/lit/ - Literature

Yeah, mom. Deal with it.

>>6488761
>New Atheism

"no"

>He's one of the world's foremost intellectuals and philosophers

I don't think you know what any of those words mean.

>>6488787
Can you actually give me any remotely decent criticism of his ideas or just shitpost?

He is a public intellectual, among many thousands of them. Not even a single soul in the academia takes his sophomoric musings seriously; nor should they, since you can't really distinguish Harris from your average, erudite journalist. He had a chance to be an academic but he decided to pursue the public sphere instead. Some people just can't resist the idea of winning the approval of, and control the opinions of, a flock of idiots.

He only appeals to a particular group of people; all tend to be non-academics, autodidacts, recent converts of atheism, etc.

Just a reminder: instead of wasting your time reading Harris' half-baked, slapdash, and non-engaging-with-the-current-research opinions, you could now be reading Kripke's Naming and Necessity, learning Computability Theory, catching up on the state of the art articles on belief revision, exploring the fragments of Second-Order Logic, and so forth.

I actually read the entire 'debate' between Chomsky and Harris, the funniest aspect to me was the obvious bad faith with which Harris treated the issue of private conversation vs. public debate. He is so incredibly disingenious throughout the entire thing... he probably just wanted to quickly get some kind of involvement with Chomsky going before Chomsky dies, so that he has some sort of reason to leech publicity off of Chomsky's imminent death.

>>6488811
>Can you actually give me any remotely decent criticism of his ideas or just shitpost?
Just google that shit. It's all there.

>>6488811
1. The attempt to formulate an objective morality was an embarrassing failure when Kant tried it and Harris has yet to do anything more groundbreaking than Kant's First Critique proved to be, I see no reason not to believe that this project will end badly.
2. Harris defends torture & advocates nuclear first strikes against Islamic countries on the basis that they're Islamic.
3. Harris is ultimately an apologist for state violence who worships the state.
4. Noam Chomsky made him look like an idiot child.

>>6488818
That's exactly what he was trying to do, and unfortunately I'd imagine it's going to work. Or at least rally his fanbase some.

>>6488818

Damn that's messed up.

>>6488815
>implying academics aren't worthless

sam harris is an ubermensch

>>6488828
What's wrong with 2.?

>>6489042
It's silly kindergarten logic.

>>6488815
I prefer entertainment philosophy to degenerate music "artists" as a pastime.

>>6488828
>2. Harris defends torture & advocates nuclear first strikes against Islamic countries on the basis that they're Islamic.
>3. Harris is ultimately an apologist for state violence who worships the state.

This isn't criticism. Those are statements. You don't agree with them. Now explain your dislike with the help of the philosophic tools you no doubt have acquired so far.

>>6488761
>He's one of the world's foremost intellectuals and philosophers.

Harris is an "intellectual" between-the-acts stage clown at best.

>>6488811
Rather, present some actually passable intellectual achievement by Harris that would make him foremost of anything but buffoons.

Finally, whatever Harris happens to be (popular demagoguery, etc.), it is not /lit/.

He writes fan fiction.

>>6489089
If you don't see how both statements go against his own standards and moral code then you should read him before defending him. I'm sure he has justified himself at some point, as a defender you should dig that up so I can show you how idiotic it is.

>>6489089
>Tipping intensifies.

He is the definition of a meme intellectual.

Being the smartest retard is a lot like being the biggest mouse. and that's Sam Harris. In a exhibition with bill maher and Ben Affleck he may come off as intelligent but his achievements are similar to those of someone with downs syndrome who manages to not shit themselves for 2 days consecutively.

>>6488815
Every time Harris is mentioned there is a legion of mad 4chan "philosophers" at the ready to attack him as a non-entity.

You know who are non-entities full of "sophomoric musings"? "Philosophers" on 4chan.

>>6488828

>2. Harris defends torture
If by "defends torture" you mean believes that there are hypothetical situations where torture could possibly be justified, then yes. He thinks torture should be illegal.
>advocates nuclear first strikes against Islamic countries on the basis that they're Islamic.
A very disingenuous way to formulate his position, you make it sound like he advocates nuclear first strikes against countries right now.

>>6489113
>MOM, the kids in school are all mean and they SUCK.

>>6489119
>If by "defends torture" you mean believes that there are hypothetical situations where torture could possibly be justified, then yes. He thinks torture should be illegal.

>look a bit around

>My argument for the limited use of coercive interrogation (“torture” by another name) is essentially this: if you think it is ever justifiable to drop bombs in an attempt to kill a man like Osama bin Laden (and thereby risk killing and maiming innocent men, women, and children), you should think it may sometimes be justifiable to “water-board” a man like Osama bin Laden (and risk abusing someone who just happens to look like Osama bin Laden).

>But our interrogators should know that there are certain circumstances in which it will be ethical to break the law. Indeed, there are circumstances in which you would have to be a monster not to break the law. If an interrogator finds himself in such a circumstance, and he breaks the law, there will not be much of a will to prosecute him (and interrogators will know this).

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/why-id-rather-not-speak-about-torture1/

So torture good for "terrorists" (which ignores that many, many innocents have been tortured by the US), should be illegal, doesn't matter if it's illegal

>>6488828
1. Consequentialism isn't a prescriptive way of looking at morals.
2. He hasn't, stop lying or read his shit retard.
3. Hyperbole and other fallacies.
4. Nonsense, Chomsky was the one acting like a child, considering he is like 70 Chomsky only made himself look like a retard.

>>6489136
I agree with the things he's said though.

I also see no problem with spreading liberal democracy by force. It has proven to be the most successful social system to date and the most conductive to equality and freedom

>>6489136

Your assuming Harris' standards for who should be subjected to torture are exactly as lax as the CIA's standards.

