/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6453879]

Among a certain crowd, this man is denigrated to the fullest extent a man can be denigrated. He is almost held as an idol of the dangers of "scientism".

Trouble is, I often hear people guffawing when they hear him described as a "philosopher" or a "thinker", but I have not seen these people give a concrete explanation as to why what he says is so ignorant.

I'd like to hear from someone who has actually read his work to dismantle his points. Whether it be an academic paper on the follies of Sam Harris or just a brief explanation of how his ideas in regards to morality or free will or any other subject are ignorant or not intelligent, I would like to see them, because usually all the opposition has to offer are smug declarations of "Hmmph, he hasn't the slighest clue!"

[Anonymous No.6453882]

He fails for the same reason every moral philosopher since Nietzsche has failed: without a final arbiter of what is "right" and what is "wrong" (God, in other words), nothing can be objectively said to be one or the other. You can go by what the popular sentiment on such things is (which Harris does), but all that ultimately boils down to is "muh feels," and that's a terrible argument.

[Anonymous No.6453944]

>>6453882

What are the arguments against his idea of "worst possible misery for everyone"?

In what conceivable way could one argue that an existence where all conscious beings are as miserable as possible is a better existence than one where that is not the case?

[Anonymous No.6453976]

You can link the ideas "right" and "wrong" to a utilitarian system based on human well-being but those ideas are still, in the end, subjective human constructs also known as values.

It's just another case of semantics creating something that's not there. We should stop worrying weather morality is objectively verified, because it's a big distraction, phantom of words .

[Anonymous No.6453979]

inb4 people start posting the comic

[Anonymous No.6453981]

>>6453976

*Whether

Woops

[Anonymous No.6453992]

>>6453944
Even if that point were granted, how do you move on from there? It's relatively easy to alleviate obvious suffering, but it's much harder to define what a good life is and how society should be arranged in order to propagate it.

[Anonymous No.6453996]

>>6453976

So does it come down to the definition of well-being?

Because it seems to me that there are, to a large extent, very clear definitions of what is good. Living a long time is better than dying. Not suffering pain is better than suffering pain. These are obvious areas where people can agree. So at what point does the disagreement and the consequences of that set in?

Does the disagreement come from how these outcomes can be achieved? It would seem to me that is something that could be conceivably, if not now, determined scientifically.

[Anonymous No.6453998]

>>6453996
>Living a long time is better than dying.
Wrong, and not being born at all is the best.

[Anonymous No.6454005]

>>6453944
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1BQPV-iCkU

[Anonymous No.6454013]

>>6453998
I wish you anti-natalists would just be consistent and off yourselves so you don't shit up the world with your nonsense

[Anonymous No.6454018]

>>6453879
He hasn't read David Hume.

[Anonymous No.6454022]

>>6453992

In part, I think this problem could be subverted by offering every conscious being their own definition of a good life. If someone feels that a 1000 years of life is too much they clearly should be allowed to end their existence when they choose. Or be given the choice of changing their brain chemistry to be of the kind that does not want suicide. Either way there should be individual choice when it comes to happiness.

I do not see how this individual choice conflicts with the utilitarian ideals. Obviously if someone feels that they would be most happiest if women were subjugated in society, that ideal could not be enforced because it intrudes on the liberty of individuals who are women. I feel this focus on individual happiness could guarantee the most egalitarian measures as are possible.

[Anonymous No.6454033]

>>6454018

He addresses the is-ought problem in pretty much every debate he has been on. If you could address what he says instead of smugly stating such things that would be nice.

[Anonymous No.6454034]

>>6453996

Yes. Well-being is intrinsic to human experience. It is being free from mental/physical suffering.

And yes, the pragmatics of achieving this are where we disagree. It should theoretically be something that could be scientifically verified but it is so convoluted with multiple independent variables that it's largely relegated to philosophy. It also requires wisdom: some things are intrinsically good in the moment but have negative long-term consequences.

[Anonymous No.6454036]

>>6454033
>he addresses it
>therefore he solved it

it's unsolvable, retard.

