I am arguing that science can, in principle, help us understand what we *should* do and *should* want—and, therefore, what *other people* should do and should want in order to live the next lives possible. My claim is that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics, and such answers may one day fall within reach of the maturing sciences of mind.

Once we see that a concern for well-being (defined as deeply and inclusively as possible) is the only intelligible basis for morality and values, we will see that there *must* be a science of morality, whether or not we ever succeed in developing it: because the well-being of conscious creatures depends upon how the universe is, altogether. Given that the changes in the physical universe and in our experience of it can be understood, science should increasingly enable us to answer specific moral questions. For instance, would it be better to spend our next billion dollars eradicating racism or malaria? Which is generally more harmful to our personal relationships, “white” lies or gossip? Such questions may seem impossible to answer to get a hold of at this moment, but they may not stay that way forever. As we come to understand how human beings can best collaborate and thrive in this world, science can help us find a path leading away from the lowest depths of misery and toward the heights of happiness for the greatest number of people. Of course, there will be practical impediments to evaluating the consequences of certain actions, and different paths through life may be morally equivalent (i.e., there may be many peaks on the moral landscape), but I am arguing that there are no obstacles, in principle, to our speaking about *moral truth*.

—from Sam Harris, *The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values*