>>6489139
>4. Nonsense, Chomsky was the one acting like a child, considering he is like 70 Chomsky only made himself look like a retard.
I'd like you to expand on this post touching how Harris didn't answer a single question Chomsky did and kept bringing up things that were already discussed without presenting new ideas or information.

>>6489136
>which ignores that many, many innocents have been tortured by the US

Not to mention the fact that the actual use of torture as a means is never for whatever thought-experiment justification scenario these tools, like Harris, imagine.

Torture is useless for gathering intelligence about anything whatsoever, it is however an excellent strategic means of demoralizing the enemy.

>>6489143
It's only succesful because it has been spread by force. Your circular logic is pretty bad. If you take in consideration how it worked out for latin america, southeast asia, the people in rusia and arguably the people in many states of the US like Detroit, I don't see how it could be considered successful.

>>6489163

>Torture is useless for gathering intelligence about anything whatsoever

That's a disingenuous thing to say. Just because it's very unlikely to work doesn't mean torture has never made people provide true information.

>>6489174
It just lacks the means to distinguish that true information from desperate lies. So they just chose the ones that cement what they already believed from other sources.

>>6489179
Info you can check is better than nothing.

>>6488761

>>6489174
There are many more negative things to consider about torture:

>Once torture begins, it seems to spread uncontrollably, particularly
during times of crisis, in a downward spiral

http://www.cgu.edu/pdffiles/sbos/costanzo_effects_of_interrogation.pdf

tfw misread the author as Costanza

>>6489143
>It has proven to be the most successful social system to date

By which measures? This is a completely vapid and jingoist statement and could be used equally about any system you happen to like.

>>6489182
But they already have other sources, there is no real point. They could also be using a random number generator and it would be the same.

>>6489182
>torture guy
>he says that terrorist is hiding in a building
>bomb the shit out of the building
>nothing remains

the information has been checked

>>6489143

the problem is that it cant be spread by force in the modern world. liberal democrats in fact will never stand for the measures needed to enforce a regime change and silence opponents.

>>6489157

Chomsky said some things about intention that had nothing to do with what Harris was asking him about regarding intention.

>>6489174
randomly true information != good intelligence.
However it is clear from your post that you are simply trolling.

>Just because it's very unlikely to work doesn't mean torture has never made people provide true information.

Certain textbook example of disingenuousness.

I really wish they could make a /fed/ or something for this garbage.

>>6489205

How is that disingenuous?

Because its pretty obvious its being shilled. It brings no meaningful arguments and is usually a meta thread for that hack.

He has nothing important to say and he or his shills are in it for the marketing.

>>6489205

How is it randomly true? Are you suggesting that the only time torture reveals accurate information is when its a coincidence?

Surely if the terrorist being tortured has the information we are looking for and reveals it, then it's not random.

>>6489203
How did Harris explain this?

so... sammy thought noamy thought clinty was as bad as saddamy. but noamy didn't technically think that, although he was very unclear. but instead of trying to clarify this, noamy gets all bitchy and cites a passage that doesn;t actually demonstrate he doesn't give a fuck about intentions, but the intentions must have been bad anyway...
sooo basically noam was insulted that sam didn't acknowledge sam lied about noam, when given evidence only peripherally related to what sam originally said and sam, trying to have a simple conversation about ethics, has to navigate around the childish confused self righteousness of this old codger.

>>6489219

He didn't explain it he just kept pushing Chomsky on that point as far as I can remember.

>>6489215

Do you honestly believe that? Do you suffer from paranoid delusions?

How about the two much more obvious explanations:

1) Harris is a foolproof way to generate discussion on /lit/ or simply troll /lit/
2) Harris' ideas are most popular among the same demographic that populates 4chan

>>6489095
Does he really?

>>6489122
Kek'd so fucking hard

lel

>>6489239
Pretty much. It's a bannable offence.

>>6489235
You don't actually know anything about internet marketing strategies.

>>6489113
>You know who are non-entities full of "sophomoric musings"? "Philosophers" on 4chan.

You sound like one of those bitchy blonde girls on facebook who get into "fights" with people on statuses and end their sentences with "Nice try honey :)" or some bullshit like that.

>>6489217
>Are you suggesting that the only time torture reveals accurate information is when its a coincidence?

Obviously.

>My claim is that there are right and wrong answers to moral questions, just as there are right and wrong answers to questions of physics

>Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim Algebra, we will see that there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality.

>Despite our perennial bad behavior, our moral progress seems to me unmistakable.

Based Sam Harris

>>6489266
>Stale pasta.

>>6489255

I didn't even talk about internet marketing strategies. I didn't even imply that marketing on 4chan would be a bad idea. You are a presumptuous moron.

>>6489268
>implying any of his words can ever be stale

>>6489263

If the guy knows, then it can't be random. He made the decision to tell what he knew accurately, and he did so because he was being tortured.

>>6489110
>his achievements are similar to those of someone with downs syndrome who manages to not shit themselves for 2 days consecutively.

>>6488823
>d-don't try to discuss things here!!

>>6489139
>1. Consequentialism isn't a prescriptive way of looking at morals.
What does that even mean? Is 'try to bring about the best consequences' not a prescription?

Also, given his (rather unsophisticated) consequentialism, how is Harris's own theory supposed to make sense of the moral difference between intending something as an end, intending something as a means, and known but unintended side-effect? I take it this was the distinction he was ham-handedly trying to use to catch Chomsky out on, but as far as I can tell his own theory makes no room for such a distinction having any ethical significance.

>>6489281
Nah. It's random, actually.

>>6489266
I wish I had a tunnel vision black and white filter on MY version of reality like harris does.

>>6489278
>Return of the Tipper.

>>6489289

You haven't been paying much attention to what he says then. Harris thinks intentions matter because thy are a reliable gauge of what people will try to do in the future.

>>6489291

You're not very convincing.