[Anonymous No.6454042]

>>6454036

Considering that it is unsolvable, in that case you should have no trouble at all dismantling whatever he has to say against it in a logical manner.

[Anonymous No.6454059]

>>6454034

So is the problem here the fact that the road to perfect well-being is so impossibly difficult to find and so far away in the future that you don't find value in this approach at the moment? Or am I misunderstanding you? What approach do you consider valuable?

[Anonymous No.6454061]

>>6454042
Sure, he uses circular reasoning and begs the question. What else?

[Anonymous No.6454062]

Harris does not respond to philosophy.

Before seeking people to respond to his ideas, understand that this "hmph, hasn't the slightest clue!" is pointing towards a real problem in that he is not really giving a "concrete explanation" as to why he dismissed all the rest that has been said. So to listen to him is like listening to someone reinventing the wheel, getting to a very crude argument that has a lot problems that were already covered over and over, there and back again, by different philosophers. Has he read Nietzsche? Hegel? Is he actually being critical about his own thought at all? Where does he stand on the problems those people presented us with? I might have missed or something, but last I heard he simply shrugs it off and start over "pst, it's really simple, people don't want bad stuff, we need more good stuff!". You'll have to understand why no one wants to really explain where and how he is being naive, or just extremely biased, the best way to do that is to go over history of philosophy start to finish.

[Anonymous No.6454068]

>>6454022
For your suggestion to work, it requires that people know what would make them happy, which is dubious at best. "Individual choice" is an illusion anyway, which Harris and other neuroscientists have arguably proven in their experiments.

>Obviously if someone feels that they would be most happiest if women were subjugated in society, that ideal could not be enforced because it intrudes on the liberty of individuals who are women.

I think it's the case that there are no "freedoms" which don't in some way affect and infringe upon other people, be it directly physically/mentally or more subtly through the ecological system or social pressure. Viewing some as existing in a vacuum and others as "intruding" on the liberties of others is a simplistic view of society.

[Anonymous No.6454069]

>>6454061

Example?

[Anonymous No.6454085]

>>6454068

>For your suggestion to work, it requires that people know what would make them happy, which is dubious at best

This is a very good observation that I have for some reason not really thought of yet. I see that this has large implications for the idea that Harris is going for.

>I think it's the case that there are no "freedoms" which don't in some way affect and infringe upon other people, be it directly physically/mentally or more subtly through the ecological system or social pressure. Viewing some as existing in a vacuum and others as "intruding" on the liberties of others is a simplistic view of society.

Well I would say there are SOME freedoms that don't affect other people. Namely things you do in your own home when no one is watching you. When we're talking about things done in a public space then I see your point.

[Anonymous No.6454090]

>>6454059

>So is the problem here the fact that the road to perfect well-being is so impossibly difficult to find and so far away in the future that you don't find value in this approach at the moment? Or am I misunderstanding you? What approach do you consider valuable?

No. I'm trying to dissolve abstractions as much as possible and look at well-being as an experience rather than an ideal. Harris is a utilitarian, which focuses on the maximization of well-being in a society. Perfect well-being may as well be unachievable but it's worth shooting for.

Not sure if that answered you q.

[Anonymous No.6454094]

>>6453996

> Living a long time is better than dying.

Would you honestly prefer to live 1000 years with no option of suicide, than die at 50?

The idea that living longer is better only applies up to a certain point and even then there are some who reject it outright, and commit suicide.

> Not suffering pain is better than suffering pain.

Please provide 'objective' proof that masochists are somehow 'objectively incorrect' in preferring pain. Otherwise 'not suffering pain is better than suffering pain' is just a personal preference, not a pillar of morality.

[Anonymous No.6454119]

>>6454094

>Not suffering pain is better than suffering pain.

Masochists strangely derive pleasure from pain. Wanting pain/suffering in and of itself is antithetical to being human. It's impossible by definition.

[Anonymous No.6454124]

>>6454090

It sounds to me like you view well-being as an individual thing and are opposed to well-being defined in any objective context. Which I do understand.

