Last year, Sam Harris announced he was seeking challengers for an intellectual prize fight [1]. The reason, he claimed, was that he had yet to see any serious arguments against the moral theory described in his book The Moral Landscape (TML). While detractors might question his eyesight, his claim is likely the swaggering bravado of the cocky prize-fighter who (having cleared sparring partners during training) boast their undefeated status.
Like all prize-fights, a prize was offered; two thousand for the selected essay and twenty thousand if its author managed to put his undefeated theory down for the count. Strangely, essays were restricted to 1000 words. The logic given was that if his moral theory was easy to beat, someone should be able to do it in 1000 words. That sounded like a self-proclaimed world champ requiring anyone thinking they can actually take him, to beat him in the first minute with an arm tied behind their back. In any case, he eased doubts about this limit by assuring everyone the essay would simply act as opening to a refereed dialogue, with increased freedom of movement for the contestant. Fair enough.
