sam harris strikes again

Sam Harris Strikes Again

Thanks, once again, Sam Harris!

Paul Campos pens a God-awful column in today's Rocky Mountain News, in

which he gets to slam secularists as sadistic pedophiles thanks to the

good offices of my favorite atheist mystic, Sam Harris. [DEL: I

haven't the time or the inclination to rip it completely to shreds,

but I'll note some of the highlights. :DEL] Time for a fisking.

Campos, pretends that (1) the fact that human beings can disagree

means that knowledge from evidence and logic (as opposed to blind

faith) is impossible, and (2) that the mysticism of Sam Harris (which

I detail more in the first link) is "the" alternative to said blind

faith.

'If you talk to God," the psychiatrist Thomas Szasz observed,

"that's called 'prayer.' If God talks to you, that's called

'schizophrenia.' " Szasz was making an ironic observation about how

the definitions of concepts like "reason" and "madness" are

controversial and politicized.

In his much-discussed book The End of Faith, Sam Harris says

something that sounds similar, but lacks Szasz's ironical nuance:

"Jesus Christ - who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated

death and rose bodily into the heavens - can now be eaten in the

form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite

Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well. Is there any doubt

that a lone subscriber to these beliefs would be considered mad?"

What irony can be found in Harris' polemic, which is dedicated to

proving that religious belief consists of irrational superstitions

which are increasingly dangerous in this technologically advanced

age, is almost exclusively of the unintentional kind.

Harris wants us to reject "faith" and embrace "reason," by which he

pretty much means the philosophical view known as materialism, with

a dab of vaguely Buddhist mysticism thrown into the metaphysical

mix.

Even if Campos had discarded Harris's gratuitous Buddhism and focused

his attack on "materialism", he would have had an easy go at smearing

secularism. One of the most common misconceptions about a non-mystical

view of the universe is, after all, that it necessarily entails the

sort of deterministic, "billiard-ball" notion of causality we see in

the next paragraph. This is patently absurd when one considers the

idea that free will is a different type of causation. Free will

manifestly exists. The fact that we cannot explain it yet does not

invalidate reason as a means to knowledge, nor does it mean we can

just make up whatever else we like while we're ignorant about the

point.

Materialism is the view that at bottom reality consists of nothing

but particles in fields of force, and that all events are caused

solely by the operation of mindless physical laws. Several things

should be noted about this belief. First, believing in materialism

is an act of faith like any other. The ultimate nature of reality

isn't a scientific question, and anyone who expects science to

provide answers regarding such matters doesn't understand either

science or religion.

Campos is correct when he says that "The ultimate nature of reality

isn't a scientific question...." This is something I, a secularist and

a scientist, have pointed out myself. But in doing so, I have pointed

out that many sloppily substitute terms like "science" or

"materialism" -- or both, in the case of really sloppy writers like

Campos -- for "reason". Indeed, it is the faculty of reason that

allows man to grasp the nature of reality through the appropriate

discipline, the discipline of philosophy, of which religion is at best

a primitive first stab. Later on, I will deal with Campos's assertion

that rejecting faith as a means of knowledge (or, as he phrases it,

"believing in materialism") is, in and of itself, an "act of faith".

Now, so far, it would seem that I am being a tad bit unfair to Campos.

Certainly, if this were all he said, that would be the case, because

Sam Harris, who claims to be a neuroscientist and is famous for having

written The End of Faith, is certainly guilty of scientism. But as you

will see, Harris's sins allow Campos, in condemning them, to pose

behind the mask of piety while cashing in on Harris's crimes against

intellectual honesty.

In fact, Campos begins in short order.

Second, the debate about whether the world is ultimately a

meaningless flux or something more has been going on for thousands

of years. The belief that materialism is a product of

post-Enlightenment thought in general and modern science in

particular is itself a product of historical ignorance.

Third, while Harris is quite right that many religious doctrines

sound outrageous to nonbelievers (they often sound outrageous to

believers as well), those who worship in the temple of materialism

fail to consider how outrageous their beliefs can sound to the

uninitiated.

