The Harris Landscape

[bjorn]

Mr. Harris responds to his critics at www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/a-response-to-critics_b_815742.html - or kind of.

Obviously, anyone who doesn't understand that moral values are a question of science either misrepresent him or misunderstand him - or is a religious nutcase.

"For those unfamiliar with my book, here is my argument in brief: Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds -- and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe. Conscious minds and their states are natural phenomena, of course, fully constrained by the laws of Nature (whatever these turn out to be in the end). Therefore, there must be right and wrong answers to questions of morality and values that potentially fall within the purview of science."

And he is serious, Harris really means this.

"In my view, morality must be viewed in the context of our growing scientific understanding of the mind. If there are truths to be known about the mind, there will be truths to be known about how minds flourish; consequently, there will be truths to be known about good and evil."

His writing is so question begging that it boggles the mind.

However, what is more intriguing and important, is that it shows how hard it is for some atheists to drop the classical theistic notion of moral realism.

It is difficult to avoid the impression that admitting that an atheistic, naturalistic system leads to moral nominalism, to Harris and his supporters seems like a defeat.

As they really believe in moral realism, the question is how long and well they are able to live in tension between naturalism and moral realism.

[sandwiches]

Here's an interview with him in The New Statesman:

www.newstatesman.com/religion/2011/04/harris-science-moral-faith

Gosh, he's an irritating smug thing. Personally I think the first comment in response got it right.

[joel]

The Moral Landscape has been almost universally panned by philosophers, including plenty of nonreligious ones. I sort of want to read it just because, but then there are so many things I'd rather read.

The book's wikipedia page is an example of how unreliable wiki is for controversial subjects. Harris's fans have obviously worked very hard to make the page an apologetic for the book, and they cite the endorsement of Harris's buddies on the "Reason Project" as if it means anything.

[James Hannam]

Thanks for the link. My fav bit, Harris on Collins:

He is parti­cularly scathing about Collins. "There's something repugnant about the fact that he [is a believer] and one of the most prominent and influential representatives of science in the United States,"

Best wishes

James

[blessedkarl]

James, I am curious if you intend to post a review of either Dennet's Breaking the Spell or Harris' Moral Landscape. Some of us would benefit from that if you had the opportunity to do so.

[Deleted]

Apr 20, 2011 18:43:49 GMT joel said:

The Moral Landscape has been almost universally panned by philosophers, including plenty of nonreligious ones. I sort of want to read it just because, but then there are so many things I'd rather read.

Harris's book has no impact on academic moral philosophy. It's pop-ethics you read during commuting in a train. Read something from real professionals in the field. Classical utilitarianism has more intellectual value than this.

When I meet Harris - a dapper man of 43 who bears a decided resemblance to the actor Ben Stiller

Ha! People are starting to catch on.

[unkleE]

Apr 20, 2011 16:52:30 GMT sandwiches said:

Personally I think the first comment in response got it right.

Yes, he/she sounds like a smart dude - I wish I knew who they were!

[James Hannam]

Hi Karl,

Dennett is on my list, eventually, but not Harris. I got bored with The End of Faith and see no reason to get bored with The Moral Landscape as well.

Best wishes

James

[blessedkarl]

Thank you, James. I was just wondering because in your review of Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, you briefly mention that you had similar problems to it with Dennet's Breaking the Spell. I was just interested in you presenting a more in-depth view on what is wrong with Breaking the Spell as I think it would be interesting.

Thanks

-Blessed Karl

[blessedkarl]

Thank you, James. I was just wondering because in your review of Dawkins' book, The God Delusion, you briefly mention that you had similar problems to it with Dennet's Breaking the Spell. I was just interested in you presenting a more in-depth view on what is wrong with Breaking the Spell as I think it would be interesting.

