Conundrum

David Benatar makes a convincing case that coming to existence is a serious harm for every sentient being, hence it's morally wrong to procreate.

The author presents a very clear argument and makes is very easy to follow each step. He also touched on problems that are closely related, such as abortion, death and suicide.

The author takes a very agnostic stance towards metaethics and even to normative ethics in general, as he makes arguments that are consistent with both consequentialism as well as deontology. However, he relies heavily on intuitions. He doesn't necessarily try to go against the intuitions, but tries to show that his arguments are consistent with some of the more important intuitions we already hold. This may be seen both as a strength and as a weakness of the book.

A fascinating fantasy world! The beginning is very slow and I was uncertain whether I like the book or not. But near the end I couldn't sleep and I just had to know what'll happen next! Immediately after finishing the first book I grabbed the second one. I got into the world and the characters. It's a very pleasant read.

But it has some imperfections — you may have a feeling that light will prevail no matter what. Darker tones would make the story more visceral maybe.

Searle presents his view on the existence of social facts, such as money, marriage, private property, government, and many others. The question is “how does institutions (money, court, corporations, sport events, marriage) exist?”, or in other words “what does it mean to say that these institutions exist?”

I have mixed feelings about the book. There are many good ideas there, but the delivery is disappointing.

Searle introduces a lot of conceptual apparatus that he uses in some places, but then drops almost entirely never to get back to them. It may be frustrating to learn all of this just to use it in 2 or 3 chapters.
Searle also takes critical mental phenomena — obligations, duties, rights, requirements, permissions, promises — as a given, and treats them as one of the foundations of his ontology. But these phenomena aren't properly explained.

Searle repeats many points through the book ad nauseam. Near the end of the book you may think to yourself “I'm reading this for the 200th time now...” This is not conducive to understanding, as he's repeating the same things over and over again.

Another issue I have with the book is that a lot of claims are not sufficiently argued for. Searle seems to merely state additional claims in place of support of his theses. But these additional claims don't really function as a justification for many theses.

Do yourself a favor and look for a better book...

The worst book you can imagine. The author instead of presenting the arguments in a clear way makes them more convoluted, because he wants to present them in his own style.

The structure of the book is chaotic. You're reading a chapter and then there is a random section about something completely unrelated.

The author also likes to include his own opinion and counterarguments. It looks like he's trying to show that he's also a philosopher. But for a book that is an introduction to a philosophical field I would expect just the presentation of positions, trends, arguments, and philosophers.

A self-help book of a classical style. Full of interesting anegdotes without description of any method of deriving those “laws” the book is supposed to be about. The laws are thrown at the end of each long anegdote, but how the author came to those conclusions is a mystery. In all, the book is mostly a series of interesting stories. All of the “laws” are just ungrounded, baseless claims.

Morality is a domain that is on the minds of philosophers. It is peculiar, then, to read a book that aims to answer difficult philosophical questions... without even engaging with philosophical problems! It is apparent that Sam Harris doesn't know any literature on the subject. Had he read books about ethics, we would be aware of the many issues and questions that a proper account of morality has to include. And maybe we would give the answers in the book, or he wouldn't even have written it.
The view of morality as presented in the book can be called a naive, folk, or “common sense” theory of morality. But it is certainly not what is expected from a serious approach to this difficult topic.

Very stimulating and interesting book. Tao teaches that there is much more to our mental life, to knowledge, to understanding that what can be comprehended through language. The non-action is allowing things to unfold as they unfold, without effort on one's part, without willing, without striving, without desire. Reading the book illuminates the aspect of our lives that is usually ignored nowadays.