Congratulations, Ryan Born
I've been discussing things to do with Sam Harris' Moral Landscape Challenge lately, but I forgot to congratulate the winner, Ryan Born . Though it was Harris' challenge, it was Russell Blackford who chose the winning essay. I've only read a handful of the entries, but I don't recall reading any that were better than Ryan's. It's a well-written and interesting essay, and I trust Russell to have found the best of the lot. That said, I'm not thrilled with Ryan's essay. I like the general strategy of taking up the Value Problem. However, Ryan's primary tactic is problematic. He takes up the idea of self-justification in a confused, or at least confusing, way. Sam Harris has said that he would change his mind if he could be convinced that "other branches of science are self-justifying in a way that a science of morality could never be." Ryan mistakenly takes Harris to be saying that science is self-justifying. This allows Harris ...