I'd say the Harris/Craig debate is kind of a battle of the titans. Craig is the very best Christian debater in my view and the view of a lot of people. Harris is one I would expect to be a top atheist debater. I say that based on limited exposure to him. Just listening to him in the few venues I've heard I find that I'm impressed. Who is better than him? There are a lot of second rate atheist debaters in my view. Some are very smart and know a lot, but among those very smart atheists there are only a select few that have the additional debater's skill. I'm expecting Harris to be among them.
On the whole though after listening to him debate Craig, and you can get the audio here, I'm a bit disappointed. I was hoping for better. Not terrible. Not an atheist victory on scoring certainly. But maybe a success anyway.
Here's what Harris does well. His calm demeanor is perfect. He's got some great lines. And much of what he offers I think is very persuasive in its own right. For instance during his first rebuttal he offered some very poignant arguments related to the absurdity of belief that good is from God when we simply consider the 1,000 children that die in agony every hour hoping and praying to God and God will not be answering them. Meanwhile we are thanking God as if he's responsible for curing our eczema or providing us with a nice parking space. It's absurd.
Those are great points. They are very difficult for the Christians in the audience to deal with. But here's what they don't do. They don't directly rebut Craig's argument. Perhaps they do tangentially. But not directly.
Take Craig's point offered in his opening statement that under atheism morality is in fact just a biological by product of evolution. Given that, then had we evolved differently we'd have different values. Maybe we would value rape. Some animals forcibly copulate with one another. It's not "rape". It's forced copulation. The fact that we see it as immoral is kind of a biological accident.
Where is Harris' answer to that objection? There isn't any. Now, that's not all bad. Perhaps Harris chose to forego a technical victory and just take advantage of the fact that he's here at Notre Dame with a bunch of Christians and he's going to take this opportunity to hammer away at Christians with the absurdity of their view. What will Craig do in reaction? He'll ignore that and stick to the subject. What does that mean? Christians will leave without answers. That can be very persuasive. So forget about scoring. What matters to Harris is convincing. What I hear is very convincing.
When I was a Christian I think the type of thing Harris did was the kind of thing that struck me most deeply. He hasn't answered Craig's opening statement which shows that objective morals don't exist without God. So (from the neutral observer perspective) he doesn't have a logical foundation for his view. But my view is also silly. So now what? If anything I think the Christian leaves and says Deism makes more sense. That's the first baby step out of religion.
At one point Harris says "If you wake up tomorrow and think that if you say a few magic words over your pancakes and they will turn into the body of Elvis Presley you've lost your mind. However if you think that when a priest does it over wafers it becomes the body and blood of Jesus you are just a Catholic." That's pretty hilarious. And it's a great illustration. But what does that have to do with the debate? Not much. Perhaps Harris knows this and doesn't care.
So who wins? There can be no question that Craig technically wins. His opening statement wasn't rebutted. But if you gauge it by whether you think a religious person would be more likely to lean in favor of non-religion and vice versa I think it may be that Harris won. For Harris perhaps that matters more.
12 comments:
Hey Jon -
I personally haven't heard the debate myself. I appreciate your view.
I do have some comments related to the following.
"Take Craig's point offered in his opening statement that under atheism morality is in fact just a biological by product of evolution."
In a sense this is true. Our sense of morality really is a by product of evolution. Having said that, what we have (also due to evolution) is the cognitive capability to analyze, predict, etc. What this allows us to do is to override (if we chose) our evolutionary based instincts/morality. Such that we can increase well-being (or whatever term you prefer). Not being a philosopher perhaps I am not using proper terms. Good or bad are value judgements. Well-being (admittedly, bad choice of word) is something we can make objective observations w/o resorting to any kind of (intrinsict) value judgements. I think this may be *very* roughly what Harris's view is. More confident this is rougly true of Richard Carrier's view (if you grant me the brief and poor wording).
Anyhow - back to Craig. In the sense that, I think, Craig is trying to define morality I don't see that atheists need to rebut it at all. As he defines it, there really is no objective morality. Where Craig is wrong is that Divine Command Theory DCT is also not objective. It is subjective go God's will. Now he may claim that good is part of God's essence (there is a better word that eludes me right now). What does that mean. Not much. It becomes circular (or tautological if you will).
'Given that, then had we evolved differently we'd have different values. Maybe we would value rape.'
And people would write Holy Texts explaining that rape was a gift from the Christian god, and that there was nothing wrong with making young virgins pregnant before asking them.
Why , even the Son of God was born that way!
What is Craig's point? If we had evolved differently we might be able to eat rat poison.
Gosh, under atheism, rat poison could be a delicious breakfast food!
But everybody knows there are things which are objectively poisonous, no matter whether or not some people think they are tasty.
Therefore, atheism is wrong.
Steven, that's fine, but doesn't that mean that Harris is wrong? If rape is just wrong for our species due to evolutionary developments, and yet fine for other animals, then how is morality objective as Harris claims? Harris claims that throwing battery acid in the face of a girl in Afghanistan that's trying to learn to read is wrong and the perpetrators must be punished no matter whether everyone else in the world thinks it's right. So it's impossible for us to evolve to where that is the world we live in?
Jon -
I don't think you have it quite right. It isn' wrong because that is how we evolved. It is harmful (or causes suffering). Do you agree that I can say this objectively. More to the point had we evolved differently such that it was not harmful (or did not cause suffering) we probably would even be asking if the act was bad. No?
