Today Nick Peters delivers the last in a series on this popular work.
**
We are now on the final chapter with which I will conclude this review. Harris is writing here about the future of happiness and right at the start, it is a wonder that someone could write a chapter like this. On page 177 he writes “Despite our perennial bad behavior, our moral progress seems to me unmistakable.”
Indeed: Because we can all watch the evening news and say America is getting better and better.
Harris tells us on the same page that of course the twentieth century delivered “some” unprecedented horrors. (Parentheses mine)
World War 1, World War 2, the Holocaust, Khmer Rouge, Hiroshima and Nagasaki….
Yes. Just “some” horrors. If you want to overlook world wars and killing on a scale never before seen, yes. We only saw some horrors.
Fortunately, according to Harris, we in the developed world became disturbed by our capacity to do harm to our fellow man.
After all, we know all of the above atrocities took place in third world countries and Russia and Germany were not at all developed….
Harris goes on to write about how he has developed his argument, if you want to call it that, in the book. There is nothing new aside from the idea that we must depend on science. Now then is a good time to consider my overall look at Harris’ book.
I have stated before that I think Harris is the worst researcher amongst the new atheists. He consistently denies citing his opponents and even though Polkinghorne and N.T. Wright are referenced in this book, their positions are not dealt with. This is not to say that they are automatically right, but that if Harris wants to say that someone like Collins tells us to read these people and has the implication that this is a bad argument, he should tell us why. What is wrong with the position of Polkinghorne? What is wrong with that of Wright?
I also believe Harris’ whole thesis in facts works against him. If our brains are meant to uncover moral truths about the world, then does this not imply a teleology for us? A proper-functioning brain is one that does happen to discover that acts of genocide are wrong. Why should the brain uncover moral truths however? (Or any truths for that matter?) Why should there be a relation between the way I “feel” and the way the world is? (In saying such, I am not saying morality is a matter of feeling of course.)
At my writing of this, Harris has just concluded recently a debate with William Lane Craig where Harris was thoroughly outmatched. While I do not agree with all of Craig’s positions, Harris’ arguments boiled down to ideas like “YHWH condoned genocide” and “Why should a good Hindu go to Hell?” Harris simply ranted and consistently played the card of “no evidence” thinking that all Christians everywhere eschew the idea of evidence for a position.
It is ironic that the new atheists tend to think simply asserting their position counts as an argument. They do not give evidence that Christians eschew evidence. They do not give evidence that faith is believing something without reason. They do not interact with the arguments of the other side seriously, all the while chiding Christians for doing the same.
It is my hope in fact that the new atheists keep up the march that they’re on. The more that they argue as they do, the better and better the state of affairs gets for their opposition. They have lowered the intellectual level of atheism. When atheists start thinking people like Harris and Dawkins are well-read in the philosophy and theology they critique, we are in good hands. Of course, this does not mean that we avoid our intellectual commitments, but if we sharpen ours blades while our opponents dull theirs, we will have an advantage.
If you are an atheist, I do urge you that if you want Christians to take your arguments seriously, avoid the new atheists like the plague. Never cite them except as a negative example. Look in their bibliographies and indexes and notes and see how much they have paid attention to the other side, and then read their opposition. In fact, read the opposition before the new atheists ever came out to see the new atheists are dealing with arguments that have been dealt with numerous times before. There is indeed nothing new under the sun.
Showing posts with label Sam Harris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sam Harris. Show all posts
Monday, April 18, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Sam Harris' "The Moral Landscape," Part 4
As I get ready for a road trip, it's nice to have a guest post to use, and in the after,math of the Craig/Harris debate, we have the next installment of Nick Peters' look at The Moral Landscape. The Ticker will return on Wednesday as I will be out of town Monday.
***
Now we come to the fun part. Harris is going to make an argument against religion. The reality however is that one will more likely picture Harris foaming at the mouth through much of this rather than making an argument.
To begin with, Harris says on page 145 that despite explicit separation of church and state provided for by the U.S. Constitution (Where?) the level of belief in religion and its significance even in political discourse rivals a number of theocracies.
Of course, the separation of church and state comes from a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Church. However, Harris seems to construe the idea of religious belief with theocracy. What is the basis for this? Harris doesn’t give it. Because I’m a Christian, I’m automatically a believer in theonomy?
This isn’t a shock considering Harris sees Islam which is like this and assumes all religion must be like this. In reality, it is because of the idea of Christianity that religious freedom exists here in America. For we Christians, generally, while we disagree with Islam, we should support the right of Muslims to build mosques. (I am against one at ground zero, but that is not because I am opposed to a Muslim’s freedom of religion.)
What do we know about a person’s religious beliefs? Harris cites a Boyer who says “explicit theologies and consciously held dogmas are not a reliable indicator of the real contents or causes of a person’s religious beliefs.”
Because we all know that the worst way to understand a person’s belief system is to ask them what they believe….
In a number of places in this chapter, Harris also paints the exceptional as the normative. For instance, Harris speaks about a Christian group that let a toddler die of starvation for not saying “Amen” before meals. Harris does not mention that this was not a Christian group however but a group called “1 Mind Ministries.” See information about this group below.
Of course, for Harris, it doesn’t matter that this group is identified as a cult by Christians. They still fall under the same label.
Harris shortly afterwards begins a long rant. He starts by stating that because some scientists do not detect any conflict with religious faith and science only proves that a juxtaposition of good and bad ideas is possible. Why not the reverse? Why not that some people think there is a conflict proves that the juxtaposition of good and bad ideas is possible?
Who is Harris’s main target? Francis Collins. Collins, says Harris, is “widely considered the most impressive example of sophisticated faith in action.” (Page 160)
Widely by whom? While I am glad that Collins is a Christian, if you asked me to name leading defenders of Christianity today, it would take me awhile to get to Collins. Collins’s main work is not in defending Christianity, which is fine with me. We can’t expect everyone to be an apologist. Perhaps Harris should have interacted with some.
I read Michael Ruse’s review also of this book. Ruse is an atheist but does not hold back on Harris and I agree with him on this point. Harris starts his look at Collins with this paragraph on page 160 that Ruse also quotes:
The Language of God is a genuinely astonishing book. To read it is to witness nothing less than an intellectual suicide. It is, however, a suicide that has gone almost entirely unacknowledged: the body yielded to the rope; the neck snapped; the breath subsided; and the corpse dangles in ghastly discomposure even now—and yet polite people everywhere continue to celebrate the great man’s health.
If you’ve also read Ruse and think Ruse is using hyperbole to describe what Harris does here, I assure you he is not. This rant against Collins literally continues until page 174. That is fifteen pages. You read that right. Harris takes one Christian he does not like in a book on ethics and spends fifteen pages arguing against him. He would have been better off to have actually interacted with Christian ideas, such as Aquinas’s treatment of Natural Law.
