political reputations, but it does little if anything positive for normal Scottish people. The negative effect on those with no vested interest in the SNP is much more worrying

The real strength in a union of countries is financial and, unfortunately, financial concerns are now one of the most morally punishing in the world. When depressions hit – and they will hit, regardless of how much oil revenue you currently have, especially with the amount of spending Scotland has in public services – larger unions of countries have a much greater chance to absorb that depression and deal with it. They have a greater number of industries to take over when one industry hits a slump, or a regulation induced drop in profits, and they have greater financial incentives with which to garner a recovery. Not to mention they have a greater reputation with which to borrow capital in the mean time to ensure the country does not go under in times of financial crisis.

The campaign for independence has almost no answer to real economics. Depressions are a certainty – they exist, and they hit every country eventually. The best way to safeguard against them is to have more power to fight them off. Yet the financial arguments of the Yes campaign that do this are incredibly uncertain and backed with little to no evidence: the idea of keeping the pound is not certain, the idea of staying in Europe is not certain, and the idea of harnessing current oil revenues to fight future decline is not even believable (the constant pointing to Norway, in fact, seems like a desperate grasping at straws: Norway has been planning for years, is a completely different culture, and is almost a minority of one). It is, however, as economically certain as one can get that Scotland will struggle with depression more when it is independent. That’s the only change we can be certain of, and it is extremely worrying.

The dogma of the Yes campaign is usually to say ‘Don’t believe the negativity’, as if the certainty of economic disaster is somehow irrelevant: only rainbows and unicorns exist in an independent Scotland. Yet it is not scare mongering to suggest that economics is important, and that evidence is more valuable than hopeful, positive uncertainty. When depressions hit, real people lose their jobs, their livelihoods and statistics say they also lose their health and drop their life expectancy when unemployment strikes. Failing to get countries out of depressions fast is a moral genocide, as is failure to ensure long term financial stability. If you are rich and don’t care for the long term increase in poverty, by all means vote for ‘independence’, but if you have a conscience, reason says you should listen to the ‘negativity’.

It is not a moral decision to opt for independence from a union which grants much greater financial stability, when devolution is not only already in place but also on the table for going even further. This is the historical equivalence of using the argument ‘let them eat cake’: ignoring reason, asking voters to ignore evidence and yet still daring to argue that they have a solution.

The entire idea of independence, in modern Scotland’s case, is a politically invented concept; fuelled by historical confusion, benefiting only the reputations of a set of politicians whose entire careers have been devoted to this cause. Make no mistake, this is politicians wanting to save and enhance their own careers at the risk of millions of others, trying to blind people with patriotism. It’s not the first time it’s happened in global politics, and it won’t be the last, but the best we can do is ensuring its failure here. Being governed by a UK government led by the Conservatives, in which needless public service cuts put everyone in danger, is a huge problem. The solution is to vote them out at the next general election, and to convince as many others as possible to do the same, not to ruin the long term financial stability of an entire region of the UK.