>>6454094

>Would you honestly prefer to live 1000 years with no option of suicide, than die at 50?

I'll backtrack here and say this should be up to individual choice.

>The idea that living longer is better only applies up to a certain point and even then there are some who reject it outright, and commit suicide.

Yes, and the difficulty in that area is distinguishing the people who are suffering from a mental illness like depression from people who are healthy but simply want to die. But I have not studied this area well enough to give a truly informed opinion. I do not know if people who have the healthy amount of a certain neurotransmitter like serotonin ever commit suicide.

Another ethical problem is that if we have a drug that perfectly erases these thoughts of suicide from a persons mind should we force it on them?

> Not suffering pain is better than suffering pain.

Please provide 'objective' proof that masochists are somehow 'objectively incorrect' in preferring pain.

Masochists are defined as masochists because they enjoy pain. This is just you playing tricks with the specific words I used, obviously they are not in the big picture experiencing suffering.

[Anonymous No.6454135]

obligatory

[Anonymous No.6454138]

[Anonymous No.6454144]

[Anonymous No.6454154]

>>6453944
>In what conceivable way could one argue that an existence where all conscious beings are as miserable as possible is a better existence than one where that is not the case?

BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY TO DETERMINE WHAT "MISERABLE AS POSSIBLE" ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE JESUS CHRIST

[Anonymous No.6454161]

>>6454013

[Anonymous No.6454173]

>>6454154

Being miserable is a feeling. At the moment the feelings of how miserable one is can only be crudely measured. That does not mean that it cannot be measured precisely at some point.

Similarly to the ways we have attained the feelings of pleasure through evolution we have attained the feeling of misery. There is nothing inherently magical about this feeling.

[Anonymous No.6454184]

>>6454173
What somebody denotes as "miserable" differs not only from person to person, but from event to event in the *same* person. Nothing can measure this. Nothing.

[Anonymous No.6454194]

>>6453996
Your thinking is too entrenched in constructing binary oppositions. Give up philosophy, please.

[Anonymous No.6454199]

This fuckin guy probably has a really good PR team, because this hack can't reconcile multiple, conflicting flourishings. My well being and flourishing isn't necessarily dependent on the flouring of others, for example.

>>6454154
piggybacking here
Because he doesn't examine anything metaphysical, he is a talentless hack. He doesn't engage the best possible flourishing or worst suffering, or even attempt to has that out, so what the fuck does flourishing look like. Apparently, there is something in the brain that gives us some sort of inherent compass, but I don't buy that bullshit because he doesn't say anything convincing about anything in regard neuroscience. So, there is no way for us to go out and set forth on his recommendation. He is rarely in a position to answer to his skeptics, because their consensus isn't useful to his political cause. Anybody who read any of his books can see that this is purely a political pursuit. He wants people to jump on the secular analytic bandwagon.

[Anonymous No.6454237]

>>6454184

I don't understand why you deem this as something that cannot be measured. Whether it be a subjective measurement or an objective one that relates to neurotransmitter of course it can be measured.

>>6454194

I'm fine with a non-binary explanation to the problem of defining well-being. Give up being so smug, please.

[Anonymous No.6454254]

>>6454237
You can study the neurotransmitters of somebody who says they're miserable, but you cannot extrapolate the results to an entire population even if they hypothetically have the "same" neurotransmitter activity.

[Anonymous No.6454256]

>>6454199

>because this hack can't reconcile multiple, conflicting flourishings. My well being and flourishing isn't necessarily dependent on the flouring of others, for example.

I am 100% certain that he has said countless times that there are several ways to reach the same outcome of well-being in the moral landscape. For fuck's sake, that is exactly why he calls it a LANDSCAPE, and not a MOUNTAIN.

>>6454154

>Apparently, there is something in the brain that gives us some sort of inherent compass, but I don't buy that bullshit because he doesn't say anything convincing about anything in regard neuroscience.