>>6489110
>being popular with normal people makes him a meme intellectual

>>6489275
You just didn't get it. So when some random hack who just happens to have a book out gets a stream of threads on a highly visible internet forum it is clearly because he is highly popular and a great way to "generate discussion". Anything else would be total paranoia.

>>6489320

>sam harris
>popular with normal people

>>6489320
>being popular with stupid people makes him a meme intellectual
fixed that for you m8.

>>6489314
While you, my anonymous friend, transcends all credible belief.

>>6489325
I don't care if it's genuine - the tone of these threads have always sounded shilled or forced, almost as if someone was paid to 'generate' interest for your client.

>>6489325

>So when some random hack
Not just a random hack
>who just happens to have a book out gets a stream of threads on a highly visible internet forum
He hasn't published a book this year and he has had threads here for years
>it is clearly because he is highly popular and a great way to "generate discussion"
Every board has staple threads based on what consistently gets a strong response from the community. Harris consistently gets a strong response for a variety of reasons
>Anything else would be total paranoia.
Paranoid, yes. That is not to say you're necessarily wrong.

Mein gott
Pure ideology

>>6489343

Where are your reasons?

People are not just magic eight balls that will give out random information upon torture. There are cases where the terrorist has the information we want, and we know that he has it. When he gives the information and it is deemed accurate, it is not in any way random.

>>6488761
Because they're obvious troll threads that never involve talking about books. Source: this thread

>>6489386
I'm simply making fun of you for pedantically humping the obvious.

Please tell me you are thirteen.

>>6488761
>He's one of the world's foremost intellectuals and philosophers.

Just ask him, or one of his street-teamers!

>>6489398

So what you're saying is, you were only pretending to be retarded?

>>6489386
>it is deemed accurate
>implying this is possible

>>6488761
>He's one of the world's foremost intellectuals and philosophers

*cough* http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-limits-of-discourse *cough*

>>6489403

Of course it's possible. If the information is about a terrorist attack, then that attack occurring is a pretty good reason to deem the information accurate. If we investigate it and find that it is being planned just as the tortured terrorist tells us, that is good reason to deem it accurate.

Isn't Sam Harris an idealist?

>>6489421

What do you mean?

>>6489430

That he idealizes himself.

>>6489439

It wouldn't even matter if he did

>>6489420
>If the information is about a terrorist attack, then that attack occurring is a pretty good reason to deem the information accurate.

>Of course what the palm-reading woman told me is accurate. She told me I'd have an accident, and an accident occurred, so that's a pretty good reason to deem the information accurate.

>If we investigate it and find that it is being planned just as the tortured terrorist tells us, that is good reason to deem it accurate.

Investigate how? More torture? Torture all the way down? You're hand-waving

>>6489402
At this point I will tell you whatever you wish to hear, true or false, randomly verifiable, or deemed completely accurate by someone with their head as far up their ass as you, if you only promise to stop.

As for the accuracy and usability of torture as a means of gathering intelligence, if you had bothered to look at any actual empirical information about it, both are non-existent. See E.G. the Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture, the results of which are widely reported in easily digestible format.

Because I have no reason to waste my time looking up sources for you on google I was poking fun at you for being obviously pedantic, while willfully missing the point.

I am now a shattered and broken man, destroyed by your wit and intelligence and I will never make fun of the mentally impaired again.

>>6489454

If you're told the next 9/11 is going to happen with details of when, where, etc. and then it does happen, then yes we can say the information was accurate. If we're torturing a terrorist for information and all they say is "an accident will happen" then that's just not good information to begin with.

And if we're given information about something that's happening in the world investigating just means trying to determine if it's true. Like comparing to what we already know, using the information as a guide to where to look for more information, etc.

Besides, this was just a more or less throw away line that you've honed in on for some reason. The point I was trying to make is that it is not just a random accident when tortured people give information that turns out to be true. We torture them because we think they might know things.

>>6489143
>I also see no problem with spreading liberal democracy by force. It has proven to be the most successful social system to date and the most conductive to equality and freedom
This is imperialism.

"To robbery, slaughter, plunder, they give the lying name of Empire. They make a desert and call it peace." Tacitus had the number of people like you two thousand fucking years ago.

>>6489474
>>6489489
>/lit/ proceeds to get btfo

>>6489474

Being condescending is not conducive to rational discussion.

Anyway, the efficacy of torture was not what we were talking about. We were talking about cases that worked already and whether they worked randomly or because the terrorist had information and gave it.

Is Sam Harris the embodiment of pure non destilled ideology?

>>6489266
Harris is confusing progress with the shifts in the means of production.

>>6489489
You're not taking in consideration the cases in which the torturer pushed to get the information they wanted to hear, and you're directly avoiding to deal with the actual percentage of results made through torture against slower tactics like infiltration and negotiation.

>>6489113
Yeah, but we don't have legions of STEM nerds yelling about how evil religion is following us everywhere we go, so we're less of a threat to society than Harris is.

>>6489534

Those are reasonable points. I wasn't avoiding them, they just aren't what I was taking issue with in the first place. What I was taking issue with was the description of accurate information extracted by means of torture as being described as "randomly true". In the cases where torture has worked, I don't think its just a random coincidence, I think its because the guy knew and he told.

>>6489520
I'm sorry, but we were talking about why I was making fun of you.

>>6489163
>Torture is useless for gathering intelligence
This is what you have been pedantically disputing for what, two hours?

>>6489489
>mfw you really are thirteen.
I do feel bad about the condescension.

>>6489552
As a strategy for getting accurate information torture doesn't work because you can't separate the truths from the things people blurt out so that they can stop getting tortured. It's an intimidation tactic and that's it.

>>6488761
>Why do the mods delete Harris threads these days?
Because one single thread is enough tragedy.

>>6489552
I left the thread to go read so I'm not sure, but I mentioned a comparison with random data before. My point was the success rate, not the origin of the validity.

