More Bad PHIL 101 From Sam Harris

Jebus, why does Sullivan keep linking to this guy?

What this Harris fellow gives us is a very skewed version of the discussion, conducted at an extremely elementary level--not quite the level at which the issue would be discussed in, say, PHIL 101. If you want to understand the issues, you certainly don't want to rely on Mr. Harris's blog posts. Even an introductory textbook would give you a more advanced understanding of the debate. You might, for example, check out Four Views on Free Will, just to get started.

Harris doesn't seem to have a terribly good grip on the issues, and he doesn't seem to be interested in objectively assessing the arguments. Rather, he seems to be cut from the same cloth as Dawkins--he's got a preferred philosophical view (that he seems to think is science-rific!), and he's selling it. He's an ad man, marketing a position that he wants you to believe. It is, of course, a position with certain theoretical virtues, and it might turn out, in the end, to be true. But the information and reasoning currently available to us do not support the claim that it is. Again, it's good that guys like this are trying to get some philosophy out to the public, but it's too bad that what they're getting out there isn't very good. This sort of thing will just help convince people that philosophy is BS, which is too bad.