I recently picked up Michael Brooks’ book about the “Intellectual Dark Web” in which he critiques the views of several “renegade” intellectuals, including the famous secular crusader Sam Harris. This was one of those instances where I was reminded of something I intended to write, but never got around to. In particular, around 2013 I read through Harris’ 2010 book entitled “The Moral Landscape”. In it, Harris advocates the idea that Moral Values can be derived from empirical observation alone. While this thesis is problematic on its own, what makes it especially problematic for Harris is an incendiary moral claim that he made six years prior in an earlier book:
It should be of particular concern to us that the beliefs of Muslims pose a special problem for nuclear deterrence. There is little possibility of our having a cold war with an Islamist regime armed with long-range nuclear weapons. A cold war requires that the parties be mutually deterred by the threat of death. Notions of martyrdom and jihad run roughshod over the logic that allowed the United States and the Soviet Union to pass half a century perched, more or less stably, on the brink of Armageddon. What will we do if an Islamist regime, which grows dewy-eyed at the mere mention of paradise, ever acquires long-range nuclear weaponry? If history is any guide, we will not be sure about where the offending warheads are or what their state of readiness is, and so we will be unable to rely on targeted, conventional weapons to destroy them. In such a situation, the only thing likely to ensure our survival may be a nuclear first strike of our own. Needless to say, this would be an unthinkable crime—as it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians in a single day—but it may be the only course of action available to us, given what Islamists believe. How would such an unconscionable act of self-defense be perceived by the rest of the Muslim world? It would likely be seen as the first incursion of a genocidal crusade. The horrible irony here is that seeing could make it so: this very perception could plunge us into a state of hot war with any Muslim state that had the capacity to pose a nuclear threat of its own. (Sam Harris. The End of Faith)
Sam Harris is outspoken in his criticism of religion as socially dangerous and scientifically flawed. But his advocacy for the preemptive nuclear genocide of millions of innocent people in his 2004 book “End of Faith” shows that at least one form of atheism is also compatible with absolute evil. Not only compatible with, but complicit with, and outrightly encouraging of absolute evil. Furthermore, his 2010 book “The Moral Landscape” makes the case that his materialistic worldview and his naturalistic ethics necessarily entail each other in an integrated worldview. In other words, Harris’ advocacy of genocide is not a flaw or bug in his thinking, but the necessary outcome of his thinking. And as the first two chapters of Michael Brooks’ book shows, the idea that innocent lives can be sacrificed for some “greater” political or economic end seems to be a regular conclusion drawn by Harris. Justified genocide is a feature of his moral system.
To accept his metaphysical assumptions and ethical premises will necessarily lead one to a stance in which the sacrifice of millions of innocent lives will be “unconscionable”, yet sadly permissible in certain circumstances, because it is logically consistent with his ideology. This dewy-eyed moral judgement is monstrous in a non-incidental way. Harris' "Moral Landscape" isn’t morally monstrous because he has failed to be logically consistent with his first principles. It is monstrous precisely because he has been consistent. Ironically, Harris’ monstrousness is found in a book written by him to demonize people of faith as inherently morally monstrous due to consistently following their own religious ideologies. This is the pot calling the kettle black, at least in the way that Harris reads secular and religious ideologies.
Whatever practical goodness Harris may possess in his personal relationships or other moral proclamations, the truest trajectory of his moral logic leads to the cold blooded calculation to annihilate millions if it is useful to his ends, prior to any offensive action made by those people. Thus to follow Harris’ central tenets is to invite oneself to participate in moral monstrosity in the same way one would be knowingly walking into error by embracing a mathematical system devised by someone who fervently believes 2+2=3. And this is not a reductio ad absurdum, or slippery slope fallacy, where I take Harris’ premises and develop them to the most absurd and depraved possible conclusions. It is Harris himself, in his own words, who has come to this conclusion. Neither is this an ad hominem, because by all accounts Harris is a nice guy with genuine academic credentials and scientific experience. Certainly he is nicer than his ethical worldview would predict him to be.
And this is not to say that all atheists are implicitly moral monsters. That is as patently absurd as Harris implying that all people of religious faith are moral monsters, as he does in the book where he openly advocates genocide. There are secular humanist folks of all stripes who do not come to the same conclusions Harris does, either in theory or in practice. They strongly advocate the value of every human life, and the value of reciprocal altruism lived out on personal and social levels. So if Harris’ flawed logic does not arise out of his atheism, from whence comes his proclivity to genocide? I’m sure I could nitpick Harris on this, that, and the other point of fact and analysis. But if I were to pick out one global flaw to his argument, it is that he constantly slips into the Naturalistic Fallacy.