Love how mad leftists get over Harris, he completely shits all over their ideology

>He thinks New Atheists are relevant
k

>>6489658
Leftists hate reason and logic so its not surprising they hate Sam Harris

>>6489669
Dawkins isn't relevant anymore and Hitchens is dead but Sam Harris is definitely in the spot light these days.

>>6489670

>>6489122

>>6489670
>Leftists hate reason and logic so its not surprising they hate Sam Harris

Rightists love dishonest arguments and distorted premises, so it's not surprising they love Sam Harris.

>>6489658

If you mean by "shits", he embarashes himself in a debate about political issues then yes:

>I’m sure you are right that Clinton did not want or intend to kill anyone at all. That was exactly my point. Rather, assuming that he was minimally sane, he certainly knew that he would kill a great many people but he simply didn’t care: case (2) above, the one serious moral issue, which I had discussed (contrary to your charge) and you never have.

>As for the rest, you may, if you like, believe that when Clinton bombed Afghanistan and Sudan in immediate reaction to the Embassy bombings (and in retaliation, it is naturally assumed), he had credible information that he was bombing a chemical factory – which also was, as publicly known, the major pharmaceutical factory in Sudan (which, of course, could not replenish supplies), and he judged that the evidence was strong enough to overlook the human consequences. But, oddly, he was never able to produce a particle of credible evidence, as was widely reported. And when informed immediately (by HRW) that a humanitarian catastrophe was already beginning he ignored it, as he ignored the subsequent evidence about the scale of the casualties (as you incidentally did too).

>On your assumptions, he’s quite clearly a moral monster, and there’s no need to comment further on people who seek to justify these crimes – your crimes and mine, as citizens of a free society where we can influence policy.
-Noam Chomsky

He is not only an idiot but a hypocrite as well.

This torture argument is retarded. If you paid attention to Harris outside of tweets by Glenn Greenwald or whoever the fuck you would know he isn't super gung-ho about torture and he doesn't think we should be doing a ton of it.

There are nukes set to detonate in an hour under a few major cities. You have the bomber and a harddrive that has the answer to how to defuse the bombs, but it's encrypted. Do you simply ask him for the decryption key and hope he gives it to you, or do you torture him? He can give you the wrong key, but you can immediately try it on the harddrive and you will know it's wrong. Would you be willing to force feed him a food he religiously disagrees with? Would you tell him that his family will be killed? Would you waterboard him? Would you let the nukes go off, sure that torture is ethically wrong and that there would be no point trying?

I would at least try. I think torture is acceptable in some situations. Obviously situations where you have this intel are rare, but that's kind of the point of philosophy. Much of it deals with hypothetical and rare situations to determine the truth of something. Is torture really always totally wrong? I don't think so. I think it should always be illegal, but I don't think it's always ethically unacceptable.

>>6489489

So a hardcore trained terrorist who knows that he is going to get killed by his fellow comrades if he spills the beans is going to be intimidated by a little waterboarding?

God how stupid can you be. Even if he does tell you that an attack is going to happen , tehre is nor eason for him to tell the truth if he has to chose between death and torture.

>>6489677
Not really. The only notable thing as of late was Harris getting his ass handed to him by Chomsky.

>>6489704
>There are nukes set to detonate in an hour under a few major cities.
Here's the thing about your thought experiment: this situation is ludicrous. Why not use an actual event that happened rather than describe something that almost definitely won't ever happen? Besides, who would be in that situation anyway?
Concrete examples > abstract thought experiments

>>6488815
appeal to the stone fallacy. you've made no argument in this post. move along, nothing to see here.

>>6489724
Please finish reading my post.

The premise Harris exists within is appealing to the most entry level popsci readers with an attempt to generally paint everything as the binary wrong and correct without thoroughly investigating them.

It would seem successful because it's built up, like most ideas of its kind, to appeal to the most general audience possible who would rather deal with things in such a simple manner and agree that reality is something that can be painted in such shades of black and white.

This is not the case. And what's hilarious to me is that Harris isn't popular at all, so it largely backfired.

>>6488818
I thought it was pretty funny looking at it from both sides. Chomsky didnt give a flying fuck about Harris, while Harris seemed to keep replying with "u mad bro?"

>>6489704
Isn't that the plot of Unthinkable?

>>6489735
>Foucault !!Q8GwVR
Stopped reading there

>>6489704
>but that's kind of the point of philosophy.

Tipped.

>>6489735
I never thought I'd agree with a gimmicky tripfag but there you go.

>>6489735
>Noam —

>I’m afraid I won’t take the bait, apart from asking the obvious question: If you’re so sure you’ve acquitted yourself well in this conversation, exposing both my intellectual misconduct with respect your own work and my moral blindness regarding the actions of our government, why not let me publish it in full so that our readers can draw their own conclusions?

>Sam

Where were you when Sam Harris was kill?

>>6489743

That implies you actually read.

>>6489744
Nice meme

>>6489681

How is Sam Harris dishonest?

>>6489751
I read your name, then stopped reading.

>>6489755

Did you read his exchange with Chomsky? The dishonesty and the reluctance on his part to own up to it are pretty hard to miss.

>>6489759

How can you start what never began?

>>6489766
You retarded or something?

>>6489704
It is completely hypocritical to say that we have 'morally progressed' as a society and then to say that torture is acceptable.

>mfw Sam Harris threads are the new Ayn Rand threads

>>6489770
That is just another rephrasing of saying "I don't think torture is morally acceptable." You didn't deal with my claim at all aside from "I disagree."

>>6489769

>>6489704
You are what's called a useful idiot. You know nothing about national security or actual torture, but you are fully prepared to advocate and defend it publicly because muh Harris, muh thought experiment. You're a tool.

