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Sam Harris

3 min read

A few categories come to mind:

  • As noted by u/Estepheban Sam is a moral realist. He thinks moral statements can be grounded in some objective condition. Exactly what that condition is and if one can turn it into practice is up for debate. His conversation with Peter Singer is revealing.

    • Sam also appears to be a consequentialist in his moral philosophy. It is a broader category than utilitarianism. Sam has said many nice words about Derek Parfitt, and Parfitt is a truly great consequentialist philosopher. Parfitt is the “grand daddy” of effective altruism, which is something Sam has been very supportive of.
    • On political philosophy Sam is definitely in the camp of liberalism, as traditionally understood. So very much about rational discourse and inquiry free from historical baggage, individual rights, scientific method, reasoning from the original position etc. His objection to religion is often formulated in this liberal way, as is his displeasure with identity politics, since it requires people to be assigned more essential characteristics.
    • Although not a category I think many use for themselves, but scientism is an accusation Sam has faced. That is a term used to describe a philosophical and political position that seeks to reduce everything to scientific claims. Though it is not a charitable way to understand Sam, there is something to it. Steven Pinker is also one who often gets put in this category by his detractors.
    • On the narrow topic of free will, Sam is a free will skeptic or a non-compatabilist. A philosopher like Dennett accepts determinism, like Sam, but argues there is still a socially meaningful concept of free will that is worth having, part of so called compatabilism, while Sam sees no room for that, since he appears to see no way freedom can emerge from an unfree physics.
      • Some of Sam’s musings about AI suggests he adopts a functionalist philosophy of mind, that views the (human) mind as reducible to computation, and which rejects the dualist answer to the mind-body problem. However, I am unsure if this captures Sam’s perspective, which appears also motivated by moral reasons and existential risk.

    As with all labels and categories, they may be useful but also incomplete. And here they are based on interpretation, so take it with a grain of salt.

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