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The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People
Bestselling author Michael Shermer's exploration of science and morality that demonstrates how the scientific way of thinking has made people, and society as a whole, more moral
From Galileo and Newton to Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther King, Jr., thinkers throughout history have consciously employed scientific techniques to better understand the non-physical world. The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment led theorists to apply scientific reasoning to the non-scientific disciplines of politics, economics, and moral philosophy. Instead of relying on the woodcuts of dissected bodies in old medical texts, physicians opened bodies themselves to see what was there; instead of divining truth through the authority of an ancient holy book or philosophical treatise, people began to explore the book of nature for themselves through travel and exploration; instead of the supernatural belief in the divine right of kings, people employed a natural belief in the right of democracy.
In The Moral Arc , Shermer will explain how abstract reasoning, rationality, empiricism, skepticism--scientific ways of thinking--have profoundly changed the way we perceive morality and, indeed, move us ever closer to a more just world.
From Galileo and Newton to Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther King, Jr., thinkers throughout history have consciously employed scientific techniques to better understand the non-physical world. The Age of Reason and the Enlightenment led theorists to apply scientific reasoning to the non-scientific disciplines of politics, economics, and moral philosophy. Instead of relying on the woodcuts of dissected bodies in old medical texts, physicians opened bodies themselves to see what was there; instead of divining truth through the authority of an ancient holy book or philosophical treatise, people began to explore the book of nature for themselves through travel and exploration; instead of the supernatural belief in the divine right of kings, people employed a natural belief in the right of democracy.
In The Moral Arc , Shermer will explain how abstract reasoning, rationality, empiricism, skepticism--scientific ways of thinking--have profoundly changed the way we perceive morality and, indeed, move us ever closer to a more just world.
541 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
201 people are currently reading
3751 people want to read
About the author
Michael Shermer
100 books1,171 followersMichael Brant Shermer (born September 8, 1954 in Glendale, California) is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating and debunking pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members.
Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series Exploring the Unknown. Since April 2004, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Once a fundamentalist Christian, Shermer now describes himself as an agnostic nontheist and an advocate for humanist philosophy.
more info:
http://us.macmillan.com/author/michae...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_...
Shermer is also the producer and co-host of the 13-hour Fox Family television series Exploring the Unknown. Since April 2004, he has been a monthly columnist for Scientific American magazine with his Skeptic column. Once a fundamentalist Christian, Shermer now describes himself as an agnostic nontheist and an advocate for humanist philosophy.
more info:
http://us.macmillan.com/author/michae...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_...
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January 8, 2015
Michael Shermer, professional skeptic, has written a very ambitious book. In The Moral Arc he proposes to take up where Steven Pinker left off in his The Better Angels of Our Nature. Pinker's book sets out to show that we are living in the least violent times in history and that this is due to our increased intelligence over time.
Shermer, while acknowledging Pinker's book, doesn't really cover any new ground. In fact, his arguments draw heavily on pop culture references, almost as if he doesn't trust his readers to grasp anything more challenging than Star Trek episodes and Matrix movies.
In addition, he uses personal stories to bolster several arguments. For instance, he says that dropping the atom bomb on Japan was justified because of the many American lives it may have saved. While it's possible to make that claim (although others, including Paul Ham in his recent book Hiroshima Nagasaki have found documentation that shows that Truman knew that Japan was on its last legs militarily and wanted to demonstrate the power of the bomb to the Soviet Union), Shermer cites his late father's fear as a sailor en route to the Pacific theater that he and his comrades would face a fierce battle. The fear was undoubtedly real, but whether it was justified by historical evidence is another matter.
Many times Shermer's libertarian political biases were on display. He thinks that most people would like government to provide a military and infrastructure and stay out of the way the rest of the time. As for income inequality, he shows that the poor in this country (the U.S.) are much better off than oligarchs of a hundred years ago, what with electricity, running water, internet access.
My recommendation is to read Pinker's book instead.
Shermer, while acknowledging Pinker's book, doesn't really cover any new ground. In fact, his arguments draw heavily on pop culture references, almost as if he doesn't trust his readers to grasp anything more challenging than Star Trek episodes and Matrix movies.
In addition, he uses personal stories to bolster several arguments. For instance, he says that dropping the atom bomb on Japan was justified because of the many American lives it may have saved. While it's possible to make that claim (although others, including Paul Ham in his recent book Hiroshima Nagasaki have found documentation that shows that Truman knew that Japan was on its last legs militarily and wanted to demonstrate the power of the bomb to the Soviet Union), Shermer cites his late father's fear as a sailor en route to the Pacific theater that he and his comrades would face a fierce battle. The fear was undoubtedly real, but whether it was justified by historical evidence is another matter.