This is a bit ironic, seeing as Harris situates himself as a doyen of logic and rationality. But the essence of the Naturalistic Fallacy is to confuse “what is natural” with “what is ethical”, and to think that the way things are (or have been) in the world is the way things should be. It is precisely to confuse empirical facts (what is) with ethical values (what ought to be). Harris’ entire ethical project as laid out in the Moral Landscape is to say that science has discovered certain facts about how the world works, and this entails values about how the world ought to be. Secular thinkers since at least David Hume have noted the fact/value distinction, and how one cannot arrive at values via facts, nor facts via values. Harris adds no reasons to change this principle, only assumptions that things should be certain ways simply because they have been observed to be certain ways.
Basically Harris argues that because humans (and animals) inherently seek to maximize life and wellbeing, then that means life and wellbeing ought to be maximized. Is implies ought. But why? Why not suicide oneself instead if one chooses to? Or, why not kill others if they get in the way of me living my best life, or torture them if it enhances my experience? Or why not preemptively genocide millions of people I don’t identify with, if they might threaten a group of people I do identify with? Harris has no way to arbitrate this because he has no “why” for protecting life other than his version of “we’ve observed it lots of times so we ought to continue doing it”. Furthermore, as the conundrum implies, he has no way of arbitrating different claims to the same value. All life forms strive for life within an environment of limited resources. Who gets to decide who has access to those resources, how much they get, and who gets left out? Why does Harris privilege humans over other creatures in the value of their life? Harris’ naive naturalism leaves him to basically side with a more gentle version of “might makes right”: Those with the most power and resources can plan for who gets to flourish, and who doesn’t, given limited resources. But a velvet covered hammer is still a hammer. And as Harris advocated in 2004, sometimes the hammer needs to preemptively smash those who oppose it.
But just because we observe “nature red in tooth and claw” does not mean that nature should be, or has to be, “red in tooth and claw” if we have the power to dream otherwise. Certain groups do not have to remain oppressed and excluded just because they have been oppressed and excluded. Likewise, just because other groups have hoarded a disproportionate amount of power and resources does not mean they should keep hoarding them. Facts do not imply values. Is does not guarantee ought. Might does not make right. History does not dictate the future. Science does not constitute ethics. And when we note how powerful groups tend to both re-write history in their image, as well as fund the scientific endeavors they value, we may well question whether our observation of empirical facts are that objective at all. Rather, it seems our values deeply affect how we read and interpret the world of empirical facts. Indeed our values determine which facts we pay attention to as important, which facts we ignore, and which questions we ask of those facts. This is certainly true in the case of Harris. And his fundamental confusion of facts and values, as well as his naivety regarding how his values affect what facts he looks at and how he interprets them, seems to be the fundamental foundational flaw that topples his entire ethical edifice.
Without a commitment to the absolute objective value of each and every human life, which transcends and supersedes the world of empirical facts, and compels us to utilize these facts to enhance the life of every person, we open ourselves to Harris’ fatal error. Without such a universal value, we will inevitably find ways of privileging “us” over “them”, and justifying why “they” must be excluded from resources that are “ours”. We may even find ways of grudgingly justifying why “they” need to be eliminated entirely so they do not threaten “our” way of life. And then it only takes a small step for such grudging allowance to become gleeful persecution. To put it succinctly: Empirical science can tell us a great deal about HOW to enhance life and bring about flourishing for people, but it cannot tell us WHY we should value life or WHOSE life we should value. Whether we look to the Golden Rule of always seeking to do to others what we want done to us, or we opt for a Categorical Imperative that tells us we always ought to treat other persons as ends in themselves and never merely as means, we need some form of Absolute and Universal Value to penetrate our closed system of empirical observation and demand that we seek full human flourishing for every single person, given the resources available to us. To do any less is to start down a monstrous path.
Does this mean I oppose everything Harris says? No. Even a broken analog clock is right twice a day. And I think that Harris is right that life and human flourishing are values we ought to maximize. Harris is right when he advocates for certain altruistic, compassionate, and pro-social behaviors. And Harris is even right about how rigid and exclusionary forms of religion can lead to monstrous effects, even as he exemplifies how a rigid and exclusionary secularism can be equally as monstrous. Harris, however, may not be entirely at fault. Perhaps he cannot help it, if his insistence on “the illusion of free will” is correct. Then he is predestined to believe and write that certain instances of genocide are justifiable. But then again, I would be just as predetermined to write this rebuttal. And we would spiral into yet another of Harris’ logical solipsisms.
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