Harris asks if it would be possible that Collins would be running the NIH if he were an outspoken polytheist. I say “Why not?” It doesn’t matter to me. When it comes to him giving us knowledge of the human genome, I only care about one thing. Does he have the credentials to do so? Now I believe him being a Christian is a bonus due to his attitudinal position, but I believe the knowledge of the human genome can be gained the same way. It is done through science and not revelation. If Collins was praying that God would reveal the genome to him without doing any research, I would have a problem. Unlike Harris, I don’t make that big a deal about the position that Collins holds otherwise.
When Collins writes of his conversion experience, Harris says one hopes they would see “Dear Diary” before it. Granted, I don’t place much stock necessarily in one’s experiences, but I don’t exclude them entirely either. I don’t know the full context either of what happened, but at this point in my copy of the book I literally wrote on this part “Get a grip, Harris.” I could picture him literally frothing at the mouth.
Harris also tells us that Collins believes in canonical miracles such as the virgin birth and literal resurrection and how he cites N.T. Wright and John Polkinghorne. Now I would not go with Polkinghorne, but Harris says that when Collins is pressed on finer points of theology, he recommends that people consult books by others for further illumination.
Okay. The problem? If you’re not an authority in a field, refer to someone else. Am I to think that Harris would never recommend that I read others on topics that he’s not skilled on? Or, is Harris skilled equally in history, geometry, mathematics, philosophy, logic, science, literature, poetry, music, etc. (Of course, I am open to him being equally weak in all.)
Harris in fact does this. When he writes about the distorted text of the New Testament in his opinion, he simply has an endnote to Ehrman. Note that this is just two pages after he complains that Collins has us read other people. You have to love the new atheists when they do stuff like this.
When looking at Collins’s religious beliefs, Harris asks how many scientific laws are violated by this. I can answer the question quite easily for him. None. Not a one. Harris does not understand the relationship between miracles and so-called laws of science.
On page 169, we see the idea that for Harris, it remains taboo to criticize mainstream religion. Keep in mind everyone that Harris is saying this in his third book criticizing mainstream religion and shortly after writing this paragraph, he will refer to books and articles by atheists. Yes. Obviously there is a taboo at work.
On page 173, Harris asks us “Is it really wise to entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who believes that understanding ourselves through science is impossible, while our resurrection from death is inevitable?” Hmmm. Let me think about that.
Yes.
Why? Because the science is the same. I can accept science regardless of the source. An experiment done by a Christian will produce a result. If done in the same way by an atheist, it should produce the same or a similar result. Simply have Collins’s work go through peer-review like anyone else’s should.
On page 174, Harris tells us that there are several works claiming that Harris and his cohorts in the new atheists do not understand religion, that they caricature it and use extremes as norms. Harris claims that they do no such thing. They just do what Collins does and take the specific claims seriously.
I simply ask the reader to go back through here (when they’re done laughing) and see how Harris does indeed do what he says he hasn’t. I have yet to read anything in one of these books worthy of making someone blink. Harris could have a case if he actually interacted with more Christian literature. Note that in this chapter, he never interacts with N.T. Wright for instance, though Wright shows up in his bibliography. I have written on this elsewhere and at the bottom is a link to my post on my blog on the shoddy research of the new atheism.
Naturally, Harris has the same idea as well that faith is conviction without sufficient reason and warning that we better be careful or the Christian mob will burn down the library of Alexandria again. Links are included again dealing with both of these.
Harris then asks on page 175 “But let’s admit which side in this debate currently views our neighbors as dangerous children and which views them as adults who might prefer not to be completely mistaken about the nature of reality.”
I agree. That would be the Christian side rather than the atheist side always speaking about indoctrination and being delusional without doing sufficient research on the topic.
In conclusion, Harris’s chapter reveals nothing on religion really nor does it deal with religious theories of moral knowledge. It is simply a rant, but alas, have we not come to expect this from the new atheists?
One Mind Ministries by Apologetics Index
Shoddy Research of New Atheists
Faith defined
Library of Alexandria
***
Now we come to the fun part. Harris is going to make an argument against religion. The reality however is that one will more likely picture Harris foaming at the mouth through much of this rather than making an argument.
To begin with, Harris says on page 145 that despite explicit separation of church and state provided for by the U.S. Constitution (Where?) the level of belief in religion and its significance even in political discourse rivals a number of theocracies.
Of course, the separation of church and state comes from a letter from Jefferson to the Danbury Baptist Church. However, Harris seems to construe the idea of religious belief with theocracy. What is the basis for this? Harris doesn’t give it. Because I’m a Christian, I’m automatically a believer in theonomy?
This isn’t a shock considering Harris sees Islam which is like this and assumes all religion must be like this. In reality, it is because of the idea of Christianity that religious freedom exists here in America. For we Christians, generally, while we disagree with Islam, we should support the right of Muslims to build mosques. (I am against one at ground zero, but that is not because I am opposed to a Muslim’s freedom of religion.)
What do we know about a person’s religious beliefs? Harris cites a Boyer who says “explicit theologies and consciously held dogmas are not a reliable indicator of the real contents or causes of a person’s religious beliefs.”
Because we all know that the worst way to understand a person’s belief system is to ask them what they believe….
In a number of places in this chapter, Harris also paints the exceptional as the normative. For instance, Harris speaks about a Christian group that let a toddler die of starvation for not saying “Amen” before meals. Harris does not mention that this was not a Christian group however but a group called “1 Mind Ministries.” See information about this group below.
Of course, for Harris, it doesn’t matter that this group is identified as a cult by Christians. They still fall under the same label.
Harris shortly afterwards begins a long rant. He starts by stating that because some scientists do not detect any conflict with religious faith and science only proves that a juxtaposition of good and bad ideas is possible. Why not the reverse? Why not that some people think there is a conflict proves that the juxtaposition of good and bad ideas is possible?
Who is Harris’s main target? Francis Collins. Collins, says Harris, is “widely considered the most impressive example of sophisticated faith in action.” (Page 160)
Widely by whom? While I am glad that Collins is a Christian, if you asked me to name leading defenders of Christianity today, it would take me awhile to get to Collins. Collins’s main work is not in defending Christianity, which is fine with me. We can’t expect everyone to be an apologist. Perhaps Harris should have interacted with some.
I read Michael Ruse’s review also of this book. Ruse is an atheist but does not hold back on Harris and I agree with him on this point. Harris starts his look at Collins with this paragraph on page 160 that Ruse also quotes:
The Language of God is a genuinely astonishing book. To read it is to witness nothing less than an intellectual suicide. It is, however, a suicide that has gone almost entirely unacknowledged: the body yielded to the rope; the neck snapped; the breath subsided; and the corpse dangles in ghastly discomposure even now—and yet polite people everywhere continue to celebrate the great man’s health.
