Just Revealed: The Cover of Sam Harris’ New Book June 9, 2010

Just Revealed: The Cover of Sam Harris’ New Book

By Guest Contributor
June 9, 2010

The cover for Sam Harris‘ new book has just been revealed:

Nice. Plain. Powerful.

If this were a Christian book, we’d see Harris’ face right there on the cover…

In any case, it’s better than the Christopher Hitchens yellow-themed books, I say.

The Moral Landscape will be published October 5th.

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  • T Ray

    The gold standard?

    I’m looking forward to this though it suspect it will be better at provoking questions than providing answers. It should get things moving in the right direction and hopefully expose the fallacy of religious moral superiority. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a revised edition in a the next few years. More likely a followup book since publishers like to get paid.

  • Evan

    Of course it’s better than Hitchen’s yellow-themed books. Harris’ is gold and we all know that gold is luxuriant and can be found in Heaven, while yellow denotes sulfur, the color of Hell. Ergo Harris is more heavenly than Hitchens…. or something. I think my brain hurts from the effort of making that connection.

    /* Clicks to add title to wishlist */

  • His TED talk promised the same, but failed to deliver.

  • Justin

    His TED talk promised the same, but failed to deliver.

    I just downloaded it. I was looking forward to watching it. 🙁

  • NewEnglandBob

    I preordered this in early April.

  • Mmm… I don’t think it can determine our values. I do think it can determine a moral optimum in the way he discussed in his TED talk, but only after we’ve determined our values already (which he did by talking about suffering).

  • Marc Country

    Many people failed to grasp Harris’ TED talk, or his clarifications in the ensuing debate. Perhaps reading the book will be the corrective they need.

  • Trace

    …judge…book…cover…

  • Aj

    MikeTheInfidel,

    Mmm… I don’t think it can determine our values. I do think it can determine a moral optimum in the way he discussed in his TED talk, but only after we’ve determined our values already (which he did by talking about suffering).

    He doesn’t help himself by muddying the waters this way. Although it could be the same situation as “The Root of All Evil”, publishers decide to misrepresent work because controversy sells. Authors should get to pick their titles, headlines, and covers…

  • I’m not particularly excited about this book. Everything I’ve seen from him on the topic so far seems pretty hokey.

    It is a smart-looking cover, though.

  • pinksponge

    A few years ago, I read a book edited by Paul Kurtz, Science and Ethics: Can Science Help Us Make Wise Moral Judgments? It was a collection of essays by scientists and philosophers from various disciplines, attempting to evaluate ethics through the lens of scientific knowledge. It was quite interesting. I wonder how Harris’ book compares to that, and if Harris’ book addresses similar themes.

  • T Ray

    I’m expecting this book to boil down to “Why aren’t we looking ‘over here’ for a way to possibly quantify morality in an objective manner?”

    His TED talk showed a lot of potential. But like his TED talk, I don’t expect the book to be perfect (complete).

  • Karmakin

    The problem is that it’s impossible for such a book on this topic to be ever “complete”, or even to provide strict “answers”. But from the looks of it, what it does is provide a framework for discussing moral issues, something that is very lacking right now.

  • Craig E.

    Yellow book covers…
    There’s a joke there somewhere about ‘yellow journalism’, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  • Choch

    I look forward to Sam’s clear, thought provoking style on most any subject he takes the time to analyze.
    Taking such a leap in his new book is just what is needed to expand the parameters in a world where the resources in the current pool have been re-arranged in so many configurations with very little to offer a morally conflicted world.
    Perhaps like the world reliance on oil, religious morality has proven a crippling burden. Time to remake the landscape!

  • Marcel Kincaid

    The subtitle isn’t even coherent, since “human values” is not a fixed or universal thing. And if he means that science can determine what human values should be — that’s an is/ought fallacy.

    What science can do is study human values and their cause, and can advise us how to act so as to best actualize our values.

    It’s not clear to me why I should be interested in Sam Harris and what he has to say on this subject. Dennett and Dawkins have distinguished academic careers and are highly respected in their fields for good reason; Harris is — what, a PhD student in neuroscience? Who has demonstrated wacky ideas about buddhism and meditation, and a very poor, highly ideological, grasp of the historical and political forces that shape the Middle East. There are scientists such as Marc Hauser who are doing excellent work in the field of human morality; Harris isn’t one of them — he’s an atheist celebrity. Sorry, but I’m not into idolatry.

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