By the way when I say objective above I mean not in the mind-independent sense but that it is independent of ay one person's view.
"We probably would *not* even..."
One last thing. Though I don't know for sure , I think Harris defines objective as I roughly tried to describe it. At least with respect to morality.
Yeah, that makes some sense Paul. I think what makes me uncomfortable is certain hypothetical questions like the following. Suppose women were more selective with mates. In other words they were less willing to have sex. And in turn the males in our species developed a stronger propensity to rape. And that propensity conditioned us to regard rape as morally benign. This arrangement perpetuated our species successfully. Is rape now not wrong? That seems to be true and if so it's obviously repugnant to our sensibilities (as we are presently evolved).
Here's Sam Harris saying that these type of things are wrong and even if nobody agrees it is still wrong and punishment is warranted. But here's how it could come about that nobody would think it was wrong. If nature selected for this behavior and it tended to propagate reproduction in our species. Is it wrong in that case? What is his answer? He didn't come back at Craig at all on this type of thing and I think that leaves a bit of a hole in his position. But what do you think?
Jon -
I know I am repeating myselft but I am hesitant to, metaphorically speaking, put words in Harris's mouth. So what follows is my own. Though I do think he might answer similarly.
My fallback position, in somewhat loose terms, is that morality is merely a construct of our minds. So far as I know no other species in the planet is concerned about what we refer to as morality.
In other words they were less willing to have sex. And in turn the males in our species developed a stronger propensity to rape. And that propensity conditioned us to regard rape as morally benign.
It is conceivable that our *sense* of morality might have evolved as such. But before proceeding I think maybe I should be clearer on this point - and to reiterate I am speaking towards my own views on the subject (and again I think they may be consistent with Harris's views but I don't actually know) - There is our *sense* of morality. Our sense of morality *is* a product of how we evolved. However, I think we can look at morality from a more "objective" point of view. Something that is based on logic and science - this viewpoint of morality is independent of our sense of morality. Albeit still dependent on our human experiences. Experiences of joy, suffering, pain, etc. Had we evolved differently not only might our sense of morality have been different but we might have experienced joy, pain, etc differently too. So conceivably our logic/science based morality might also be different. So in a sense I think we can develop a moral code such that it is objective (in the sense of independent of any one person's view/senses) and on some level relative. Relative because had evolution happened different this moral code might have (probably would have?) been different.
Is any of this making sense? This all makes sense in my head but I am not sure I am able to articulate it properly. I hope so.
Here's Sam Harris saying that these type of things are wrong and even if nobody agrees it is still wrong and punishment is warranted. But here's how it could come about that nobody would think it was wrong. If nature selected for this behavior and it tended to propagate reproduction in our species. Is it wrong in that case?
Do you mind if I substitute the word "immoral" where you've put "wrong"?
Anyway I think this is where language (or at least for me) fails on some level. The act of rape would still cause pain, suffering, etc. Otherwise it wouldn't be rape by definition. but you ask is it still wrong/immoral. If you are asking do we *feel* it is wrong then probably not. However, if you want to answer from an objective sense then yes it is wrong/immoral.
What is his answer? He didn't come back at Craig at all on this type of thing and I think that leaves a bit of a hole in his position. But what do you think?
Not having heard the debate personally and not knowing the terms of the debate perhaps you are right. Though my guess is that Craig encourages people to trust their moral sense, presumably because the God he believes to exist put it there, and Harris (or my) position is that you should not trust your moral sense and base your morality on logic and science.
Perhaps Harris's biggest failure was in failing to make it clear that people should not trust their own moral sense.
I found the following - maybe you will find it interesitng.
http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-god-debate/
Since you have heard the debate, what do you think of what he says in this blog post?
'If rape is just wrong for our species due to evolutionary developments, and yet fine for other animals, then how is morality objective as Harris claims?'
Is cyanide objectively poisonous?
Suppose we had developed so that our species tolerated cyanide?
Would cyanide then be objectively poisonous?
Why does Craig not think that it is wrong for his god to have animals rape other animals?
'Harris claims that throwing battery acid in the face of a girl in Afghanistan that's trying to learn to read is wrong and the perpetrators must be punished no matter whether everyone else in the world thinks it's right. '
Is throwing Gatorade on winning football coaches objectively morally wrong?
Is this because our species has evolved to tolerate exposure to Gatorade but not to battery acid?
If our species had developed so that some things which are presently harmful were not harmful, then what harm would be caused by them?
Answer - none.
What is Craig's point?
For what it is worth - I think Steven and I are, roughly and obviously in different ways/words - making the same case.
Steven - do you agree?
Yeah, you guys are making some sense. I like the battery acid/Gatorade/cyanide illustrations, Steven. I'll have to steal that from you.
To both of you, do you regard your views as consistent with that of Harris?
I don't know. I don't know Harris views well enough to say with any meaningful degree of certainty. My guess is that in terms of approach then quite possibly. In terms of details or specifics, I am less confident.
After listening to this debate, and thanks for posting it, I thought Harris did quite well, and Craig was awful. But then again I am an atheist.
However, I don't agree with Harris' overly scientistic approach. And the debaters played into positions that excluded morality as the result of social and cultural negotiation. They need a little sociology and anthropology.
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