If you’ve also read Ruse and think Ruse is using hyperbole to describe what Harris does here, I assure you he is not. This rant against Collins literally continues until page 174. That is fifteen pages. You read that right. Harris takes one Christian he does not like in a book on ethics and spends fifteen pages arguing against him. He would have been better off to have actually interacted with Christian ideas, such as Aquinas’s treatment of Natural Law.
Harris asks if it would be possible that Collins would be running the NIH if he were an outspoken polytheist. I say “Why not?” It doesn’t matter to me. When it comes to him giving us knowledge of the human genome, I only care about one thing. Does he have the credentials to do so? Now I believe him being a Christian is a bonus due to his attitudinal position, but I believe the knowledge of the human genome can be gained the same way. It is done through science and not revelation. If Collins was praying that God would reveal the genome to him without doing any research, I would have a problem. Unlike Harris, I don’t make that big a deal about the position that Collins holds otherwise.
When Collins writes of his conversion experience, Harris says one hopes they would see “Dear Diary” before it. Granted, I don’t place much stock necessarily in one’s experiences, but I don’t exclude them entirely either. I don’t know the full context either of what happened, but at this point in my copy of the book I literally wrote on this part “Get a grip, Harris.” I could picture him literally frothing at the mouth.
Harris also tells us that Collins believes in canonical miracles such as the virgin birth and literal resurrection and how he cites N.T. Wright and John Polkinghorne. Now I would not go with Polkinghorne, but Harris says that when Collins is pressed on finer points of theology, he recommends that people consult books by others for further illumination.
Okay. The problem? If you’re not an authority in a field, refer to someone else. Am I to think that Harris would never recommend that I read others on topics that he’s not skilled on? Or, is Harris skilled equally in history, geometry, mathematics, philosophy, logic, science, literature, poetry, music, etc. (Of course, I am open to him being equally weak in all.)
Harris in fact does this. When he writes about the distorted text of the New Testament in his opinion, he simply has an endnote to Ehrman. Note that this is just two pages after he complains that Collins has us read other people. You have to love the new atheists when they do stuff like this.
When looking at Collins’s religious beliefs, Harris asks how many scientific laws are violated by this. I can answer the question quite easily for him. None. Not a one. Harris does not understand the relationship between miracles and so-called laws of science.
On page 169, we see the idea that for Harris, it remains taboo to criticize mainstream religion. Keep in mind everyone that Harris is saying this in his third book criticizing mainstream religion and shortly after writing this paragraph, he will refer to books and articles by atheists. Yes. Obviously there is a taboo at work.
On page 173, Harris asks us “Is it really wise to entrust the future of biomedical research in the United States to a man who believes that understanding ourselves through science is impossible, while our resurrection from death is inevitable?” Hmmm. Let me think about that.
Yes.
Why? Because the science is the same. I can accept science regardless of the source. An experiment done by a Christian will produce a result. If done in the same way by an atheist, it should produce the same or a similar result. Simply have Collins’s work go through peer-review like anyone else’s should.
On page 174, Harris tells us that there are several works claiming that Harris and his cohorts in the new atheists do not understand religion, that they caricature it and use extremes as norms. Harris claims that they do no such thing. They just do what Collins does and take the specific claims seriously.
I simply ask the reader to go back through here (when they’re done laughing) and see how Harris does indeed do what he says he hasn’t. I have yet to read anything in one of these books worthy of making someone blink. Harris could have a case if he actually interacted with more Christian literature. Note that in this chapter, he never interacts with N.T. Wright for instance, though Wright shows up in his bibliography. I have written on this elsewhere and at the bottom is a link to my post on my blog on the shoddy research of the new atheism.
Naturally, Harris has the same idea as well that faith is conviction without sufficient reason and warning that we better be careful or the Christian mob will burn down the library of Alexandria again. Links are included again dealing with both of these.
Harris then asks on page 175 “But let’s admit which side in this debate currently views our neighbors as dangerous children and which views them as adults who might prefer not to be completely mistaken about the nature of reality.”
I agree. That would be the Christian side rather than the atheist side always speaking about indoctrination and being delusional without doing sufficient research on the topic.
In conclusion, Harris’s chapter reveals nothing on religion really nor does it deal with religious theories of moral knowledge. It is simply a rant, but alas, have we not come to expect this from the new atheists?
One Mind Ministries by Apologetics Index
Shoddy Research of New Atheists
Faith defined
Library of Alexandria
Monday, March 28, 2011
Sam Harris' "Moral Landscape," Part 3
The Ticker's new posting schedule begins with a guest post by Nick Peters which is part 3 of his review of Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape. On Wednesday I'll have a Book Snap on Bart Ehrman's Forged, which I got in the mail Friday.
***
Chapter three is about belief. In reality, there’s not much to comment on. A lot of it is neuroscience and not having knowledge in that field, I will not speak on it. In fact, it took awhile for me to find anything worth commenting on, but I did find a few points and those will be the focus of today’s entry.
On page 121, for example, Harris says “When we believe a proposition to be true, its as though we have taken it in hand as part of our extended self; we are saying in effect, “This is mine. I can use this. This fits my view of the world.”
This certainly could apply to people like the new atheists. We have seen several times where some atheists, such as one known as Voldemort, will latch onto anything so long as it goes against Christianity. Christ-myther writes a book? Sure! We’ll promote it! Copycat theories on the incarnation? No need to study it! We’ll advocate it! New book by the new atheists? Who cares about right and wrong! It agrees with us!
I would hope readers here would be more astute. I personally will state that if a side in a debate does a better job that they do a better job, even if I don’t agree with that side. I have made it a point to call out Christians who are even arguing for the side that I agree with just because their arguments were so bad.
When I say I believe something is true, I am simply saying that I believe that it is what best describes reality. For instance, I just looked up that in 1993, the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl. I could care less about the Super Bowl. I don’t watch football at all. I only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. When I look up that fact I am not saying “I can use this. This fits my view of the world.” I’m just seeing something that’s true. Granted, I could use that maybe in evangelizing to a Cowboys fan, but I seriously doubt it.
Harris goes on to say that we like the truth and dislike falsehood. This is not always so. There are some people who will die and go to Hell. I don’t like that truth. My wife and I are at this point in time struggling financially. I don’t like that truth. I would love to believe that all will be saved and that we have finances to survive easy, but I can’t. Truth is more important to me than happiness.
At a later point, Harris writes about the Middle Ages where a belief in witchcraft was omnipresent in Europe and says that a panoramic ignorance on physical causes of disease, crop failure, and life’s other difficulties caused this delusion to thrive. Thus, for Harris, it was all connected with witchcraft in the Middle Ages.
