No , the thesis of his book is that for humans we can and should have an objective moral realism premised on wellbeing . Yes , which is achieved by accepting the ' fact ' that there is no isought gap , meaning that we can understand values of the world by looking at scientific facts e . g . doing brain scans . As I explain above , if he doesn ' t accept that claim then his book becomes worthless . If he does accept that claim , then his book is worthless on the basis of being wrong . Harris ' claim is that science can determine the rest of our moral values after wellbeing is assumed . The argument I ' m making isn ' t the isought gap . He doesn ' t need to demonstrate it scientifically , but does demonstrate it rationally . Okay , I addressed this possible objection in my earlier posts . If he wants to step back from the claim that science can determine values , then all he ' s saying is that we should determine values rationally . Which is what ethicists always do , so his complaints about how ethicists do this is misguided , but more importantly it completely undermines his entire attempt to reject the isought gap which remember is done by him in order to justify the idea that science can determine values . This is nonsense . Medicine and ethics do assume the value of wellbeing . And if they didn ' t they wouldn ' t get by just fine . But I ' ve already given you examples of ethical fields that get along just fine without assuming it , and we know medicine doesn ' t make assumptions like We should cure diseases because they are claims that need to be justified . There is an entire field dedicated to trying to figure out how we should define things like ' health ' and ' disease '. You really are misunderstanding the isought gap . If you rationally assume the value of wellbeing then there are rational ways to move through the moral landscape . I ' m not misunderstanding it , you need to address the criticism . Yes , if we first assume wellbeing then there are rational ways to talk about it by looking at the brain . But you said wellbeing is something that emerges from the brain , which is a conflation of facts about the brain and the value of wellbeing . Wellbeing is something we rationally define independent of any neuroscience data or how people feel about it . Once we have that definition , we can come up with measures or identifiers of it , like neuro data . 99 . 99 % of the time when people are using logic , contradiction can and should be avoided . Saying 1 equals not 1 undermines clear thinking on that level . Paraconsistent logic is higher order logic and adds additional dimensions . In the basic models contradiction is still wrong . That doesn ' t mean the basic models are wrong , just more limited and less complex . Paraconsistent logic isn ' t higher order logic , it ' s just claims about logic . So if someone says This statement is a lie , paraconsistent logic argues that this can be true and false without there being a logical flaw and without there being some semantic trick to get around it . Let ' s just cut this discussion down to what is really important here . The claim is about what morals really are in the world . We are making claims about truth , as it ' s a realist position . If that ' s the case , then we should completely ignore and disregard absolutely everything laymen say and think about the topic . Why would we care if an uneducated person off the street doesn ' t realise that wellbeing isn ' t essential to ethics ? How do deontology and virtue ethics argue for the values they assume ? They reject that consequences should be one ' s moral focus , they don ' t reject that wellbeing matters . They reject both consequences and wellbeing . Even among consequentialists , only some of them value wellbeing specifically , a couple of brands of utilitarianism . Deontologists value duty and following moral rules , and virtue ethicists value achieving good moral character neither are claims about wellbeing . If a deontological rule led to a worse outcome , and less wellbeing , then the deontologist would still say it ' s ethical as long as it ' s the morally right thing to do i . e . as long as it ' s consistent with a moral rule . Let ' s look at a specific example and you tell me where you think wellbeing plays a role . So a deontologist and virtue ethicist are presented with a situation where they are ordered to either kill 1 person because if they don ' t , then 10 , 000 people will die . The deontologist can argue that since killing is wrong , it would be unethical to kill the person . The virtue ethicist can argue that since being compelled to do morally heinous things doesn ' t add to the moral character they want to achieve , it would be unethical to kill the person . As such , 10 , 000 people die . In that situation , how have the deontologist and virtue ethicist valued wellbeing ?