>>6489793
Got any substantive disagreements, or can I chalk it up as another "I disagree."

why is there this factionalism in /lit/? why would you limit yourself to the binary choice of disciple or adversary?
Sam Harris is a very smart guy who isn't always right but has a talent for elucidating philosophy well if not for producing good philosophy.
Be grownups, have nuanced opinions

>>6489798

>Sam Harris is a very smart guy who isn't always right but has a talent for elucidating philosophy well if not for producing good philosophy.

Then he should read what he disagrees and work from there, instead of actually being a humungous retard.

>>6489798
>Be grownups, have nuanced opinions

>Sam Harris is a very smart guy who isn't always right but has a talent for elucidating philosophy well if not for producing good philosophy

>>6489798
You can ahve nuanced opinions on nuanced subjects. Something as idiotic as Harris can only be defended by ignoring itself, as you can see in this thread where no one cites Harris or actually arguments in his favor.

>>6489796
Let's try this. Quit your masturbatory fantasies and give us some actual, specific, real world situation, preferably somewhere outside your mom's basement, where torture has provided valid information and saved lives.

Since you are prepared to defend destroying people's lives (only the "evil" ones, who had it coming, of course), I take it you have made the effort to check if your gut feeling bear up?

>>6489809
he does--he doesn't extensively reference philosophers who disagree with him in his books because that sort of insular and opaque writing doesn't make for good pop philosophy.
you might read Dan Dennett's response to Free Will and Harris's rebuttal.
>>6489810
I think this is a sufficiently nuanced opinion. He doesn't need to be original or groundbreaking to be valuable.
It's like saying "ugh Kierkegaard is worthless because he committed philosophical suicide." Being thoughtfully wrong doesn't make a thinker worthless.

>>6489853
I was never arguing that torture has been successful in the past. You're misreading.

>(only the "evil" ones, who had it coming, of course)
What are you even on about?

>I take it you have made the effort to check if your gut feeling bear up?
I never mentioned my gut feeling. I laid out a hypothetical situation in which I think torture would be justified. That is the claim I'm making, and no one has responded to it yet past saying "I disagree" and misunderstanding my point.

>>6489854
I think he's worthless because I don't find anything he says interesting, and its hard for me to imagine how anyone remotely well versed in philosophy possibly could.

>>6489853
This isn't Harris's point; he doesn't advocate torture.
His position is that if, hypothetically, torture is likely to provide actionable intelligence that will save more lives than 1 or perhaps 1 times some suffering coefficient times the number of American lives deemed by the US government to be worth one Afghan (or whatever) life, torture is morally tenable. He's advocating the use of cost-benefit analysis in making morally optimal decisions.

>>6489853

The issue is whether torture can ever be justified. Using a hypothetical scenario to answer this question is a perfectly reasonable way to approach it. I don't understand how you're not getting this simple concept.

>>6489884
Does this make Dick Cheney a philosopher too?

I've never seen a Sam Harris thread that had more than one person defending him. Also, all these threads always have the same style of argumentation and rhetoric.

Maybe the mods are deleting these threads because it's always the same fucking person making them?

>>6489884
>if, hypothetically, torture is likely to provide actionable intelligence
but that's idiotic. it's starting ana rgument by assuming you're right, when the issue is that it doesn't. He's using cost-benefit analysis to depart from the real issue of the debate.

>western civilization is above everyone and to prove this we have to defend it

>>6489924
What is the real issue, in your eyes? It's true that that argument relies on the fact that you view a trillion innocent people dying as worse than one guilty one.

>>6489864
Simply give a real world example of the actual usefulness of torture to back up that it is justified. If you can't, fuck off.

>no one has responded
Because the scenario is infantile and specifically created to emotionally justify your goal. No one semi-intelligent will ever take something like that seriously.

>What are you even on about?
It is of course ok to torture "terrorists", because they are evil and do evil things like things to blow up and people to die. Except mostly the "terrorists" happen to be simply people someone with a PR agency dislikes, like random Georgians, Kurds, Iraqis, who just happen to come from strategically convenient minorities. Hence my calling you a useful idiot.

>>6489929
Who are you quoting?

>>6489881
I'm sure you're smart enough to see how completely inane this post is.
Most people are not remotely well-versed in philosophy. We're not gunning for a world split cleanly between an intellectual elite of lit and philosophy majors and their uninformed and unworldly financial betters.
His worth comes from the rigorous standards of organization and style his writings follow. Read one of his books. They're not perfectly researched and not perfect, but they're nearly perfectly composed. Philosophy would be more useful for laymen and society if it weren't expected to be abstruse.
I think /lit/ should examine its issue with pop philosophy.

>>6489936

Sam Harris

>>6489930

I'm not whoever you've been talking to, but every time you bring up this shitty hypothetical argument the amount of zeroes increases.

Oh and it's shitty because changing the numbers matters. Harris (I've read his fucking chapter on torture) is not only arguing for this hypothetical. Of course everyone agrees that if you could save a gazillion people by torturing one, you should probably do it. But as much as that argument works in the hypothetical, it doesn't work in real life.

>>6489907
are you hung up on the title?

>>6489930
No, that torture rarely gives useful information, that there are more dead people because of toture than lives saved, that it only could potentially work when you already know the answer and want to push it, that most methods make it too easy for the torturer to hear what he wants to hear and that if the tortured was actually an agent (which is rarely the case) he was trained to give false information and knows that if he's liberated he will be killed. Torture can only work when you take it out of any real aspect, which is what Harris does, and so he is defending a horrible practice jsut because in theory maybe it could some times work.

>>6489947

I think it should mean more than simply 'guy with an opinion that gets him attention without any thought original to him whatsoever,' yes.

>>6489934
>Simply give a real world example of the actual usefulness of torture to back up that it is justified.
The hypothetical one I gave could take place in the real world. If that situation occurred, then it would be justified. If you disagree, then feel free to say why. No one has yet.

>emotionally justify your goal.
How ironic, considering the only responses I've gotten are emotional and no one has dealt with the actual situation.