So let’s spend some time looking at Harris’s source for this information.
Well, it’s best to say I’d like to. Once again, he doesn’t give one.
On page 133, Harris says “Knowing what a person believes is equivalent to knowing whether or not he is telling the truth.” What? You can know what a person believes and know entirely that they are wrong even if that person sincerely believes that they are right. It would seem however that Harris cannot tell if Christians are telling the truth or not since he does not know what we believe. (At least, he has not demonstrated that.)
Finally, Harris tells of an experiment where some researchers got admitted to mental hospitals with each complaining that they were mentally hearing repeatedly the words “empty,” “hollow,” and “thud.” When they were placed in the hospitals, they immediately stopped complaining of their symptoms and asked to be released. Eventually, none were pronounced healthy and released with a diagnosis of schizophrenia that was “in remission.” Another hospital hearing about this said they would be able to spot them. They were promised some pseudo-patients, but none were sent. However, ten percent of the new patients that hospital had were said to be shams.
Why bring this up?
Because keep in mind, these scientists are the ones who are to determine our human values.
Keep in mind also that for the new atheists, these are the people who are supposed to know better than all of us.
Just something to think about.
***
Chapter three is about belief. In reality, there’s not much to comment on. A lot of it is neuroscience and not having knowledge in that field, I will not speak on it. In fact, it took awhile for me to find anything worth commenting on, but I did find a few points and those will be the focus of today’s entry.
On page 121, for example, Harris says “When we believe a proposition to be true, its as though we have taken it in hand as part of our extended self; we are saying in effect, “This is mine. I can use this. This fits my view of the world.”
This certainly could apply to people like the new atheists. We have seen several times where some atheists, such as one known as Voldemort, will latch onto anything so long as it goes against Christianity. Christ-myther writes a book? Sure! We’ll promote it! Copycat theories on the incarnation? No need to study it! We’ll advocate it! New book by the new atheists? Who cares about right and wrong! It agrees with us!
I would hope readers here would be more astute. I personally will state that if a side in a debate does a better job that they do a better job, even if I don’t agree with that side. I have made it a point to call out Christians who are even arguing for the side that I agree with just because their arguments were so bad.
When I say I believe something is true, I am simply saying that I believe that it is what best describes reality. For instance, I just looked up that in 1993, the Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl. I could care less about the Super Bowl. I don’t watch football at all. I only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. When I look up that fact I am not saying “I can use this. This fits my view of the world.” I’m just seeing something that’s true. Granted, I could use that maybe in evangelizing to a Cowboys fan, but I seriously doubt it.
Harris goes on to say that we like the truth and dislike falsehood. This is not always so. There are some people who will die and go to Hell. I don’t like that truth. My wife and I are at this point in time struggling financially. I don’t like that truth. I would love to believe that all will be saved and that we have finances to survive easy, but I can’t. Truth is more important to me than happiness.
At a later point, Harris writes about the Middle Ages where a belief in witchcraft was omnipresent in Europe and says that a panoramic ignorance on physical causes of disease, crop failure, and life’s other difficulties caused this delusion to thrive. Thus, for Harris, it was all connected with witchcraft in the Middle Ages.
So let’s spend some time looking at Harris’s source for this information.
Well, it’s best to say I’d like to. Once again, he doesn’t give one.
On page 133, Harris says “Knowing what a person believes is equivalent to knowing whether or not he is telling the truth.” What? You can know what a person believes and know entirely that they are wrong even if that person sincerely believes that they are right. It would seem however that Harris cannot tell if Christians are telling the truth or not since he does not know what we believe. (At least, he has not demonstrated that.)
Finally, Harris tells of an experiment where some researchers got admitted to mental hospitals with each complaining that they were mentally hearing repeatedly the words “empty,” “hollow,” and “thud.” When they were placed in the hospitals, they immediately stopped complaining of their symptoms and asked to be released. Eventually, none were pronounced healthy and released with a diagnosis of schizophrenia that was “in remission.” Another hospital hearing about this said they would be able to spot them. They were promised some pseudo-patients, but none were sent. However, ten percent of the new patients that hospital had were said to be shams.
Why bring this up?
Because keep in mind, these scientists are the ones who are to determine our human values.
Keep in mind also that for the new atheists, these are the people who are supposed to know better than all of us.
Just something to think about.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Sam Harris' "The Moral Landscape," Chapter 1
I'm short on time today, so here's Nick again with a look at Chapter 1 of Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape.
**
Interestingly, Sam Harris begins this chapter with a point I agree with. He talks about people who espouse moral relativism and then condemn immorality.
Anyone who has ever done debates with someone who espouses moral relativism knows that this is the case. Too often, what they do is just plant their own personal morality without any foundation. The sad reality is that I believe Harris does the same thing.
Harris does not espouse moral relativism. However, he does say on page 28 that “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 best lives possible.
I have stated before that this is in fact my fear because it will not be science that does it but scientists doing it. It will also not be based on studying the things themselves, as good philosophers do, but it would rather be based on studying the brains of people, and whose brains will we study to be the authority? One can hardly doubt that it will be those of the scientists themselves.
Shortly afterwards, Harris says that he is not claiming that moral truths exist independent of conscious beings as if they were Platonic forms. What Harris does not realize is that there are other ways of seeing these truths existing other than in the idea of forms in the sense Plato understood. For Plato, the forms could exist independently. For Aristotle, forms exist insofar as they are in a substance. The form of humans exist in humans. That does not preclude the idea of humans existing in a divine mind, such as the mind of God, but the form does not exist independently of God’s mind.
Moral truths are then based on what the essences of things are. Why is it that you can kill a bacteria but you cannot kill a human being? (Note. I do understand killing and murder are different, but I am speaking in a generic sense) It is because of what a bacteria is compared to what a human is. We are to treat things based on their nature. Why is it that a thrown rock breaks a window? Is it because there is a law outside of the rock and the window that the two must obey, or is it more likely that there is a response in the nature of a window when it meets the nature of the rock in motion? It happens so regularly and predictably that we call it a law, but the law is based on the things themselves.
I realize this is complex, but Harris’s position is too simplistic as he only brings up Platonic objections, which is something many atheist thinkers seem to do. Note also how we will see theories of morality are based only on voluntarism and not on other theories of morality in theology.
Harris is also right later on saying that consensus is not necessary in truth. He points out that people will see scientific controversy and think that that destroys all of science. Such a notion would be rather simplistic, but as we will see later on, that does not stop Harris from doing the same to religion. It is ironic Harris does this while condemning double standards. One only wishes he would follow his own advice, but that is to come later.
Considering however that moral truth could come from a transcendent source, Harris says the following revealing much on page 32:
So how much time should we spend worrying about such a transcendent source of value? I think the time I will spend typing this sentence is already too much.