What are you arguing against here? Are you denying the existence of neurotransmitters that make us feel good or what are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.6454267]

>>6454254

I do not support extrapolating such results to a population. Even if it is exponentially more costly, people should be treated as individuals. The ethical problem comes from determining the "correct" amount of activity.

[Anonymous No.6454269]

>>6453879
If you were an expert scientist and someone wrote a book admitting he didn't bother learning any science but put forth a scientific theory anyway, would you be bothered to respond?

But if you want an actual work of philosophy that destroys pretty much anything Sam Harris has ever said about ethics read Bernard Williams "Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy", written in 1985, 25 years before Harris's "The Moral Landscape"

[Anonymous No.6454274]

>>6453879
OP here's a video that explains exactly why Harris doesn't know what he's talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8vYq6Xm2To

[Anonymous No.6454281]

Why do you guys not read Wittgenstein.

[Anonymous No.6454296]

>>6454237
Chemical levels of brain activity only correlate with a state of "good" insofar as revisionary materialism is no longer needed. Good doesn't have a clear physical basis and it's not even certain that any amount of investigation could elucidate a replicable image of what good is to look like; let alone for everyone at all time. Neurotransmitters can measure attributes of good that are weighted subjectively on the level of appraisal in relation to environment, experience and estimated future. For example, you could be plump with beta-endorphin but still be beating yourself over having a poor test grade. How good is defined is on the ontological level of cognition. You could go so far as to argue that social cognition is heteronomous, traceable to external influence, in its determined structure, but you can't reduce morality to an exclusively social event. you inevitably have to address eliminative materialism as a legitimate stance when prescribing vale based judgements in folk psychology.

[Anonymous No.6454299]

>>6454269

That analogy would make more sense if Sam Harris never studied philosophy and just started writing about it for no reason. But he did study it. In fact it's the reason he became interested in neuroscience. His Bachelor's studies of philosophy made him interested in neuroscience.

Because he chose to pursue neuroscience after his Bachelor's instead of a Masters's and a Ph.D in philosophy, for that you mark him as someone who is not truly interested in philosophy. I find that view to be very narrow.

[Anonymous No.6454301]

>>6454296
value* not vale lel

[Anonymous No.6454308]

>>6454296

Am I completely off-base by discerning from this paragraph that my problem is the fact that I assume there is no god?

[Anonymous No.6454313]

>>6454308
God is whoever you preform for, so possibly.

[Anonymous No.6454319]

>>6454299
That is exactly my view and it is not narrow. I'm a graduate student in philosophy right now and I can tell you what you learn at undergraduate level barely scratches the surface of the subject. You don't even begin 20th century philosophy until your final year. Having a BA does not qualify you to write a book on moral philosophy in the 21st century.

[Anonymous No.6454321]

>>6454296
Is this criticism rooted in any particular thinker/school of thought?

[Anonymous No.6454325]

>>6454281
With what should I start?

[Anonymous No.6454330]

>>6454281
Fuck that. They should start with Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.6454333]

>>6454325
His biography is pretty great

[Anonymous No.6454337]

>>6454299
And that choice coincidentally made him a best-selling author by appealing to people who gobble up anything that's scientifically based. His colleagues are understandably jealous.

[Anonymous No.6454338]

>>6453879
His first principal that suffering is the single objective consideration and basis for all moral reasoning (which many of his followers fail to acknowledge as his Buddhist conceit), is an epistemic first principal that, like all first principles, is ultimately a faith proposition that cannot justify itself--in other words: it's an opinion. He brushes over this fact as if he has discovered a way around it, but he hasn't, nor has any other philosopher of the last 2500 years, but at least they were all intellectually honest enough to admit it.

Harris goes over old philosophical ground and brushes the dirt to hide the old tracks. Also, secularism and material morality are failing everywhere they have become the dominant metaphysic ("paradises" like Sweden for example). His vision of a science-based world of pure reason and a benign mysticism is a fantasy.

[Anonymous No.6454339]

>>6454321
Um, I took this moral philosophy course last semester and had to read a text by Louise Groarke where he criticizes sociobiology on similar grounds in the one chapter on moral epistemology. I'm a nihilist.

