The reason he’s issuing this challenge, he says, is that most of his reviewers have insisted that he’s mistaken without supplying anything like persuasive evidence. Since I found many of those reviews quite persuasive in their criticisms, I turned with interest to his essay-length response to his critics. 

Since I took a passing swipe at his work in my recent post on Steven Pinker and scientism, it seems worth noting that Sam Harris, the noted “new atheist” polemicist, has issued a public challenge to anyone interested in refuting his recent book on “how science can determine human values,” offering $2,000 to the best rebuttal essay and $20,000 to any writer who can persuade him to recant his central argument outright. That argument he distills as follows:

Here it is: Morality and values depend on the existence of conscious minds—and specifically on the fact that such minds can experience various forms of well-being and suffering in this universe. Conscious minds and their states are natural phenomena, fully constrained by the laws of the universe (whatever these turn out to be in the end). Therefore, questions of morality and values must have right and wrong answers that fall within the purview of science (in principle, if not in practice). Consequently, some people and cultures will be right (to a greater or lesser degree), and some will be wrong, with respect to what they deem important in life.

The reason he’s issuing this challenge, he says, is that most of his reviewers have insisted that he’s mistaken without supplying anything like persuasive evidence. Since I found many of those reviews quite persuasive in their criticisms, I turned with interest to his essay-length response to his critics. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

Read More.