Harris already thinks that such a source cannot affect the life of any conscious creature. How this is known? We don’t know. That Harris spends so little time thinking about a serious option that philosophers have wrestled with for thousand of years shows we don’t have a serious thinker. I wonder what he would think if I said something like this:
So how much time should we spend considering the possibility that there is a non-miraculous explanation of life arising on our planet? I think the time I will spend typing this sentence is already too much.
One can picture Harris being indignant, and rightfully so. “This is a serious matter! We need to know it if it’s true!” Precisely! If there is also a source of morality outside of us that is beyond us and would also be eternal and unchanging, does it not behoove us to know it? “Well no, because that would not be scientific.”
What about religion however? Harris says on page 33 that those who say we should follow God’s Law say that we should “for its own sake.” Harris asks questions like “What if a more powerful God could punish us for following YHWH?” (Well if you think you can make an argument for one go ahead) “Aren’t religious people also seeking to find happiness and avoid misery?” (Well yeah, and we believe that following the guide of our creator is a way to do that.) For Harris, in the end, they’re seeking well-being also and therefore, their account cannot be exceptions.
Yes. All of this in one paragraph. In one paragraph he presents the religious position.
No one doubts that people seek well-being. Harris states that all ethical systems somehow end in well-being. Well geez. Is this supposed to be a surprise? Everyone go and celebrate. Sam Harris has ended thousands of years of debate in ethics by pointing out that people seek well-being.
Um. No. What the problem is is not that people seek well-being, but that people do not know what well-being is. Harris realizes that it depends on what it means and points to what matters to the average person. Ah! So now the consensus does matter! After all, who will be average? Is it the average American or the average Mediterranean? The average teenager or the average senior citizen?
Or, lo and behold, will it be someone like Harris himself?
Harris goes on to say that we all have an intuitive morality. No problem there. However, he also says that most of it is clearly wrong. What is wrong? We don’t know. He doesn’t say. Of course, he does use this to attack religious cultures. (One can easily picture Harris frothing at the mouth as he writes cackling with glee at any chance to strike religion.)
How does he know that they are clearly wrong? Is this clear to everyone? If so, then is this known apart from science? Could it be we actually know moral truths apart from science? Surely not!
On the next page, Harris makes a point that I have been making. Science cannot tell us why scientifically we should value health. Indeed. It could tell us what health is, but it cannot tell us why we should value it. It cannot give a should at all.
On page 38, Harris tells us that it is worth noting that the God of Abraham never told us to treat our children with kindness. However, he did tell us to kill them for talking back to us.
First off, why would God need to tell the children that? In that culture, your children were your future and your livelihood. You wanted them to grow strong so they could continue the family and be around to support you in your old age. (Never mind Ephesians 6 also contains duties for parents to children) However, let’s look at his references.
Exodus 21:15 is first saying anyone who attacks their father and mother is to be put to death.
Yes. How innocent it would be in a society where the family was the main social unit responsible for the upbringing of the next generation if children were given a blank check to attack their parents. This wouldn’t be seen as a serious crime. How horrible it would be if we actually taught children to respect their parents!
(Note that this could also be rendered as “kills their parents.”)
The same applies to Leviticus 20:9 which would mean one who essentially wishes that their parents were dead. This would be seen as a form of treason in such a society leading to social upheaval.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is the classic one so often used. Links to my treatment and that of JPH’s can be found at the bottom.
Mark 7:9-13 and Matthew 15:4-7 have absolutely nothing to do with the idea that children can be killed for talking back. Rather, this was about children not taking care of their parents and using God as an excuse. Harris is obviously not counting on his readers reading these passages, or he is ignorant of what the passages mean, or both. Note once again that Harris can’t avoid a chance to snipe at religion.
Harris asks us to imagine if there were only two people that existed known as Adam and Eve. He asks us to imagine what it would mean if they attempted to kill and eat each other. Would it be wrong? (italics his) Harris says yes, but only if we mean they would be forsaking better means of satisfaction.
I wonder if I really need to go any further? Harris can’t see ipso facto that for someone to attempt to eat someone else would be just wrong in itself?
On page 46, Harris continues his usual rant on religion and this time says “Among conservatives in the West, the same skepticism about the power of reason leads, more often than not, directly to the feet of Jesus Christ, Savior of the Universe.”
Whereas misuse of the power of reason in the West leads, more often than not, to identifying yourself as a new atheist.
I am a strong believer in the power of reason and would love to debate Harris someday. I happen to know many other conservatives who would enjoy such a thing. Perhaps Harris should accept all of our challenges. After all, we are skeptical of the power of reason supposedly. It should be an easy challenge. Has Harris not read at all any of the great philosophers in Christian history from the apostolic era to now? Wait. No need to answer that question. I already know.
On page 51, Harris takes a swipe at honor cultures. He uses the example of his wife working out at a gym one day when a handsome stranger hits on her. She politely informs him that she is married and yet the man persists. Now I agree with Harris on this point. If someone did that to my wife, I would definitely be ready to make a response to this person.
Harris says on this page:
Had this happened in a traditional honor culture, the jealous husband might beat his wife, drag her to the gym, and force her to identify her suitor so he could put a bullet in his brain. In fact, in an honor society, the employees of the gym might sympathize with this project and help to organize a proper duel. Or perhaps the husband would be satisfied to act more obliquely, killing one of his rival’s relatives and initiating a classic blood feud. In either case, assuming he didn’t get himself killed in the process, he might then murder his wife for emphasis, leaving her children motherless. There are many communities on earth where men commonly behave this way, and hundreds of millions of boys are beginning to run this ancient warfare on their brains even now.
Any citation for this? Not a one. Harris gives no indication that he has read anything on the topic.
Note also Harris says that he views the emotion of jealousy with suspicion. See info from JPH on that below.
Finally, Harris says the following on page 53:
And the fact that millions of people use the term “morality” as a synonym for religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, or other failures of insight and compassion should not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time.
More often than not, people who think like this I call “new atheists” and I am thankful Harris realizes that I do not have to accept his terminology until the end of time.
While I have finished this chapter, more is coming, and I was not even able to comment on all I saw in this one. The founder of Project Reason needs to use some.
On Deuteronomy: Here and here.
Jealousy: See here, Ex. 20:5.
**
Interestingly, Sam Harris begins this chapter with a point I agree with. He talks about people who espouse moral relativism and then condemn immorality.
Anyone who has ever done debates with someone who espouses moral relativism knows that this is the case. Too often, what they do is just plant their own personal morality without any foundation. The sad reality is that I believe Harris does the same thing.
Harris does not espouse moral relativism. However, he does say on page 28 that “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 best lives possible.
