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Then I came across this little gem on p.203: "We cannot let our qualms over collateral damage paralyze us because our enemies know no such qualms."

And later: "It seems certain that collateral damage, of various sorts, will be a part of our future for many years to come."

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Just to clarify, Harris laid out his opinion on collateral damage in Chapter 4. You may wish to take a read through that chapter. I have also commented on the issue of collateral damage according to Harris in the Chapter 4 discussion, though since he brings it up again, by all means the discussion could conitnue here too.

Harris continues to purposefully open giant loop holes in his arguements, for what purpose I have no idea. Harris argues for the legitimacy of intuition! What a crock! I am all for giving intuition its due, a lot of great decisions are made on human intuition that can not be made based on reason and logic alone. However, a lot of bad decisions are made on intuition as well. Most notably a problem for Harris is many people intuitively feel that religion must be correct. Their intuition tells them god is with them. How can you advocate for intuition on one hand bad against faith on the other? Intuition has its place and I surely get gut feelings that I compare to my reasoning of situations, but it is often wrong, dead wrong at times, and sometimes leads us down the wrong path. Chapter Six is shaping up to be a real doozy!

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p. 194 -- "... if we are willing to act in a way that guarantees the misery and death of some considerable number of innocent children, why spare the rod with suspected terrorists?"

Is Harris trying to make the case that since we're willing to accept "collateral damage," then we should accept the torture of suspected terrorists?

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Finally made it up to this section, and that is exactly what Harris is trying to make the case for. This fits in with his previous arguement in Chapter 4 about collateral damage. Regardless of his flawed arguement, quick and flippant conclusions, and lack of logic, Harris is nothing if not consistant.

I am going to have a hard time answering your question, GOD defiles Reason, without resorting to an ad hominem statement! So before I do so, let me clarify that I think Harris' idea is nuts, not Harris himself.

Seriously though, Harris considers his act immoral because he lacked the back bone to teach these guys a lesson. But GIVE ME A BREAK!!! Does he seriously think he is going to give three thugs a moral lesson simply by challenging their beliefs to the point of causing a fight? People do not learn lessons when the fight or flight instinct is envoked. People justify their actions when provoked further enforcing and solidifying pre-conceived notions. It should also be noted that the thugs in question were drunk, further evidence that they would not be taking a moral lesson from handing down a beating. It is almost like Harris is forced to attack is own actions to protect and defend his attack on pacifism. After all, how can he attack Ghandi while relating a statement in which he did a morally good thing and saved a woman from potentially being raped or worse, and doing so without violence?

The main point Harris is trying to make relates back to his stance on Terrorism, "Teach them a lesson." But with terrorism, as we have seen in the Middle East in response to the United States envasion, often times hostilities provokes more hostilities. The only lesson learned in the Middle East is maybe Al Quida has a point, maybe the United States is evil. The only time you can convince someone that they need to re-evaluate their morals and ethics is when the person or group of people is actually willing to self evaluate themselves and the possibility of change. Brow beating people only encouraging a knee jerk reaction of defending more vehenomentally already established positions.

Harris does have a good point about Ghandi in reference to the Hollocaust solution for the Jews committing suicide. I will conceed that extreme pacifism is not good enough, but an attempt at pacifism while keeping defenses ready is properly moral. As with many other subjects in the book, Harris takes everything at all or nothing (relativism is another good example of this all or nothing element to his flawed logic and reasoning).

This thing doesn't have a spell check, does it? I know I had a few mis-spellings in their, pardon the gramatical errors if you would.