Thinking Christian

Melissa commented concerning Sam Harris:

I’m not sure whether you’ve seen this article:

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/02/07/3131377.htm

but Sam Harris spells out exactly how he sees the future.

However, some people were not ready for this earthly paradise once it arrived. Some were psychopaths who, despite enjoying the general change in quality of life, were nevertheless eager to break into their neighbours’ homes and torture them from time to time. A few had preferences that were incompatible with the flourishing of whole societies: Try as he might, Kim Jong Il just couldn’t shake the feeling that his cognac didn’t taste as sweet without millions of people starving beyond his palace gates.

Given our advances in science, however, we were able to alter preferences of this kind. In fact, we painlessly delivered a firmware update to everyone. Now the entirety of the species is fit to live in a global civilization that is as safe, and as fun, and as interesting, and as filled with love as it can be.

A utopia where anyone who disagrees with Sam Harris and friends can be painlessly cured.

This is part of a thought experiment for Harris, not necessarily a proposal per se, but in context it seems nevertheless to be an idea he would support if it were to come about. So I ask, what kind of would-be tyrant would think he could impose this “firmware” (defined) on another human being? What kind of megalomaniac would think anyone ought to have that option? Sam Harris says he doesn’t believe in God. I don’t think he wants the competition.

Thankfully the possibility he proposes doesn’t exist now and (I hope) never will. Suppose it did, though. Who is the psychopath who would deserve having it uploaded into his brain? Is it not the man who thinks it’s a good idea to use it on other people? Not that I would recommend it even in that case—but anyone who would consider delivering a “firmware” upgrade for other people’s ethics ought to think about how to upgrade his own.

I am astonished and appalled at Sam Harris for presenting this in the positive light he has. I feel almost the same about the rest of us: Why does anyone think he has anything useful to say about ethics? What’s wrong with us? Why is anyone giving him positive publicity?

I’m emoting here, I know. I haven’t said what’s actually wrong with the world he proposes. It ought to be self-evident, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be analyzed and explained, too. I’ll give myself time to settle down and then I’ll come back and do that, in case it’s not so obvious for everyone.

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Possibly related posts (automatically generated):

1. “Sam Harris and 9/11″
2. Harris’s Inhuman Utopia
3. Watching Sam Harris Hurt Himself
4. Sam Harris: Objections Sustained
5. Sam Harris’s Moral Desperation Move