>It is of course ok to torture "terrorists", because they are evil and do evil things like things to blow up and people to die. Except mostly the "terrorists" happen to be simply people someone with a PR agency dislikes, like random Georgians, Kurds, Iraqis, who just happen to come from strategically convenient minorities. Hence my calling you a useful idiot.
What the fuck are you talking about? I never mentioned terrorists or the national origins of anyone. I provided a hypothetical situation in which I thought torture would be ethically fine. No one has provided any reasoning as to why it isn't ethically fine in that situation aside from "your hypothetical situation is hypothetical," which I acknowledge.

>>6489946
>every time
This is the first time I've posted in a Sam Harris thread on /lit/.
>Oh and it's shitty because changing the numbers matters. Harris (I've read his fucking chapter on torture) is not only arguing for this hypothetical. Of course everyone agrees that if you could save a gazillion people by torturing one, you should probably do it. But as much as that argument works in the hypothetical, it doesn't work in real life.
Of course the number matters, but no one here is discussing it. They're saying "torture is wrong," and I'm saying there are some rare situations in which it isn't.

>>6489966
I never claimed that torture has been historically successful.

>>6489946

>it doesn't work in real life.

Because we haven't been faced with a credible nuclear threat yet.

A credible nuclear threat is not out of the realm of possibility though, so why is the hypothetical so shitty? It's not like we're dealing with a scenario that could never occur.

>>6489946
lol, hypothetical situations form the basis of philosophy. Your argument is political and misplaced (as in, go to /pol/).
>>6489966
alright big boy, here's something you seem to be having trouble with:
" am not alone in thinking that there are potential circumstances in which the use of torture would be ethically justifiable. The liberal Senator Charles Schumer has publicly stated that most U.S. senators would support torture to find out the location of a ticking time bomb. Such scenarios have been widely criticized as unrealistic. But realism is not the point of these thought experiments. The point is that unless your argument rules out torture in idealized cases, you don’t have a categorical argument against torture."
I hope this clears things up

>>6489884
I'm aware, I was responding to the other poster.

>>6489891
>Using a hypothetical scenario to answer this question is a perfectly reasonable way to approach it.
Except it is not, which is exactly my point. Ignoring all actual facts to reach the foregone conclusion is beyond contempt, it is absurd.

>>6489992
>Except it is not, which is exactly my point. Ignoring all actual facts to reach the foregone conclusion is beyond contempt, it is absurd.
Why isn't it?

>>6489977
>I hope this clears things up
Yes, that he won't discuss the reality oft hings, just justify them in the hypothetical field.
Also,
Why shouldn't China just burn the middle east and take over? Chinese citizens need the same, more people will be happy than before and they'll make a better use of the space.
It's dumb utilitarian logic without any grasp of reality, Harris just rediscovered gunpowder.

>>6489992

Thought experiments are very common in philosophy, I don't see what the problem is.

>Ignoring all actual facts to reach the foregone conclusion is beyond contempt, it is absurd.

There is no "foregone conclusion". We start with the question "Is torture categorically wrong?". To answer this question we must ask ourselves whether there are situations where we would feel that torture is a justified act. And I for one can think of some, such as one where we have a nuclear threat and a suspect who we're certain has some useful information to potentially divulge. Therefore I conclude that it is not categorically wrong, just wrong in almost all cases.

>>6489992
if you read Sam Harris on torture, you'll see that he doesn't explicitly advocate the thing that you're upset about. His support of torture is entirely hypothetical and contingent. The word "torture" could be substituted with any other morally contentious word; that's his point.
"Using a hypothetical scenario to answer this question" is only unreasonable if we're talking about a non-hypothetical, thereby specific, decision. And we are not.
This is not a tactical question, it's an ethical one, and it's not specific enough to be too case-dependent for thought experiments to be valid.

>>6490013
Because people are being tortured right now under real conditions that could be discussed instead of hypothetical scenarios that ignore any historical data and convinently decide where to cut ties with reality before jumping off to an alarmist declaration that it could happen.

>>6490032
>Because people are being tortured right now under real conditions that could be discussed
Why would that be useful to determine if torture is always wrong?

>ignore any historical data
Historical data also doesn't seem very relevant here.

Do you agree or disagree that in that scenario of the bomber and the encryption key, torture would be justified? If you agree and it's justified, then we're on the same page. Torture is clearly historically bad, but it is not bad in itself. There are situations where it could be justified.

>>6490032
That's fine, but you should probably write to your congressman instead of making an an argument that amounts to something like "you guys are idiots for arguing that assisted suicide might be ethical when there are assisted suicides going on right now!"
I wouldn't worry about people making tactical decisions on the basis of Sam Harris's philosophical positions.

>>6489971
I was simply trying to explain to you why your defense of torture is sad and pathetic, since you don't know anything about real, actual torture and its consequences on real, actual people, but keep defending it because of some crazy fantasy you are fixated on.

You are defending torture. I have nothing more to say to you. I hope you have a nice day.

>>6490050
lol

>>6490050
I'm sorry you can't control your emotions.

>You are defending torture. I have nothing more to say to you. I hope you have a nice day.
This the proof that you are the only pathetic one here.
>You are disagreeing with me and I only have emotional responses. Goodbye.

>>6490031
>he doesn't explicitly advocate the thing that you're upset about. His support of torture is entirely hypothetical and contingent.
you know that that's exactly how that kind of thing works, right? think tanks crap dozens of articles and even books like that each year, never openly declaring anything that could be refuted but eventually defending a point that needed defending. That's what being a shill is.

>>6490031
>if you read Sam Harris on torture, you'll see that he doesn't explicitly advocate the thing that you're upset about. His support of torture is entirely hypothetical and contingent. The word "torture" could be substituted with any other morally contentious word; that's his point.

