“Moral as well as natural philosophy, is an enquiry into fact: let us therefore keep in the former, as natural philosophers now at last do in the latter, to experiment and fact; and after their example, shake ourselves loose of and despise verbal wranglings.”
— George Turnbull. (1739). The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy, Volume II.

“It is sometimes said that science can only deal with what is, but that art and morals deal with what ought to be. The saying is perfectly true, but it is quite consistent with what is equally true, that the facts of art and morals are fit subject matter of science.”
— William Kingdon Clifford. (1879). “The Scientific Basis of Morals.” Lectures and Essays.

“When all is said and done in criticism of present social deficiencies, one may well wonder whether the root difficulty does not lie in the separation of natural and moral science.”
— John Dewey. (1948). Reconstruction in Philosophy.

“Clearly what is needed then is an expanded science, with larger powers and methods, a science which is able to study values and to teach mankind about them.”
— Abraham Maslow. (1964). Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences.

“Ideas about value—about what we want and how to get it—are future-oriented. They rest upon prediction. Science, the sole demonstrated means for making predictions better than we can make by chance, is how we more accurately discern and more fully realize value.”
— David Schrom. (2001). Valuescience.

“Even moral statements (‘you ought to do x’) could be scientifically investigated or falsified, as we shall see. […] Thus, ethics falls within the umbrella of scientific exploration, and I suggest that ‘ethicology’ should become a bona fide branch of scientific research, the last great scientific field yet to be endeavored.”
— Richard Carrier. (2005). Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism.

“Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, we will see that there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality. Indeed, I will argue that morality should be considered an undeveloped branch of science.”
— Sam Harris. (2010). The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.

Prepared for the Valuescience course at Stanford. For more, including a syllabus of readings, visit: http://www.valuescience.org