I have stated before that this is in fact my fear because it will not be science that does it but scientists doing it. It will also not be based on studying the things themselves, as good philosophers do, but it would rather be based on studying the brains of people, and whose brains will we study to be the authority? One can hardly doubt that it will be those of the scientists themselves.
Shortly afterwards, Harris says that he is not claiming that moral truths exist independent of conscious beings as if they were Platonic forms. What Harris does not realize is that there are other ways of seeing these truths existing other than in the idea of forms in the sense Plato understood. For Plato, the forms could exist independently. For Aristotle, forms exist insofar as they are in a substance. The form of humans exist in humans. That does not preclude the idea of humans existing in a divine mind, such as the mind of God, but the form does not exist independently of God’s mind.
Moral truths are then based on what the essences of things are. Why is it that you can kill a bacteria but you cannot kill a human being? (Note. I do understand killing and murder are different, but I am speaking in a generic sense) It is because of what a bacteria is compared to what a human is. We are to treat things based on their nature. Why is it that a thrown rock breaks a window? Is it because there is a law outside of the rock and the window that the two must obey, or is it more likely that there is a response in the nature of a window when it meets the nature of the rock in motion? It happens so regularly and predictably that we call it a law, but the law is based on the things themselves.
I realize this is complex, but Harris’s position is too simplistic as he only brings up Platonic objections, which is something many atheist thinkers seem to do. Note also how we will see theories of morality are based only on voluntarism and not on other theories of morality in theology.
Harris is also right later on saying that consensus is not necessary in truth. He points out that people will see scientific controversy and think that that destroys all of science. Such a notion would be rather simplistic, but as we will see later on, that does not stop Harris from doing the same to religion. It is ironic Harris does this while condemning double standards. One only wishes he would follow his own advice, but that is to come later.
Considering however that moral truth could come from a transcendent source, Harris says the following revealing much on page 32:
So how much time should we spend worrying about such a transcendent source of value? I think the time I will spend typing this sentence is already too much.
Harris already thinks that such a source cannot affect the life of any conscious creature. How this is known? We don’t know. That Harris spends so little time thinking about a serious option that philosophers have wrestled with for thousand of years shows we don’t have a serious thinker. I wonder what he would think if I said something like this:
So how much time should we spend considering the possibility that there is a non-miraculous explanation of life arising on our planet? I think the time I will spend typing this sentence is already too much.
One can picture Harris being indignant, and rightfully so. “This is a serious matter! We need to know it if it’s true!” Precisely! If there is also a source of morality outside of us that is beyond us and would also be eternal and unchanging, does it not behoove us to know it? “Well no, because that would not be scientific.”
What about religion however? Harris says on page 33 that those who say we should follow God’s Law say that we should “for its own sake.” Harris asks questions like “What if a more powerful God could punish us for following YHWH?” (Well if you think you can make an argument for one go ahead) “Aren’t religious people also seeking to find happiness and avoid misery?” (Well yeah, and we believe that following the guide of our creator is a way to do that.) For Harris, in the end, they’re seeking well-being also and therefore, their account cannot be exceptions.
Yes. All of this in one paragraph. In one paragraph he presents the religious position.
No one doubts that people seek well-being. Harris states that all ethical systems somehow end in well-being. Well geez. Is this supposed to be a surprise? Everyone go and celebrate. Sam Harris has ended thousands of years of debate in ethics by pointing out that people seek well-being.
Um. No. What the problem is is not that people seek well-being, but that people do not know what well-being is. Harris realizes that it depends on what it means and points to what matters to the average person. Ah! So now the consensus does matter! After all, who will be average? Is it the average American or the average Mediterranean? The average teenager or the average senior citizen?
Or, lo and behold, will it be someone like Harris himself?
Harris goes on to say that we all have an intuitive morality. No problem there. However, he also says that most of it is clearly wrong. What is wrong? We don’t know. He doesn’t say. Of course, he does use this to attack religious cultures. (One can easily picture Harris frothing at the mouth as he writes cackling with glee at any chance to strike religion.)
How does he know that they are clearly wrong? Is this clear to everyone? If so, then is this known apart from science? Could it be we actually know moral truths apart from science? Surely not!
On the next page, Harris makes a point that I have been making. Science cannot tell us why scientifically we should value health. Indeed. It could tell us what health is, but it cannot tell us why we should value it. It cannot give a should at all.
On page 38, Harris tells us that it is worth noting that the God of Abraham never told us to treat our children with kindness. However, he did tell us to kill them for talking back to us.
First off, why would God need to tell the children that? In that culture, your children were your future and your livelihood. You wanted them to grow strong so they could continue the family and be around to support you in your old age. (Never mind Ephesians 6 also contains duties for parents to children) However, let’s look at his references.
Exodus 21:15 is first saying anyone who attacks their father and mother is to be put to death.
Yes. How innocent it would be in a society where the family was the main social unit responsible for the upbringing of the next generation if children were given a blank check to attack their parents. This wouldn’t be seen as a serious crime. How horrible it would be if we actually taught children to respect their parents!
(Note that this could also be rendered as “kills their parents.”)
The same applies to Leviticus 20:9 which would mean one who essentially wishes that their parents were dead. This would be seen as a form of treason in such a society leading to social upheaval.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 is the classic one so often used. Links to my treatment and that of JPH’s can be found at the bottom.
Mark 7:9-13 and Matthew 15:4-7 have absolutely nothing to do with the idea that children can be killed for talking back. Rather, this was about children not taking care of their parents and using God as an excuse. Harris is obviously not counting on his readers reading these passages, or he is ignorant of what the passages mean, or both. Note once again that Harris can’t avoid a chance to snipe at religion.
Harris asks us to imagine if there were only two people that existed known as Adam and Eve. He asks us to imagine what it would mean if they attempted to kill and eat each other. Would it be wrong? (italics his) Harris says yes, but only if we mean they would be forsaking better means of satisfaction.
I wonder if I really need to go any further? Harris can’t see ipso facto that for someone to attempt to eat someone else would be just wrong in itself?
On page 46, Harris continues his usual rant on religion and this time says “Among conservatives in the West, the same skepticism about the power of reason leads, more often than not, directly to the feet of Jesus Christ, Savior of the Universe.”
Whereas misuse of the power of reason in the West leads, more often than not, to identifying yourself as a new atheist.
I am a strong believer in the power of reason and would love to debate Harris someday. I happen to know many other conservatives who would enjoy such a thing. Perhaps Harris should accept all of our challenges. After all, we are skeptical of the power of reason supposedly. It should be an easy challenge. Has Harris not read at all any of the great philosophers in Christian history from the apostolic era to now? Wait. No need to answer that question. I already know.