This is the sort of 'philosophical argument' taking place in sports bars all across the country.

>>6490045
>I wouldn't worry about people making tactical decisions on the basis of Sam Harris's philosophical positions.

See >>6489977
Senators would clearly support torture in the thought experiment, because it is designed to work through appeal to emotion. "Only a monster would let all these people die". Being a monster rarely gets you elected, so torture becomes justifiable. Once a mean is justifiable, it is a tool, and tools pretty much always end up getting used on quite other problems than they were at first intended for.

Which is obviously fine by Harris, since it is morally cost effective.

>>6490074
That's the fault of senators, not people looking for the actual truth of the matter

>>6490060
I have already given you fully reasoned responses.

>>6490070
you see, there are two things going on here: there's some contingent of detractors upset about the implications of Harris's positions (which of course have no bearing on their intellectual soundness) and another that just doesn't like him because he's too pedestrian to claim an illustrious title reserved for community college professors and other leaks in the bucket of global intellectual capital.

>>6490075
It is the fault of demagogues like Harris.

>>6490082
You never engaged with my scenario. You simply appealed to emotion, acting like I'm some neocon who wants to kill terrorists and saying that torture has a horrible history. Neither of those are relevant to whether torture is always ethically wrong.

>>6490093
FALLACY MAN STRIKES YET AGAIN

>>6490093
Because you pulled it out of your ass. You cannot provide any ethical foundation without examining the concrete.

>>6490088
>you see, there are two things going on here: there's some contingent of detractors upset about the implications of Harris's positions (which of course have no bearing on their intellectual soundness) and another that just doesn't like him because he's too pedestrian to claim an illustrious title reserved for community college professors and other leaks in the bucket of global intellectual capital.

I just don't believe that contriving a set of extreme circumstances to justify torture really says much about torture, or that not saying anything new or worthwhile qualifies anyone as a philosopher.

>>6490043
What if no one is saved by that torture? what if there was no proof that the tortured was related to the bombs?
How is it ethical to push someone beyond the limits of tolerable pain, making them suffer more than most people would in their lives, something the Hitchens couldn't tolerate for more than 5 seconds done over and over again for days when there is no security that it will shield results? How is it ethical to produce pain for no reason at all?

Your argument compeltely ignores the fact that after torturing the subject will never be able to enjoy life again, and each time you disposse of them because they had false leads you are producing more pain than if you killed them. In those kind of situations, if you want to be utilitarian, numbers matter.

>>6490097
>Existential comics shitposting
What else is new

>>6490102
>You cannot provide any ethical foundation without examining the concrete.
"concerete" is obviously ambiguous, but I'm assuming you're saying that we can't use hypothetical situations to address whether something is ethically wrong/right. I don't see why not.

>>6490119
Why do you ruin my board
What pleasure do you derive from this
Do you think what you do has a purpose ?

I don't even have the energy to get angry at you, I just wish you would leave

>>6490075
It's as much the fault of the people giving permission to others to torture as it is the fault of the ones that give moral permission to the first group. Although the torturer is the only one doing the act, Harris is exactly as guilty as any senator, since they are giving the moral aproval to the actions.

>>6490090
The social implications of a stance cannot be used to gauge its legitimacy. To act as though they can is to either indulge in sentimentality or engage in intellectual dishonesty.
>>6490106
>I just don't believe that contriving a set of extreme circumstances to justify torture really says much about torture
No extreme circumstances need be contrived, only circumstances in which torture is valuable, which is conceivable or imaginable to even you, I'm sure. That's all he's saying.
I'm not going to get into the issue of labeling a writer because I don't think it really matters. But, since you obviously care about the sanctity of the word, can you not just say he's not a philosopher and be satisfied with calling him a useful writer and speaker?
There's too much vitriol in this thread for it to be useful to anyone.

>>6490126

Harris doesn't give a general permission to torture. He thinks torture should be illegal.

Acknowledging that there are possible scenarios where torture could be an ethically justifiable act does not make Harris guilty of anything but intellectual honesty.

If some scumbag senator uses the hypothetical scenario argument to justify legal torture or torture in any general sens that is absolutely not something Harris would approve of.

>>6490116
>What if no one is saved by that torture? what if there was no proof that the tortured was related to the bombs?
That isn't my scenario. In my scenario, we had reliable intelligence that he knew the key. Obviously, when you have worse intelligence, it becomes harder and harder to justify torture. My point was that there are certain situations I could imagine where it is justifiable, including the one I posted.

>Your argument compeltely ignores the fact that after torturing the subject will never be able to enjoy life again, and each time you disposse of them because they had false leads you are producing more pain than if you killed them. In those kind of situations, if you want to be utilitarian, numbers matter.
I never meant to minimize the harm of torture. Clearly, torture is extremely harmful. Some forms are worse than others. Force feeding a Muslim or a Jew a food he strongly religiously objects to may be torture. Telling someone their family will die in that situation would be torture in my view. No one is saying that torture isn't bad. I'm just saying that there are worse things in some situations.

>>6490126
>Harris is exactly as guilty as any senator, since they are giving the moral aproval to the actions.
That is absurd. The most obvious objection to this is that saying that torture is ethically justifiable in one situation doesn't mean that it's always ethically justifiable.

>>6490145
>No extreme circumstances need be contrived, only circumstances in which torture is valuable, which is conceivable or imaginable to even you, I'm sure. That's all he's saying.
>I'm not going to get into the issue of labeling a writer because I don't think it really matters. But, since you obviously care about the sanctity of the word, can you not just say he's not a philosopher and be satisfied with calling him a useful writer and speaker?

Well, the examples I've read have been pretty contrived and circumstances have been pretty rigidly controlled in ways likely not to be found in real life; certainly no exact circumstances such as these have held in the years of the 'war on terror.'

I don't think posing the question of whether I'd shoot a 5-year old in the face to save Europe really says anything worth knowing about the general question of shooting 5-year olds in the face.