[Anonymous No.6454351]

>>6454337
They're not really; in the same way musicians don't really get jealous of shitty pop musicians.

[Anonymous No.6454353]

>>6454330
You're such an unique and interesting person

[Anonymous No.6454354]

>>6454353
Damn straight nigga. Me and Nietzsche against the world. He told me so.

[Anonymous No.6454364]

>>6454354
Destroying all values doesn't make the world better, and doesn't make you anything special, certainly not an Ubermench.

[Anonymous No.6454368]

>>6454319

I'll look into that book by Bernard Williams but given the attitude many people have towards Harris I would've thought it would be much simpler to destroy his arguments.

Saying "you can't possibly understand this without an MA or a Ph.D" sounds worryingly like the kind of bullshit sociologists and feminists peddle in an effort to make themselves sound as credible as the STEM people.

Make no mistake, I have great respect for philosophy as a subject of study and am not denigrating it, I'm just saying that you should not rely on such petty distinctions in this case. Arguments triumph credentials in philosophy.

[Anonymous No.6454370]

>>6454354
You and every other NEET

[Anonymous No.6454372]

>>6454354

[Anonymous No.6454374]

>>6454338

What alternative epistemic principles are there?

[Anonymous No.6454381]

>>6454338

>Also, secularism and material morality are failing everywhere they have become the dominant metaphysic ("paradises" like Sweden for example).

Who calls Sweden a "paradise"? How has it failed in Denmark, Czech Republic and China?

[Anonymous No.6454383]

>>6454368
>I'll look into that book by Bernard Williams but given the attitude many people have towards Harris I would've thought it would be much simpler to destroy his arguments.
Did you ever hear someone say something so ignorant that you didn't even know where to begin? The physicist Wolfgang Pauli when given a terrible paper by his students would say "it's not even wrong". That basically how moral philosophers feel about Sam Harris. There's nothing there worth arguing against. Maybe if he actually had some thesis but his book really does come to down to just saying "it would be great if everyone was happy all the time"

I'm not saying you need an MA or Ph.D to do good philosophy or make good arguments, but anyone who writes a book on moral philosophy without at least a graduate level education in the subject is going to invite scepticism, and rightly so. And then when people denigrate him that he's not even a philosopher because he never actually engages with any philosophical work you can't just say "but he has a BA!"; a BA really is very little.

Yes, arguments trump credentials, but he doesn't even have that.

[Anonymous No.6454384]

He is the paragon of the *good*. When he is wrong, it's still for your own good!

[Anonymous No.6454391]

>>6454364
>Destroying all values
kek.
>>6454370
>>6454372
Having you been to /r9k/? There is going to be an uprising. We'll all band together under the banner of his mustache.

[Anonymous No.6454415]

>>6454391
Can the NEETs obtain class conciousness?
Can the Party harness the revolutionary potential of the NEETs?
The ruling class trembles at the sight of the NEET revolution!

[Anonymous No.6454436]

>>6454383

>he's not even a philosopher because he never actually engages with any philosophical work

Does that ultimately matter? If moral philosophers have the highest authority on the field of morality they should be able to destroy the argument of anyone who approaches the subject, regardless of the viewpoint they're coming from.

And again, I find this adherence to authority a bit worrying in this case because in the field of philosophy there has not been, and probably there cannot be, the similar kind of canonization of philosophy as one can see in fields such as mathematics.

So when you tell me that there is a professor who has studied moral philosophy for 30 years and published papers on it I'm sorry, but that simply does not have the same credence a professor who has done the same in mathematics does. Even though I respect philosophy I recognize that it is transient and not set in stone. Similarly I would not instantly believe the papers of a professor of sociology or gender studies. There is so much more room for error and interpretation.

I feel it disingenuous to compare philosophy to physics in this way.

[Anonymous No.6454453]

>>6454299
>Because he chose to pursue neuroscience after his Bachelor's instead of a Masters's and a Ph.D in philosophy, for that you mark him as someone who is not truly interested in philosophy.

