the "Unitarians, busily cooperating on schemes to enhance the world's well being, as they have been doing for generations." At the Moving Naturalism Forward workshop, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg described how in his youth he had been a utilitarian but had been dissuaded of the notion that "the fundamental principle that guides our actions should be the greatest happiness for the greatest number" by reading Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Weinberg added, "Now, Sam Harris is aware of this kind of counter argument [to utilitarianism], and says it's not happiness, it's human welfare. Well, as you make things vaguer and vaguer, of course, it becomes harder and harder to say it doesn't fit your own moral feelings, but it also becomes less and less useful as a means of making moral judgements. You could take that to the extreme and make up some nonsense word and say that's the important thing and no one could refute it, but it wouldn't be very helpful. I regard human welfare and the way Sam Harris refers to it as sort of halfway in that direction to absolute nonsense." Response to critics from Harris A few months after the book's release, Harris wrote a follow-up at The Huffington Post responding to his critics. On August 31, 2013, in response to the negative reviews of his book, Harris issued a public challenge for anyone to write an essay of less than 1,000 words rebutting the book's "central argument". The submissions were vetted by Russell Blackford, with the author of the essay judged best to receive $2,000, or $20,000 if they succeeded in changing Harris's mind. Four hundred twenty-four essays were received by the deadline. On March 11, 2014, Blackford announced the winning essay was by philosophy instructor Ryan Born. References 2010 non-fiction books English-language books Ethics books Philosophy of science literature Contemporary philosophical literature Books by Sam Harris Free Press (publisher) books Thought experiments in ethics Moral psychology books