Description
Book SynopsisSam Harris, a previously unknown neuroscientist, single-handedly generated the New Atheism with his best-selling book The End of Faith, which quickly became a huge best-seller following its release in 2004.
Harris went on to write several more best-sellers on a range of topics and has become one of the world’s most followed podcasters. He is well-known for his controversial positions in many areas, including the unique danger of Islam, the advocacy of atheist spirituality through meditation, the beneficial use of psychedelics, denial of the existence of free will, his belief that science can tell us what’s right and wrong, and his extreme alarmism with regard to the future of artificial intelligence.
Sam Harris: Critical Responses is a collection of essays criticizing different aspects of Harris’s thinking from a range of diverse perspectives—left and right, Christian and atheist, philosophical, psychological, and political. These twenty serious criticisms of Sam Harris, written by experts from diverse political and ideological backgrounds, are often severe while maintaining an approach that is reasonable and respectful. As one noted author commented on Sandra Woien’s previous collection, Jordan Peterson: Critical Responses, “Both fans and foes will appreciate this volume.”
Forward by Stephen R. C. Hicks.
Stephen R.C. Hicks is a professor of Philosophy at Rockford University. He is the author of Explaining Postmodernism (2004) and Nietzsche and the Nazis (2010).
Trade Review"Sam Harris is one of the world's most provocative and exciting thinkers and this volume is an essential contribution to the debate over his ideas. I highly recommend it."
-Michael Shellenberger, author of San Fransicko (2021) and Apocalypse Never (2020).
"Sam Harris is an important and influential public thinker on philosophy, science, religion, and socio-political life.
Sam Harris: Critical Responses provides the reader with a survey of his thought that is often critical but always substantive. It is a welcome contribution written for a broad audience."
-Joshua R. Farris, author of The Creation of Self: A Case for the Soul (2023)
"As with Jordan Peterson, if you mention the name 'Sam Harris' in academic company, you invite snickers and sneers. Yet as this volume shows, popularity with the public is by no means a sign of shallow thinking, but often indicates deep engagement with philosophy as a way of life. Sam Harris's fans and critics alike should take notice."
-Tristan J. Rogers, author of The Authority of Virtue: Institutions and Character in the Good Society (2020)
"This is a delightful collection of well-wrought essays about a public intellectual whose notoriety rests on many ill-conceived ideas."
-Michael Rectenwald, author of The Great Reset and the Struggle for Liberty (2023)
"The greatest honor paid to a thinker is taking his ideas seriously. Sam Harris and his ideas have been given such a careful examination in this book. His critics respond to an important set of questions and potential answers that have formed an interesting career spanning several decades...Few agree with everything Harris has argued and few will agree with every essay in this book. The collection will improve the dialogue, however. This volume is well worth a careful read."
-John Mark Reynolds, President of Saint Constatine College, where he teaches philosophy with a focus on Plato
Sam Harris: Critical Responses blends philosophy with political science in a survey that intersects both disciplines by examining thinker Sam Harris and his ideas. Nineteen critical essays consider a wide range of Harris's social and political ideals, from how his Moral Landscape treatise works to his neuroscientific training and how it lends a particular perspective to his views of AI technology, superintelligence, and other scientific evolutionary processes. The result requires a prior familiarity with Sam Harris and his works, but will prove enlightening to those with such a background, or students interested in philosophical debates about his works and perspectives.
James A. Cox, Editor-in-Chief of Midwest Book Review
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments xi
Foreword: Why Sam Harris Matters
STEPHEN R.C. HICKS xiii
The Sam Harris Phenomenon xvii
I What Human Life Is For 1
1. Another Red Pill
SANDRA WOIEN 3
2.My Life Gives the Moral Landscape Its Relief MARC CHAMPAGNE 17
II Liberal Values 39
3.Spotting Dangerous Ideas DAVID RAMSAY STEELE 41
4.Intellectual Integrity or Social Justice? LUCAS RIJANA 57
5.Is Redistribution the Endgame? ANTONY SAMMEROFF 69
III Science and Ethics 91
6. The Mantle of Neuroscience RAY SCOTT PERCIVAL 93
7.A Miserable Argument MARK WARREN 115
8.Dark Spots in Sam Harris’s Moral Landscape DAVID GORDON 127
9.A Moral Compass that Works ERIK BOORNAZIAN AND JAMES W. DILLER 139
IV The Specter of Artificial Intelligence 151
10.Sam Harris and the Myth of Machine Intelligence JOBST LANDGREBE AND BARRY SMITH 153
11.Are We Too Dumb for Superintelligence? LISA BELLANTONI 163
12.Solutions to the Existential Threat of AI LEONARD KAHN 177
Part V I Feel Free 191
13.Neural Determinism and Neural Roulette JOHN LEMOS 193
14.Let’s Talk about Free Will! MEGAN DRURY 207
Part VI Beyond the Physical Cosmos 221
15.Another Thing in This Universe that Cannot Be an Illusion MAANELI DERAKHSHANI 223
16.Intimations of the Numinous REG NAULTY 235
Part VII No End to Faith 247
17.A Rational Proposal BETHEL MCGREW 249
18.Is Sam Harris Right about the Miracles of Jesus? MICHAEL BARROS AND BETHEL MCGREW 261
19.Scientism as Religion and Religion as Wisdom RON DART 275
About the Authors 287
Index 295
