Sam Harris and the Ethics of Existential Political Risk

The controversial podcaster now finds himself in hot water over recent statements on political conspiracy and the 2020 election - but on the merits, isn't he right?

Author Sam Harris is trending on Twitter and for good reason.

Appearing on the Triggernometry podcast this week, Harris wandered willingly into the everlasting gobstopper topics of Trump, 2020, and The Big Lie.

The controversy in this case relates specifically to the Hunter Biden laptop story. Prior to the 2020 election, evidence of a laptop belonging to Biden surfaced. Some speculated that the contents of the laptop may have included incriminating evidence of unlawful and unethical business dealings between the Biden family and Ukraine.

The New York Post cracked the story wide open and in the run up to the election was banned from Twitter. Some of the material on the laptop has since been authenticated and while the scope of the scandal still remains unclear, many view the affair as blatant interference between the people meeting valuable information before they met the ballot box.

Asked to discuss his views on the story, Harris said the following:

“Trump University, as a story, is worse than anything that could be in Hunter Biden's laptop in my view. Now that doesn’t answer the people who say it’s still completely unfair to not have looked at the laptop in a timely way and to have shut down the New York Post Twitter account. That’s a left-wing conspiracy to deny the presidency to Donald Trump – absolutely it was, absolutely, right? But I think it was warranted.”

Responding to the fall out of his comments on Twitter, Harris tweeted: “On the podcast, I was speaking narrowly about the wisdom and propriety of ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop story until after the election. I’ve always thought that this was a very hard call, ethically and journalistically.”

Here, it is important to highlight that Harris was not arguing for the story never to be published. He really views it as a matter of timing, and considering the whirlpool of misinformation and disinformation we live in, he is arguing that pre-election publication of the story would have only increased the odds that we were delivered another four years of Trump - and this, he views, as an existential political risk well worth avoiding.

In his breakdown of the controversy, right wing podcaster Ben Shapiro issued a heavy critique. In reflecting on Harris’ tweets, Shapiro hit back, saying that Harris had given away the game and went on to ask what was so ethically troubling – shouldn’t a truthful media be important, he ventured?

Statements like Shapiro’s are going to be commonplace in the commentary on this topic. But they are misguided because they gloss over the underlying assumptions Harris meets the issue with.

In Harris’ view, Trump really was an other-worldly threat not just to his country but to the world. He uses the analogy of an asteroid careening toward earth and pushes the podcasters hosting him to consider what would be wrong with private citizens, or groups of them, “conspiring” to negate the threat in some backroom. He shores this up by endorsing “out in the open” conspiracy, even if we don’t like the taste of it.

If you take Harris at his word, then his position, as he originally stated it, is completely logical and reasonable.

Still, some have lamented Harris for his past work arguing against lying, and in favor of truth and reason. But Harris laid the logical groundwork for his argument well before the offending statement.

On the topic of the Trump Twitter ban, he suggested that this was totally in keeping with efforts to maintain freedom of speech. He reminded us that Twitter is a publicly traded but private company, and argued private companies should never be forced by governments to moderate the content they post.

By using his own podcast by way of analogy, he hits this point in a hard and compelling way:

“So as someone who has started information-based companies at this point, I’m just thinking, what’s the scenario under which I would want the government to force me to have Alex Jones on my podcast or to have Donald Trump on my podcast? Shouldn’t I be able to have anyone I want on my podcast? Is it conceivable that my podcast could grow so big…that suddenly the government would have an interest in forcing me to have people on it, who, for whatever reason, I object to having on it? This is a way in which I’m more extreme than most people on the left. I do think that at this point in history, you should be able to have a social media platform and exclude any specific group you want and just say that’s the way we do it, right? And if you don’t like it, boycott us.”

The problem that many have with Harris’ statement here shouldn’t be focused on illogic of the thing but perhaps rather on the principle itself. But even insofar as that connects with the free speech debate, it’s hard to find a way in which to disagree with Harris on the merits.

Of course it is true that no governmental body should be able to tell Twitter what it can and cannot host on its platform. That is not a world we want to live in, again, because Twitter is a private company and thus deserves the sovereignty to make decisions based on the view of its executives and those they are beholden to – shareholders, in this case, not the public, or your drooling pro-Trump uncle.

But many still take issue with the Twitter ban and the censoring of individuals, as opposed to media companies like The New York Post. Nonetheless, if we take Harris’ argument in favor of Twitter being able to control the media posts on its platform as valid, then it logically follows that Twitter should be allowed to ban Trump, based in whatever fact, or political convenience it can produce.

This issue is not a first amendment issue. A private company can and should be able to control its content, even if it rubs us the wrong way, or seems unfair, or even tangentially seems stifling of speech. The true first amendment issue would only arise if the government tried to force Twitter into a corner and mandate unreasonable state-directed content moderation. More chilling still would be the precedent that would set for further governmental intrusions.

Defending Twitter’s right to govern its platform is therefore best viewed as a defense of free speech itself insofar as it relates to the law. The answer Harris provides to this confusing subject is likely among the most ethically nuanced we are going to be exposed to.

Those arguing that Twitter was wrong in either case are free to do that. But their ire must stop at the point of trying to contribute to that social debate, both logically, and legally. After listening to some critical of the Trump ban, you do get the awful sense that they wouldn’t be so vocal in their opposition of a republican legislative effort designed to take away Twitter’s right to ban. That is dangerous.

It is also worth pointing out that what Harris has stated on this topic is consistent with his past comments on the rights of those to embarrass themselves in society. Business owners should be allowed to make bad and unethical decisions insofar as they are lawful, according to Harris. In his view, the corrective is a societal corrective. Idiotic policies should pay a social price and that’s best delivered through norms, not laws. To the dismay of his detractors, this is in keeping with the fundamental principles of libertarianism.

At the end of the day, we are presented with a messy situation. Harris is right when he highlights the ethical struggle. Considerate people should be frustrated with questions like this because they meld the first amendment in law with the first amendment in spirit - that is an ever present confusion that plagues even the wisest of social commentators.

Trump was free to create other ways to vocalize his opinions if he had an issue with the Twitter ban. In fact, he has. That is the system at work, regardless of how emotionally convinced naysayers are that he was wrongly silenced on Twitter. His loud, obnoxious, and stupid voice, like all others, is still protected, and we are still free to seek it out and to listen to it.

Perhaps the takeaway in this bent social media story is not the problem with Harris’ statements, but instead with the fact that 70 million Americans once again voted for an imbecilic and dangerous demagogue.

Perhaps the takeaway is how awfully Donald Trump has taken a hammer to not just our societal norms, which Harris correctly points out as being more important than our laws, but also to our ability to cooperate and work towards meaningful pursuits.

Time and time again, the social implications of Trumpism inflame and disturb. Harris’ saga and the distortion of his basic points is merely more evidence of that cold and unfortunate fact.