I would agree that he's not a philosopher, but we still may differ on the question of whether he's a useful writer or thinker. Useful for what?

>>6490145
Clearly I wasn't judging Harris' stance, only Harris himself.

>>6490154
Harris is clearly more so, he is the popular advocate. The senators are simply populist puppets.

>>6490119
>I don't see why not.
The whole "hypothetical situation" is an appeal to emotion. It is base and manipulative. "I don't see why it couldn't happen", is a marketing line like "you could win the lottery", "if you only you work hard enough you too can make it", vague and meaningless, but intuitively sensible.

You can just as easily set up a thought experiment that would conclusively "prove" the opposite, simply by creating identification and playing on the cost for the victim, and whether someone buys it depends entirely on their bias.

>>6490176
You should read one of his books, he's a useful writer in that he's extremely good at organizing and delivering lucid explanations of sometimes heady concepts. I think pop philosophy well-executed is useful as both a gateway to philosophy in general and to forming philosophical opinions.
>>6490194
why would you want to judge a person apart from their work, when all you know of them is their work? You can dislike their work on the whole, but by disliking them or judging them as "bad," you're cutting yourself off from some ideas or at least sentences that you might find useful or interesting. It's extremely unlikely that, after having read a few of his books, you won't find analogies, illustrations, or perhaps even a concept or two that seem on-point to you.

>>6490212

How the hell else are you supposed to answer the question "is torture always wrong?" if not by considering different scenarios?

That's how you determine that murder is not always wrong, by considering the hypothetical scenario of self-defense or the hypothetical scenario of someone on a killing spree.

I'd understand the objection if the scenario was something that could not happen but a nuclear threat at some point in the future is not an impossibility at all.

>>6490212
You're missing the point. I was answering the question "is torture always morally wrong?"
We can obviously think of plenty of scenarios where it would be wrong, so we should think of scenarios where it would be right. I thought of one. This isn't marketing. I'm not trying to exaggerate the good qualities of torture or make it seems like it's more good than bad. I simply presented one example where it would be justifiable.

>You can just as easily set up a thought experiment that would conclusively "prove" the opposite, simply by creating identification and playing on the cost for the victim, and whether someone buys it depends entirely on their bias.
What do you mean? Please set up a thought experiment for us that proves that there are absolutely no situations where torture is justifiable.

>>6490227
>You should read one of his books, he's a useful writer in that he's extremely good at organizing and delivering lucid explanations of sometimes heady concepts. I think pop philosophy well-executed is useful as both a gateway to philosophy in general and to forming philosophical opinions.

I was a Philosophy major; I'm off the stuff now. I think if we want to call Mitch Albom or whoever wrote the Chicken Soup for the Soul books 'philosophers, that's fine, but to their credit, they don't try to use Noam Chomsky to self-promote.

The worst, though, was what Bachem Macuno did with Chomsky. Absolutely repellent.

>>6490263
you take Noam Chomsky seriously as a Philosophy major? Huh. I'm one too.

>>6490276
>you take Noam Chomsky seriously as a Philosophy major? Huh. I'm one too.

I take Chomsky seriously as a commentator on world events, because he is a writer/speaker with a rare, comprehensive grasp and insight on a great many things that go generally unexamined elsewhere.

>>6490295
You see, my point of view is that Sam Harris often serves the same purpose but with less indignation and outrage.
I think they're both flagrantly wrong on some issues, but that this fact doesn't completely discredit either of them.
Noam Chomsky, too, is not a philosopher. His ideas are generally either not unique, not correct, or not philosophy. But I think that's fine.

>>6490336
>You see, my point of view is that Sam Harris often serves the same purpose but with less indignation and outrage.

I don't think Chomsky is indignant or outraged. He's a serious thinker that takes a critical view of things that deserve to be looked at critically.

I think that Harris says things people like to hear and they reward him for it by taking him more seriously than the ideas he repeats deserve. Want some highbrow veneer on justifying torture or Islamophobia? He's your guy. It's a savvy little niche, it will probably buy a nice house. But it's no more serious thinking than Jonah Goldberg turns in twice a week.

>Noam Chomsky, too, is not a philosopher. His ideas are generally either not unique, not correct, or not philosophy. But I think that's fine.

The loss of Chomsky's perspective would be a sad and serious one. There's nothing I ever hope to hear from Harris that won't be said by any number of others.

>>6490360
I suspect your view of Sam Harris is as caricatured as mine of Chomsky is likely to be. You clearly don't have a sense of who he is as a thinker or writer, and you certainly won't until you read a book or two of his.
>There's nothing I ever hope to hear from Harris that won't be said by any number of others
Originality is not the or a mark of a good thinker--I suspect a tendency to believe otherwise is endemic in fans of Noam Chomsky.
Then again, I have some reading to do. I suspect they both have some valuable points or points delivered in valuable ways and I suspect you would agree if you were more familiar with Harris's work.

>>6490381
>I suspect your view of Sam Harris is as caricatured as mine of Chomsky is likely to be. You clearly don't have a sense of who he is as a thinker or writer, and you certainly won't until you read a book or two of his.

I'm resigned to leaving my familiarity with Harris as-is. I have seen a couple TV appearances and frankly there is too much I'm interested in reading to put much time into something I am not.

>Originality is not the or a mark of a good thinker--I suspect a tendency to believe otherwise is endemic in fans of Noam Chomsky.

I can see why fans of Harris might undervalue originality of perspective, or why fans of Chomsky might set a premium on it.

>western civilization defending its brutal means with brutal means for an opposing faction engineered geopolitically for profit defending its brutal means with brutal means. This all results in a nu-atheist defending said brutal means for brutal means so people don't get killed brutally. This makes every inspired nu-atheist with the most pop-sci understanding of the world an intellectual, and a philosopher.

It's like poetry