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Dale S. Hull
Dr. Smith
HUX 542 / Paper Four
5 December, 2015
Either Rationality or … Nothing: Sam Harris and the Quest for Rationality
The debate between reason and faith has been happening for at least 2500 years in the
Western world. Plato’s dialogue “Euthyphro” is an example of an attempt to move religion away
from faith, where faith is belief without evidence. (This may be a loaded definition, as will be
discussed below.) In the dialogue, Socrates happens to meet with the priest Euthyphro who is
there to prosecute his father for murder. Socrates, of course, begins a discussion where the nature
of some abstract idea is discussed; in this case the nature of piety. (Piety is the correct
relationship between mortals and the gods.) Thus begins one of the first rational discussions
about the nature of piety wherein Socrates uses logical contradiction to show that since the Greek
gods cannot agree upon what is moral they cannot be what determines what is moral.
Flash forward to the present day: the battle of science (reason, logic) versus the
pararational (faith, belief, emotion) is still being debated, sometimes violently. Sam Harris, in his
book The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, defends reason against the
evil thing he calls faith. Harris begins his discussion of faith by talking about belief. He says,
“Believing a given proposition is a matter of believing that it faithfully represents some state of
the world, and this fact yields some immediate insights in the standards by which our beliefs
should function” (End of Faith 51). For the scientifically-minded this is a standard claim about
the interaction between subject and object. Harris continues by declaring that the default setting
for knowledge is for people to accept appearance as reality unless there is a reason (proof) to the

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contrary (End 61). By stating that knowledge is based upon the senses, he is arguing that true
knowledge is a correspondence between a person and the world (i.e. an interaction between
subject and object). This allows Harris to move to the next argument; whether faith, which is a
type of belief, is ever justified.
First, Harris argues that since belief must stand in a certain relation with the world, that
these beliefs must be valid, it follows that if a person claims to have certain beliefs about God,
then these beliefs must stand in that relation as all other beliefs do. They must correspond to the
way the world actually is. However, he immediately argues that faith goes beyond ordinary
belief. Faith is defined as,
Religious faith is simply unjustified [Italics Harris] belief in matters of
ultimate concern—specifically in propositions that promise some
mechanism by which human life can be spared the ravages of time and
death. Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape
velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse—constraints like
reasonableness, internal coherence, civility, and candor… Ignorance is the
coinage of this realm—“Blessed are those who have not seen and have
believed” (John 20:29)—and every child is instructed that it is, at the very
least, an option, if not a sacred duty, to disregard the facts of the world out
of deference to the God who lurks in his mother’s and father’s imagination
(End 65).
One can see that Harris’ claim has some validity prima facie. Plato’s Euthyphro is an example of
an attempt to move away from what Harris would call superstition. Looking at literature,
Dostoevsky in Notes from the Underground has the Underground Man say, “what do I care about

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the laws of nature and arithmetic if… these laws… are not to my liking?” (Dostoyevsky 13).
Here in America, one can see that members of the Republican Party, which has allied itself with
conservative Christians, are most likely to reject evolution, an established scientific theory
(Bennen). One can definitely see Harris’ point that religious faith can be dangerous. It allows one
to be “certain about things that no human being could possibly be certain about” (Letter to a
Christian Nation 67). However, it seems that Harris has made a mistake in defining faith.
Berry Wendell, in “Two Minds”, argues that every belief system (Berry calls them
Human Orders) is a fiction. These include science, art, social and political beliefs, and
economics. They are fictions because they are incomplete, and as they are incomplete they are
exclusive. According to Berry, there are two landscapes; one landscape is the actual landscape
that is outside our minds, while the other is our own individual mind which is necessarily
incomplete as it is finite and it orders our perceptions of the actual landscape (Berry 86.)
Continuing, Berry points out that various groups (scientists, philosophers etc…) are
saying that we need to be more rational and that being irrational is a great danger (87). This is
where Berry and Harris would agree; however, Berry argues that the claim that rationality will
fix everything is incorrect. Berry says, “The Rational Mind… is the mind all of us are supposed
to be trying to have…. Our schools exist mainly to educate and propagate and authorize the
rational mind. The rational mind is objective, analytical, and empirical” (Berry 88). But there is
another mind, according to Berry (He says that these are not the only two minds): the
Sympathetic Mind. This mind, not necessarily opposed to the Rational Mind, views the world
differently than the Rational Mind. “Whereas the Rational Mind is the mind of analysis,
explanation, and manipulation, the Sympathetic Mind is the mind of our creatureliness … [it] is
preeminently a faithful mind, taking knowingly and willingly the risks required by faith” (Berry