On page 51, Harris takes a swipe at honor cultures. He uses the example of his wife working out at a gym one day when a handsome stranger hits on her. She politely informs him that she is married and yet the man persists. Now I agree with Harris on this point. If someone did that to my wife, I would definitely be ready to make a response to this person.
Harris says on this page:
Had this happened in a traditional honor culture, the jealous husband might beat his wife, drag her to the gym, and force her to identify her suitor so he could put a bullet in his brain. In fact, in an honor society, the employees of the gym might sympathize with this project and help to organize a proper duel. Or perhaps the husband would be satisfied to act more obliquely, killing one of his rival’s relatives and initiating a classic blood feud. In either case, assuming he didn’t get himself killed in the process, he might then murder his wife for emphasis, leaving her children motherless. There are many communities on earth where men commonly behave this way, and hundreds of millions of boys are beginning to run this ancient warfare on their brains even now.
Any citation for this? Not a one. Harris gives no indication that he has read anything on the topic.
Note also Harris says that he views the emotion of jealousy with suspicion. See info from JPH on that below.
Finally, Harris says the following on page 53:
And the fact that millions of people use the term “morality” as a synonym for religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, or other failures of insight and compassion should not oblige us to merely accept their terminology until the end of time.
More often than not, people who think like this I call “new atheists” and I am thankful Harris realizes that I do not have to accept his terminology until the end of time.
While I have finished this chapter, more is coming, and I was not even able to comment on all I saw in this one. The founder of Project Reason needs to use some.
On Deuteronomy: Here and here.
Jealousy: See here, Ex. 20:5.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Depth Review: Sam Harris' "The Moral Landscape", Part 1
It turns out I'm short on time today, so I'm turning the Ticker over to ministry associate Nick Peters, who is offering us a depth review of Sam Harris' The Moral Landscape in a series. I'll be back with more on bar arguments against the Resurrection tomorrow.***
Sam Harris has been touted as the rock star of the new atheists and his latest book has already begun rocking the blogosphere. What is claimed to be found in it is the way that science can determine human values. What is found inside however is not science, but a lot of philosophy, and not just philosophy but extremely bad philosophy, with of course the customary new atheist rant against religion.
First, a concern about the subtitle of “How Science Can Determine Human Values.” If Harris chose this subtitle, then I have revealed a lot more about him than I ever wanted to know. However, if someone believes that science can determine human values, be very afraid. After reading just a few pages of this book and thinking about this thought, I told my wife that the concept left me terrified for the thought of people taking it seriously, and she knew why immediately.
My wife and I are both diagnosed with Asperger’s disorder. Note how this affects us. It is not science discovering human values as if they existed apart from us. It is science determining them. It is deciding what they will be. Note also that this is human values. Values are subjective. I value X. That tells you about my view of X. That does not tell you about X itself. What is being said then is that science will tell us what we ought to see as good and what we ought not see as good. Do I have any reason to think that if that is consistently believed, then lives like mine and Allie’s who are “disabled” will be seen as not being fully capable of “well-being” and thus need to be eliminated from the gene pool?
Now I want to be clear. I am not saying that Harris himself wants to do this. I do not see this kind of personal evil in him. However, I am saying that if his ideology is lived out, it can have consequences that he himself would not want to have, but he would have to accept, unless of course he wants to look to something besides science to find what is and isn’t good.
I also wish to add that this book is even more horribly researched than The End of Faith. I saw in the back three evangelical Christians referenced. Only one was interacted with and that was hardly an interaction as we shall see when we come to the fourth chapter. There is no mention of Natural Law theory. We will find the objections against religion informing us on morality are incredibly weak and more of what has been seen before. Harris is a terrible researcher. As a conservative, I am reminded of the joke that for a liberal news station, their idea of both sides is having what a liberal says and then what a liberal says about what the conservative says. For Harris, it’s what science says and then what science says about what religion says.
Let’s go to the text for the introduction with this.
At the start, I notice a statement that shows to me the double-standard of the new atheists. In talking about questions of morality, Harris says “And it is important to realize that our inability to answer a question says nothing about whether the question itself has an answer.” (page 3)
Right you are, Harris! Now do you think you could teach the rest of your atheist friends this about the problem of evil where since I cannot supposedly give a specific reason why God allows X, there is no answer? It’s okay to have an enterprise that doesn’t have all the answers immediately, unless that enterprise is religion!
For Harris, the answers, however, are to be found in neuroscience. How do you determine what is good? Well you look at someone’s brain and see how they respond. Now I have no problem with doing experiments of that sort, provided of course they do no injury to the person. My problem is that Harris thinks a brain state can tell you about the external world. It can only tell you about what I think about the external world, and even then it can barely do that.
For instance, I am looking at an object. Suppose you cannot see what I am looking at. Can you study my brain and determine what color the object is? Can you tell me how big the object is by studying my brain? How about its weight? Can you tell me any properties whatsoever? (You might say it’s visible, but even then, I could not even be seeing something for all you know and just hallucinating.)
If all we have is brain states, we cannot even avoid the question of if we’re brains in vats. Maybe we are. People in the Matrix could tell you a lot about what they were looking at and you could have studied their brain states and found out a lot about their brains as well. What you could not find out was if what they were seeing was really there. In the Matrix, it wasn’t. It was all part of a program. Or, maybe we’re in Bishop Berkeley’s world. Maybe the material world is an illusion sustained by the mind of God for us. Why believe in matter?
Harris goes on to critique what religion says about morality. Harris says that for religious conservatives, something is right because God says so. We can use rational inquiry for everything else, but values must come from a voice in a whirlwind. (Page 5)
I don’t know what religious conservatives Harris is talking to and naturally, he doesn’t cite any. The conservatives I know of argue from natural law theory and other such means. Even if they hold to a divine command idea, they hold it in a far different way than Harris gives and would not object to rational inquiry.
Perhaps this might be how Harris was raised with religion, if indeed he was. If so, then he is again in the fundamentalist mindset. He’s just changed allegiance.
Harris also says that multiple moral answers could exist to the same question that could be valid. I agree. Say you want to give money to a charity. Which one? There are multiple answers to that, but some are just wrong. If you give your money to Planned Parenthood for instance, I would say that is wrong.
Harris tries to use food as an example, saying there are many types of food that are healthy. The problem is that food is not healthy in itself but healthy in the sense that it is what brings about health. Actions on the other hand are not what bring about morality per se but they are moral or immoral in themselves. If Harris wants to say that only the ends are good however, which is what I gather from his book, then one wonders what evils cannot be permitted to bring about the greatest well-being for all.
For an example, consider if we have an isolated island where it seems no one will rescue the people on the island. There are 49 men and one woman. This is a community in itself. The men want pleasure and so they make it a practice that regularly, they will each take their turn raping the woman. By doing so, 49 people get great pleasure and 1 gets great suffering, but the many benefit far more than the few.