Thanks

-Blessed Karl

[sandwiches]

Scathing analysis of Harris's works in The Nation by Jackson Lears:

www.thenation.com/article/160236/same-old-new-atheism-sam-harris?page=0,1

(May have to try the link twice as sometimes it simply demands a subscription)

Same Old New Atheism: On Sam Harris

Harris’s convictions reveal his comfortable cohabitation with imperial power. From him we learn, among other things, that torture is just another form of collateral damage in the "war on terror"—regrettable, maybe, but a necessary price to pay in the crucial effort to save Western civilization from the threat of radical Islam. We also learn that pacifism, despite its (allegedly) high moral standing, is "immoral" because it leaves us vulnerable to "the world’s thugs." As in the golden age of positivism, a notion of sovereign science is enlisted in the service of empire. Harris dispenses with the Christian rhetoric of his imperialist predecessors but not with their rationalizations for state-sponsored violence. Posing as a renegade on the cutting edge of scientific research and moral enlightenment, Harris turns out to be one of the bright young men who want to go back to 1910.

I did look up Jackson Lears to see what his credentials and outlook are. Apparently his Wikipedia entry has been very recently amended to add this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._J._Jackson_Lears

He is another religious fool living in the United States of America. He believes that Noah had a boat that loaded and saved all the little and big animals. He believes in talking snakes, and a man separating an entire sea by raising his hands. He fortifies the notion that one can gain an education, and still be an irrational, delusional fool.

Don't mess with the new atheists eh?

[eckadimmock]

Apr 29, 2011 15:45:32 GMT sandwiches said:

Scathing analysis of Harris's works in The Nation by Jackson Lears:

www.thenation.com/article/160236/same-old-new-atheism-sam-harris?page=0,1

Quite a comprehensive takedown! The thing that strikes me about Sam Harris is that after lumping all religious believers together in the same basket as the US religious right and demanding that it be extirpated, he ends up in the same place as the most extreme neocon. He insists that new paradigm of science be imposed everywhere with intellectual and military force.

I haven't read this book but the bit (mentioned at the end of the review) about implants in brains to read thoughts sounds like real Brave New World stuff.

[sandwiches]

Sam didn't like the Jackson Lears article:

www.samharris.org/site/full_text/same-old-new-atheism-on-sam-harris/

[Note: This may be the most idiotic and unbalanced response to my work I have ever come across.—SH]

However Sam seems to be having second thoughts about expressing his views on torture:

www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-id-rather-not-speak-about-torture1/

The Blog
Ethics | War | April 28, 2011
Why I’d Rather Not Speak About Torture

The topic of torture surfaced recently in a profile of me published in The New Statesman. The author, Jonathan Derbyshire, concluded his piece with a misleading summary of my views (among other things, he neglected to say that I think torture should be illegal). He later published the raw transcript of our interview, presumably so that I could speak for myself on so inflammatory a topic. Nevertheless, even my unedited remarks proved difficult for many people to understand, as witnessed by the fact that even one of my friends, Andrew Sullivan, felt the need to publicly repudiate them. Thus, I have been goaded to clarify my view on torture once again. I certainly hope it is for the last time.

[sandwiches]

Incidentally, this is what Sam's friend says:

andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/04/torturing-in-the-name-of-humanity.html

Torturing In The Name Of Humanity

This is an extremely loaded piece of rhetoric. There is always the perfect case of the ticking time bomb in theory. In practice, as Derbyshire puts it, the likelihood of this never-happened scenario hapening in the future is "vanishingly small." But notice how he [Harris] switched from torturing an individual to not "keeping this person perfectly comfortable with three meals a day and adequate sleep." That's a bait and switch - and a mockery of those of us committed to the principle of human dignity.

And try finding any evidence that torturing people gives us solid, actionable, reliable intelligence. Does Sam believe that John McCain really opposed America's actions in Vietnam? Why not? He said so after being tortured.

[eckadimmock]

May 1, 2011 20:39:30 GMT sandwiches said:

Nevertheless, even my unedited remarks proved difficult for many people to understand, as witnessed by the fact that even one of my friends, Andrew Sullivan, felt the need to publicly repudiate them. Thus, I have been goaded to clarify my view on torture once again. I certainly hope it is for the last time.

[/i] [/quote]

Isn't it interesting how texts can be quoted out of context to create a misleading impression? You'd think Sam of all people would know that.


In any case, his support for torture was at one point fairly clear, even if he has subsequently backpedalled, as Andrew Brown points out: www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2009/aug/08/religion-atheism