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91-2). He says that the rational view has done great things; however, it is limited in its view. It
does not know how to deal “with the things it is ignorant of: the future, the mysterious wholeness
and multiplicity of the natural world, the needs of human souls, and even the real bases of the
human economy in nature, skill, kindness, and trust” (Berry 102). This is Berry’s point. While
rationality has its place by allowing people to see the world in a particular way, it is not the only
way to view the world. Instead of rationality, Berry is saying that other mind, the mind of
emotion or faith, is also a way to view the world. This is where Harris’s argument is
questionable. He has defined faith as belief without evidence; which is something dangerous, but
that is not the only view about faith.
Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion {Or Atheism}, by Frank
Schaeffer, continues the criticism of Harris’ view of faith. Schaeffer says that he agrees with the
New Atheists (Harris, Dennet, Hitchens, and Dawkins; along with others) who think that religion
should go. “Intolerant, politicized ugly religion” (Schaeffer 7). However, he also thinks that
Atheism should go too. At least the intolerant “godless ideologies” (Schaeffer 7) which have also
killed people should also go (Schaeffer 7).1
His point is that they are just yelling meaningless
catch phrases at each other, and instead of doing this, people need to do two things. Answer “the
quest for meaning in our lives and the search for an answer concerning the origin of everything”
(Schaeffer 7). He continues by pointing out what Berry has argued for; namely that humans are
beings who need meaning in our lives and that we are spiritual beings. Furthermore, the problem
with the New Atheists is that they are literalists and like all literalists (Biblical, Qur’anic, Judaic
etc…), that they are “secular fundamentalists arguing with religius fundamentalists” (Schaeffer
9).
1
This is a standard claim made against atheism; however, many atheists, and non-atheists, have argued against
this claim. See The End of Faith pages 100-6.

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Another writer who posits that human beings need faith is Karen Armstrong. In A History
of God: The 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, she argues that “Homo sapiens
is also Homo religious. Men and women started to worship gods as soon as they became
recognizably human; they created religions at the same time as they created art” (Armstrong xix).
And that is the point. In order to find meaning in life, we need such things as art and religion.
And while it is possible to analyze art and religion by using the rational, the point of both
religion and art is that there is meaning. And meaning is something which science has a difficult,
if not impossible, time explaining. It can tell you how to do something but it cannot tell you why
it should be done.
Additionally, Armstrong points out that religion is pragmatic rather than factual. While
Harris seems to be arguing that all faith, or at least moderate and conservative faith, is
dangerous, Armstrong would insist that he is missing the point. Yes there are people who abuse
religion (fundamentalists, snake-oil salesmen etc…) but religion is there for the transcendent
experience which makes life meaningful.
Of course Harris could change his mind about his definition. In the afterword to the
paperback edition of The End of Faith, Harris responds to letters. One letter points out that there
are many types of faith. And as a matter of fact it is because of faith that letter writer goes about
his day. “My correspondent went on to point out, as many have, that each of us has to get out of
bed in the morning and live his life, and we do this in a context of uncertainty, and in the context
of terrible certainties, like the certainty of death” (End 232). But, Harris points out that that is not
the type of faith he is talking about. He claims that he is talking about religious faith, the faith of
extremism. This type of faith causes people to believe even when they have no evidence. They
invoke faith as a means to an end, but that means is not a sufficient end. Still, it seems that since

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he is aware of the different types of faith, he might mean only extreme (fundamentalist or very
conservative) religious faith is the issue.
Typically people argue that dogmatic beliefs (beliefs that are strongly held) are not good.
And that is where Harris seems to make another mistake. While it is true that one can have
firmly held beliefs that can be dogmatic (i.e. not open to revision under any circumstances), it is
possible to have firmly held beliefs that are open to revision. Harris says, “It does not take any
special knowledge of psychology or neuroscience to observe that human beings are generally
reluctant to change their minds” (End 61). However, he fails to mention the idea of defeasibility.
Defeasibility is when a belief (which is typically is a strongly held belief) could “be shown to be
wrong” (Baggini 23). So, instead of claiming that all faith is closed belief not open to revision,
there can be a variety of faiths and that is Harris’ seeming mistake.
In closing, it would be prudent to look at how the brain actually works. Humans are the
product of millions of years of evolution and as long as humans have lived they have tried to
figure out how they have made decisions (Lehrer xiv). Jonah Lehrer, in How We Decide, reveals
how human beings actually make decisions. Although humans have, at least since the ancient
Greeks, assumed that humans are rational, that was wrong. Humans mainly make decisions
based upon emotions, although humans do have “a big cortex for a reason” (Lehrer xvi). As he
points out, the key to good decision-making is to use both sides of the mind. “For too long,
we’ve treated human nature as an either/or situation. We are either rational or irrational. We
either rely on statistics or trust our gut instincts…. Not only are these dichotomies false, they’re
destructive. There is no universal solution to the problem of decision making” (Lehrer xvi).
Instead of relying upon science and reason as Harris would have you do, it is better to

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acknowledge that humans have both reason and emotion, and that is the way to make good
decisions. One must embrace the rational along with the pararational.

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Works Cited
Armstrong, Karen. A History of God: The 4000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
New York: A.A. Knopf :, 1993. Print.
Baggini, Julian. Atheism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. Print.
Benen, Steve. "Poll Shows Republicans Rejecting Evolution." Msnbc.com. NBC News Digital,
25 Feb. 2015. Web. 29 Nov. 2015.
Berry, Wendell. Citizenship Papers: Essays. “Two Minds.” Washington, D.C.: Shoemaker &
Hoard, 2003.Print.
Cooper, John M. editor. Plato: Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 1997. Print.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. Notes from Underground. Trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa
Volokhonsky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994. Print.
Harris, Sam. Letter to a Christian Nation. New York: Knopf, 2006. Print.
Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W.W.
Norton, 2004. Print.
Lehrer, Jonah. How We Decide. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print.
Plato. “Euthyrphro” in Plato: Complete Works pages 1-16 edited John M. Cooper.
Indianapolis:
Hackett Pub., 1997. Print.
Schaeffer, Frank. Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't like Religion (or Atheism).
Philadelphia: Da Capo, 2009. Print.
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