On debate and persuasion

The other day I listened to an old debate between William Lane Craig and Sam Harris on the topic "Is the Foundation of Morality Natural or Supernatural?" In some ways it wasn't a very good debate - the format didn't allow them to interact directly with each other; they each had their own angle on the question and mostly stuck to it so that to a great degree they spent 2 hours talking past each other.

From a technical perspective I think that Crag "won" the debate - he stuck closely to the actual question of how to ground morality. It was actually an almost comical contrast - Crag is parsing the question in a systematic way, making a positive case for a theistic grounding and a negative case for a naturalistic grounding; discussing both moral values and duties; making careful distinctions between (for example) moral ontology and moral epistemology, and refusing to be drawn away from the topic of the debate. Harris on the other hand is arguing that Yahweh is a moral monster, giving a (quite eloquent btw) description of the problem of evil, and saying that grounding morality in God is similar to psychopathy (really). Harris' only contribution to the actual topic of the debate was to say that if you take moral goodness to be identical to the wellbeing of conscious creatures, then you can develop an objective science of morality; but he seemed to think the identification was self-evident so he didn't give any reasons for it or respond to Crag's reasons for doubting it. He didn't give any negative reasons for thinking that theism couldn't ground morality (although he was clear that he's unimpressed with Yahweh). And he didn't give any defense whatsoever of the existence of moral duties in his framework.

If you parse their claims closely, you will find that they don't even disagree about the central question of the debate. Crag admitted in his opening remarks that he doesn't dispute that science can tell us about the well-being of conscious creatures. And Harris admitted that his moral framework starts with an axiom (the worst evil is the suffering of conscious creatures, and good is whatever is farthest from that) for which you can give no evidence, any more than you can argue for the law of non-contradiction or that 1+1=2 (of course, it is theism rather than atheism that gives us reason to associate our most basic intuitions with truth).

Nevertheless, if you pay attention to applause volume, the occasional laughter, and the tenor of the Q&A it is clear that the audience resonated with Harris. Crag's careful distinctions between different kinds of moral philosophy came across as cerebral and disconnected. Harris' axiom doesn't sound all that objectionable; so it doesn't matter to normal people if there are philosophical problems with his strict identification of good with well-being, or if he can't motivate duty (in fact that might even make his view more popular!). And Harris is an eloquent defender of his brand of anti-religious scientism, and a better speaker with a better voice.

So Craig won a technical argument that most people don't actually care about, but Harris presented his worldview in a more compelling way. This particularly struck me because our society is increasingly secular and I really enjoy thinking about technical arguments for theism based on the origins of life, the universe, and consciousness. But it's a sisyphean endeavor if you win and no one cares. Persuasion matters and that entails more than making fine philosophical distinctions.