I’m sure Harris would condemn this, but that is a problem for a view that says, "the greatest good for the greatest number of people." Some actions are just evil in themselves, like rape, and no matter how much pleasure is brought to men by that action, the action cannot be justified.
Harris tells us that science will one day make precise claims about which behaviors are good, which are neutral, and which are worth abandoning. This is a disturbing claim for you can be sure that it will not be science that does it but scientists using science. Richard Dawkins can say all he wants to that science flies people to the moon and religion flies planes into buildings. Never mind that science gave us those planes and religion gave us the impetus to do science. The reality is in both cases, there are people who are evil and people who are good and want to use religion and science both.
Harris goes on to list Moore’s objection to finding goodness in the natural world. Moore said it could not be done and was a naturalistic fallacy. You cannot just say a property is good without knowing what goodness is. Harris’s answer to this is to say carte blanche that well-being is good.
To which Moore would say, “Why?” On the island, is it the well-being of the men, the well-being of the woman, or the well-being of the community as a whole that matter? In reality, should we join the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement for the well-being of the planet? Should we follow new age believers and put the well-being of bacteria on the same level as the well-being of humans? What does Harris believe about the well-being of the child in the womb?
What would it mean to say that well-being is good? Does it mean that well-being is goodness? Then if I say “This pizza is good” or “This song is good”, am I saying that each is well-being? If instead it means what I would think it means, that well-being is that which is described as good, then again the question arises, what is the definition of goodness by which you recognize well-being fits?
Harris never answers. There is no record of Plato’s concept of the good. There is no interaction with Aristotle’s definition of the good in the Nicomachean Ethics. Harris just wants to suddenly say that this is what goodness is. Now I am not opposed to well-being nor am I opposed to calling it good, but Harris has not answered Moore’s objection.
In speaking about maximizing well-being, which again Harris doesn’t explain, he says that whatever can be known about it must at some point translate into facts about the brain and its interaction with the world at large. Thus, the study of reality will come down to studying the brain. We can again come to the brain in the vat problem. I do not believe Harris would just destroy morality if he followed this route and make morality subjective ultimately. I also believe that he will destroy science as our knowledge of the external world could be the same as morality. It’d all come down to brain states.
Interestingly enough, one gets the picture that unwittingly, Harris has fallen into a teleology. Suppose he was right about morality taking place in the brain. Why is it that a properly functioning brain is one that brings about the discovery of moral truth? Harris will say that brains that aren’t functioning right produce psychopaths and others. Why? Why should it be that the functioning of the brain can tell us about a concept that is not material, namely goodness.
Harris says he believes that saying goodness is that which maximizes well-being stops Moore’s objection. Harris says on page 12 that it makes no sense to ask if maximizing well-being is good. Actually, it makes perfect sense to ask that. If I don’t know what goodness is, how can I know if maximizing well-being fits the bill? In fact, considering Harris himself cannot define well-being, then I have more of a quandary. On the island, whose well-being will we go with?
Harris goes on to describe the good life and the bad life. For the bad life, he has a widow in a third world country. At the point of a machete, her son was forced to rape his younger sister and then dismember her. You are on the run with killers in pursuit and such violence has become part of your life.
For the good life, you are married to the most wonderful person you have ever met and you each possess love, intelligence, and charisma. Your careers are rewarding in every way and you have enough means to do the activities that satisfy you most. Furthermore, you’ve just received a huge grant to benefit children overseas.
Now I agree that most of us would choose the second life, but the question to ask first is if Harris is saying the first kind of life is not worth living. If so, are there going to be other lives that are seen as bad lives? Could it be that science might one day maximize the well-being of society by eliminating such bad lives?
Second, Harris is unfortunately making happiness dependent on external realities. Now they do play a part in our happiness, but cognitive therapists today will tell you that what causes happiness is not so much what happens to you, but what you tell yourself about what happens to you. I believe the early Christians being martyred had much happiness as do those who are martyred today, while there are no doubt celebrities with vast wealth who are entirely depressed.
Amusingly, as we go on, we see that Harris says on page 22 that the chief enemy of open conversation is dogmatism in all its forms. This is so amusing since Harris himself is quite dogmatic against religion. Being dogmatic is not bad, however. It is holding to a truth claim based on the end of the thinking process.
Now I believe there are ways of being dogmatic that are not good and there is mindless dogmatism, like that of Harris, but there is nothing wrong with being sure you are right and stating it. If Harris believes such, then he should cease writing books. (Come to think of it, that might not be a bad idea. It would definitely maximize the well-being of society.)
Harris’s dogmatism is seen just two pages later talking about scientists at a convention not wanting to attack religion. Harris describes them as “people who looked like scientists, had published as scientists, and would soon be returning to their labs, nevertheless gave voice to the alien hiss of religious obscurantism at the slightest prodding.” He then says later on on the same page, “Consequently, it should come as no surprise that I see very little room for compromise between faith and reason on questions of morality.”
Yes, everyone. This is the Harris who wants open conversation, but you sure better not bring religion into the conversation! In other words, let’s try to have an open conversation but make sure that conversation is with those who agree with us. Wonderful! I will have an open conversation then on the existence of God, but I will make sure that only other theists are allowed into the conversation. I will have an open conversation on the resurrection of Jesus, but only conservative Christians can join in! Chesterton said that there are two kinds of people, the conscious and the unconscious dogmatists and the unconscious ones are the most dogmatic. Everyone accepts some form of dogma.
Harris continues his mini-tirade against religion and says “If the basic claims of religion are true, the scientific worldview is so blinkered and susceptible to supernatural modification as to be rendered nearly ridiculous; if the basic claims of religion are false, most people are profoundly confused about the nature of reality, confounded by irrational hopes and fears, and tending to waste precious time and attention – often with tragic results.”
What are these basic claims of religion? Well I don’t know. Harris never says it. I have no idea which ones he could mean as I have no problem accepting science as a means to truth. I think it’s the best means we have in fact of discovering scientific truth. This kind of thinking is typical to Harris. Note also it would be hard to say what is meant by the basic claims. Does a pantheist have the same basic claims as a theist?
Is this long? Yes. This is also just the introduction! One can imagine what else is coming up in the future. The reality is that this must be addressed however as already, it is being quoted in the blogosphere. On the back of the book, Dawkins is listed as one who says he unthinkingly accepted the idea that science could say nothing about morals. Now Harris has changed all of that. In other words, Dawkins unthinkingly accepted one claim and then unthinkingly accepted another. Dawkins claims that no one wields a sharper bayonet against the idea that we need God to be good than Sam Harris.
To which I say then that I am pleased that the opposition has such dull bayonets.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)