Consider three statements: 1. Torturing a child for one's own

sexual gratification is evil. 2. Shakespeare is a better writer

than George Lucas. 3. Human beings have free will. An

intellectually honest materialist must reject all these claims. At

most, he can recharacterize them in much weaker forms. So, for

example, he can observe that in our society sadistic pedophilia is

considered evil, and that it's this social judgment that determines

the content of morality.

Harris's comments on the strangeness of various religious doctrines

are mostly on the money and come from the implicitly rational first

parts of his book. In the later, new-agey sections, Harris makes all

kinds of hokey statements, like when he smuggles in altruism while

attempting to discuss a "rational" foundation for morality, and ends

up spouting off the following nonsense:

[W]e can see that one could desire to become more loving and

compassionate for purely selfish reasons. This is a paradox, of

sorts, because these attitudes undermine selfishness, by

definition. (!) (191-192)

Things like this makes him, as a "defender" of secularism, easy prey

for someone like Campos, who wants to use problems caused by Harris's

fundamental irrationality to attack his rational facade.

Campos tosses in the argument from intimidation for good measure when

he says that, "An intellectually honest materialist must reject all

these claims." Were Campos himself intellectually honest, he might go

about proving why any one of these claims necessarily contradicts a

secular outlook. Or, since he later discards proof as necessary,

perhaps he could explain to us why his "belief" that these positions

are incompatible with secularism should be accepted above all others.

Or, at least, since he seems to think that secularism is not

necessarily false, he could explain why he took the time to write this

column and get it published. (The level of evasion professional

writers can get away with in our current cultural climate positively

flabbergasts me! Would electroshock treatments or a lobotomy perhaps

further my writing career? But I digress....)

I'll take just one of the three points I supposedly can't defend as an

example. Harris never defines man as "the rational animal", ties

morality to man's life as a standard of value, or explains that

political freedom is the foundation for a proper society because it

allows man to use reason, his tool for survival, unhindered by others.

This is what makes Harris and his ilk unable to explain why, exactly,

torturing a child for one's sexual gratification is evil (and

criminal), for example. The criminality of this act is easier to

explain: It violates the child's rights. The act is immoral on several

counts it would take too long to explain fully. Among them: (1) Since

torture is not part of life proper to a human being, the torturer

damages his own psychological welfare. (2) The torturer invites

self-destruction via criminal penalties or acts of defense on behalf

of the child. (3) He is injuring someone else outside the context of

self-defense. Pedophilic torture isn't just "considered evil", Mr.

Campos, it is evil, and I know exactly why. The question is whether

Campos really does.

Contrast this with what Campos has to say.

But this recharacterization fails utterly to capture what most

people mean when they say sadistic pedophilia is evil. What they

mean, although they might not articulate it in these terms, is that

torturing a child for sexual pleasure is an outrage to the moral

order of the universe. It is not evil because a particular society

considers it evil: it is simply evil.

How would Campos know this? And how does he know that everyone else

(or anyone else) knows this? And, except for the deterrent of capture

(which even the stupidest criminals seem to grasp), what does any such

moral injunction have about it to motivate compliance? Suppose some

perv finds a "consenting" child and a way not to get caught? He has no

clue about what a proper life is all about and is thus less likely to

consider psychotherapy or even such measures as chemical castration to

prevent himself from performing this monstrous act. Why? Because he

won't understand why this is a monstrous act. He'll just have a list

of do's and don't's, and maybe a fairy tale about eternal hellfire he

may credit.

And on a related note, consider torture in the context of adults. Is

torture "just wrong" or might it be moral in some circumstances? How

would we know when it is alright to torture someone? I don't "just

know". Just yesterday, I noted how people who think things are "just

wrong" are mucking up the ongoing national debate over whether America

ought to outlaw the torture of captured terrorists.

Or consider any other moral issue. Oops! I guess that's why Campos had

to choose such an easy moral question -- or at least one that most

people would be afraid to open up for debate. If something is "just

wrong", you really can't marshal any arguments for why it shouldn't be

done. I guess that's why the likes of Campos find reason so unnerving

that they have to set straw men like Sam Harris ablaze. "Gosh! If

people start stringing too many syllogisms together, they'll toss out

morality!" Better to abandon reason than to, say, apply it to

morality, these types are basically saying.

