I previously wrote a review of Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, which I highly recommended, despite fundamentally disagreeing with one of its central arguments. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about Homo Deus. While the book asks incredibly important questions about the future of humanity, it not only comes up short on answers, but, more disappointingly, it presents caricature versions of other philosophical positions. I nonetheless finished Homo Deus because it is highly relevant to my own writing in World After Capital. Based on some fairly positive reviews, I expected a profound insight until the end, but it never came.
One of the big recurring questions in Homo Deus is why we, Homo Sapiens, think ourselves to be the measure of all things, putting our own interests above those of all other species. Harari blames this on what he calls the “religion of humanism” which he argues has come to dominate all other religions. There are profound problems both with how he asks this question and with his characterization of Humanism.
Let’s start with the question itself. In many parts of the book, Harari phrases and rephrases this question in a way that implies humanity is being selfish, or speciest (or speciesist, as some spell it). For instance, he clearly has strong views about the pain inflicted on animals in industrial meat production. While it is entirely fine to hold such a view (which I happen to share), it is not good for a philosophical or historical book to let it guide the inquiry. Let me provide an alternative way to frame the question. On airplanes the instructions are to put the oxygen mask on yourself first, before helping others. Why is that? Because you cannot help others if you are incapacitated due to a lack of oxygen. Similarly, humanity putting itself first, does not automatically have to be something morally bad. We need to take care of humanity’s needs, if we want to be able to assist other species (unless you want to make an argument that we should perish). That is not the same as arguing that all of humanity’s wants should come first. The confusion between needs and wants is not at all mentioned in Homo Deus but is an important theme n the wonderful “How Much is Enough” by Edward and Robert Skidelsky and in my book “World After Capital.”
Now let’s consider Harari’s approach to Humanism. For someone who is clearly steeped in history, Harari’s definition of Humanism confounds Enlightenment ideas with those arising from Romanticism. For instance, he repeatedly cites Rousseau as being a key influencer on “Humanism” (putting it in quotes to indicate that this is Harari’s definition of it), but Rousseau was central to the romanticist counter movement to the Enlightenment, as championed by Voltaire. If you want an example of a devastating critique, read Voltaire’s response to Rousseau.
One might excuse this commingling as a historical shorthand, seeing how Romanticism quickly followed the Enlightenment (Rousseau and Voltaire were contemporaries) and how much of today’s culture is influenced by romantic ideas. Harari makes a big point of the latter, frequently criticizing the indulgence in “feelings” that permeates so much of popular culture and has also invaded politics and even some of modern science. But this is a grave mistake as it erases a 200 year history of secular enlightenment-style humanist thinking that does not at all give a primacy to feelings. Harari pretends that we have all followed Rousseau, when many of us are in the footsteps of Voltaire.
This is especially problematic, as there has never been a more important time to restore Humanism, for the very reasons of dramatic technological progress that motivate Harari’s book. Progress in artificial intelligence and in genomics make it paramount that we understand what it means to be human before taking steps to what could be a post human or trans human future. This is a central theme of my book “World After Capital” and I provide a view of Humanism that is rooted in the existence and power of human knowledge. Rather than restate the arguments here, I encourage you to read the book.
Harari then goes on to argue how progress in AI and genetics will undermine the foundations of “Humanism,” thus making room for new “religions” of trans humanism and “Dataism” (which may be a Harari coinage). These occupy the last part of the book and again Harari engages with caricature versions of the positions, which he sets up based on the most extreme thinkers in each camp. While I am not a fan of some of these positions, which I believe run counter to some critical values of the kind of Humanism we should pursue, their treatment by Harari robs them of any intellectual depth. I won’t spend time here on these, other than to call out a particularly egregious section on Aaron Swartz whom Harari refers to as the “first martyr” for Dataism. This is a gross mis-treatment of Aaron’s motivations and actions.
There are other points where I have deep disagreements with Harari, including the existence of Free Will. Harari’s position, there is no free will, feels like it is inspired by Sam Harris in its absolutism. You can read my own take. I won’t detail all of these other disagreements now as they are less important than the foundational mis-representation of what Humanism has been historically and the ignorance of what it can be going forward.