And because he explicitly states his disinterest in moral philosophy.

>I am convinced that every appearance of terms like "metaethics," "deontology," "noncognitivism," "anti-realism," "emotivism," and the like, directly increases the amount of boredom in the universe.

[Anonymous No.6454470]

>>6454453
>I am convinced that every appearance of terms like "metaethics," "deontology," "noncognitivism," "anti-realism," "emotivism," and the like, directly increases the amount of boredom in the universe.
does this not raise any red flags for you?

[Anonymous No.6454472]

>>6454453

You must know that the remark was made at least half in jest. There is a larger point to be made there.

[Anonymous No.6454474]

>>6454381
Sweden is constantly used as an example of the wonders of atheism, but you cannot separate the values that cause Swedes not to kill each other from the values that causing them to subvert their social and economic well-being with indiscriminate multiculturalism. It's a package deal, and the ultimate trajectory of ruin.

The western individualism and relativism is collapsing on itself, and China is not a society I would use to exemplify human flourishing, dignity, empathy, or happiness.

>>6454374
>God is the measure of all meaning, truth, and purpose in the universe.
>Man is the measure of all meaning, truth, and purpose in the universe.
>There is no meaning, truth, or purpose in the universe.
>Aristotle's four causes
>Truth is determined by empirical observation
>Truth is determined by muh feelings
Or any other axiom you care to work off of.

[Anonymous No.6454529]

>>6454474

>but you cannot separate the values that cause Swedes not to kill each other from the values that causing them to subvert their social and economic well-being with indiscriminate multiculturalism. It's a package deal, and the ultimate trajectory of ruin.

So you're just conveniently ignoring all the others countries who are on the same trajectory? Czech Republic is by many accounts the most atheistic country in Europe. Is it run over by "indiscriminate multiculturalism"?

>God is the measure of all meaning, truth, and purpose in the universe.
>Man is the measure of all meaning, truth, and purpose in the universe.
>There is no meaning, truth, or purpose in the universe.
>Aristotle's four causes
>Truth is determined by empirical observation
>Truth is determined by muh feelings

Either these epistemic principles ultimately reduce to what I already discussed or they invoke a God or a metaphysical reality that is preposterous. Nothing new to see here.

[Anonymous No.6454551]

>>6454529
The Czech Republic is still too poor (thanks to communism) to attract immigrants--this is the only reason Eastern Europe isn't yet a destination.

Also, I'm interested to find the first person to explain how Aristotle was wrong about first principles being unable to justify themselves. Please, explain how empiricism can justify empiricism without using circular reasoning.

[Anonymous No.6454593]

>>6454436
I'm not appealing to authority. I'm just saying that Sam Harris is to moral philosophy what Deepak Chopra is to physics. I personally hold the position that there are no such thing as moral experts, e.g. moral philosophers. But if you are going to try and put forth a THEORY OF MORALITY, like what Harris does, there's a shit load of stuff that needs to covered; it's an extremely complicated subject, And he doesn't even try. If you get your hands on that Williams book I recommended you'll see within about 3 pages how complicated things get.

[Anonymous No.6454618]

>>6454551

Empiricism can best justify itself showing how the world around us corresponds to its tenets most accurately. If reality disagreed with empiricist ideas then empirical ideas could not be reliably used in the production of things.


If you feel Aristotle's four causes corresponds to the world in a better way you're free to showcase it.

[Anonymous No.6454768]

>>6454618
> showing how the world around us corresponds

You of course see that you have just used empirical reasoning to reason in favor of empiricism.

>reliably used in the production of things
Are you limiting empiricism to technological applications? We're talking about morality too though, and try as people may, there has yet to be an empirical morality that reduces to anything more than a faith principle like any other.

Of could of course point out the experiential benefits of moralities derived from supposed revelatory, or revealed truth, and point out their respective utility and success throughout history (which would be an empirical approach), or deny that empiricism has any access to realities beyond the material and that I simply recognize other philosophical axioms.

We're both ultimately left with our own opinions and intuitions from which we chose our preferred first principles.