Interestingly, Campos no only echoes Jonathan David Carson in

attacking the straw man of scientism, he also starts sounding a lot

like Lee Harris, who argued, based on subjectivism, that it is

legitimate to hold a debate about whether Creationism or evolution

accurately describes biodiversity! Note the bold.

Materialism, as a philososphical doctrine, has the great advantage

that it reduces the catalog of things that actually exist to those

which can be investigated by science. It has the great disadvantage

that it requires treating as illusions morality, art, free will,

and much else that most people call "reality." That, of course,

does not make it false. It does, however, make it literally

incredible to anyone who hasn't made the leap of faith materialism

requires. [bold added]

Don Watkins correctly identified the essence of such arguments when he

said:

On the Kantian premise, it doesn't matter why men disagree. Since

truth is determined by man's consciousness, the very fact that men

disagree means there is no truth. So long as some men deny the

Holocaust, whether or not it happened "cannot be considered

settled." So long as some men believe that cannibalism is moral,

the question "cannot be considered settled." And what about the

belief that nothing can be considered settled unless all men agree?

Well, hell, that's just self-evident.

Actually, Campos sounds like Lee Harris, but with a twist. Whereas Lee

Harris argues that there is not truth, Campos simply holds that reason

cannot grasp truth. There is no need for debate, in Campos's mind,

because everything is a matter of faith. While Campos pays lip service

to the notion of reality, his "faith-based world" is for all practical

purposes no different than Lee Harris's socially-constructed world:

Either way, you just go with whatever's on your mind regardless of

facts and logic. (And this shakes out in morality: "Do your own

thing." vs. an arbitrary moral code whose lack of justification can't

answer the obvious question, "Why not do your own thing?")

So for George Lucas -- I mean Paul Campos -- not only is disagreement

among men "just self-evident" as Watkins put it, so is everything

else. Pedophilic torture is "just wrong". And men "just have" free

will. And Shakespeare is "just better" as a writer than George Lucas.

And secularism "just treats as illusory" a whole bunch of territory

that Paul Campos "just knows". The fact that he took the time to write

a lengthy essay on the point indicates to me that, at least on some

level (indicating measures of dishonesty, insecurity, or both), Paul

Campos does not "just know" that faith is the only way to answer moral

questions. Why else would he argue the point at such great length?

(And if, contrary to what I think, he does respect reason, why did he

argue so poorly?)

Campos then ends, not on the note of riteous indignation that

pedophilia/materialism/secularism "deserve", but with the petulant

disdain of an adolescent applying peer pressure.

Indeed, I consider holding beliefs such as that sadistic pedophilia

is evil because it violates the basic moral order of the universe

to be part of a fairly minimal definition of sanity. But then I

lack the materialist's faith.

Translation: "My faith is better than your faith. Neener neener

neener!" How profound. And how relevant.

Belief divorced from evidence and proof is hardly a definition -- even

minimal -- of sanity. It undercuts one's mind and with it, morality

and, if done consistently, it even undercuts sanity.

-- CAV

PS: This reminds me of something I said when reviewing the Sam Harris

book:

[O]ne of my greatest concerns about the book is that it would

"champion some new version of revealed truth as a means of

knowledge. [The book] would then end up aiding religion while

appearing to champion reason."

I would say that that fear has been realized in the sense that Sam

Harris seems to be doing a great job of discrediting reason through

the straw man of the scientism-cum-Buddhism he pretends is reason.

Posted at 10:24 PM. Permalink

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3 Comments:

Yay! What a great fisking. :)

Posted by Blogger Jennifer Snow on November 30, 2005 4:14 PM

I agree with Jennifer above,a great fisking job. The ravages of

pragmatism laid bare.

Posted by Anonymous Michael Neibel on November 30, 2005 8:14 PM

Thanks. One further point, though. Campos's fundamental error is not

that he is making a pragmatist argument.

The fundamental error Campos makes in this essay is epistemological.

He regards faith as a means of acquiring knowledge about the universe.

His personal philosophy could be even more fundamentally flawed, at

the metaphysical level (i.e., primacy of consciousness), but that is

neither evident nor relevant here.

Gus

Posted by Blogger Gus Van Horn on November 30, 2005 11:46 PM

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