Many times Shermer's libertarian political biases were on display. He thinks that most people would like government to provide a military and infrastructure and stay out of the way the rest of the time. As for income inequality, he shows that the poor in this country (the U.S.) are much better off than oligarchs of a hundred years ago, what with electricity, running water, internet access.
My recommendation is to read Pinker's book instead.
Read
September 13, 2021In The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom, Michael Shermer sets forth a view of human history that is reflective of the Enlightenment faith in science, progress, and what in the United States is called economic and political libertarianism. The subtitle of the book refers to both "Science" and "Reason." Shermer does not discuss thematically whether reason is simply equivalent to the experimental method of modern science, but he sometimes appears to recognize, at least implicitly, that some aspects of rational analysis cannot be reduced to scientific testability. He does, however, seem to have a strong preference for experimentalism, as his book is studded with hundreds of references to experimental and statistical studies on human and nonhuman animal subjects. Many of these studies (and/or Shermer's conclusions from them) are based on analogical reasoning. Analogical reasoning may be valid, if properly used, but it can also be susceptible to erroneous conclusions. See, for example, H. W. B. Joseph, An Introduction to Logic, 2nd ed., rev. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1925), 532-42; W. Ward Fearnside and William B. Holther, Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Spectrum, 1959), 22-27; Michael C. LaBossiere, 76 Fallacies (Amazon Digital Services, 2012), Kindle ed., 120-23; and Marianne Talbot, Critical Reasoning: A Romp Through the Foothills of Logic for Complete Beginners (Metafore, 2014), Kindle ed., Kindle loc. 2264-2307. I do not have the time or expertise to evaluate whether Shermer's conclusions from the multitude of analogical experimental studies that he cites sufficiently meet the requirements of valid analogical reasoning. The sheer quantity of them is daunting, and I leave such matters to those more familiar with these investigations.
Although relying heavily on experimentalism and testability, Shermer rejects the fact-value distinction of twentieth-century behavioralism whereby social "science" can know only facts, not "values"—that the "ought" cannot be derived from the "is." Shermer thus arrives at a position that some other recent scientifically oriented scholars, notably Sam Harris, have also adopted but one that is heretical from the perspective of much twentieth-century social science scholarship. I agree with Shermer's view that ethics should be governed by rational rather than theological or emotional analysis, but I am not certain that reason is simply identifiable with the scientific method as currently understood. As mentioned above, Shermer himself implicitly seems to move beyond narrow experimentalism in his understanding of the nature of reason, but in so doing he blurs a distinction between philosophical reason and modern natural science that has often been taken as axiomatic by the general scientific community.
Chapter 10 of the book addresses the subject of free will. Shermer's views on this subject are complicated, but they are not predeterministic in the manner of classical physics, professional philosopher Ted Honderich, and neuroscientist Sam Harris. Instead, Shermer, relying on a number of scientific studies, explains that the brain is very complicated and that free will apparently developed in the course of evolution. My own views on free will are set forth in my book Free Will and Human Life (Philosophia 2021).
I am unable to rate this book. I agree with some of Shermer's statements and disagree with others. I tend to think that his faith in inevitable progress may be a bit naïve. He attempts to prove it mainly by overall trends—by statistics. But the victims of Stalin's and Hitler's genocidal insanity as well as the victims of twenty-first-century religious terrorism are unlikely to discern the progress that Shermer touts. Doubtless, on average, there are fewer murders (based on a percentage of total population) than in earlier times, but this question may be more appropriately considered from a qualitative—as distinguished from quantitative—perspective. Of course, quantitative analysis is a supreme value to modern scientists and to their epigones in the social science world.
To my mind, Shermer's knowledge and understanding of political and economic history as well as political philosophy are sometimes superficial. His "elements that make up a just and free society" do not address, for example, the massive economic dislocations that have attended the modern economy (most recently in the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath in the Great Recession) and that have resulted in millions of unemployed, underemployed, and/or underpaid persons. The Moral Arc, chap. 12, Kindle loc. 7936-51. Rather, he seems to adopt, at least implicitly, the questionable libertarian premise that all will be well if government abandons economic regulation. He concludes: "The closest label that summarizes these characteristics [of 'a just and free society'] is 'classical liberal,' and it follows John Locke’s model for the protection of natural rights that people possess by virtue of their humanity. For a good discussion of the US Constitution reflecting these values see Epstein, Richard A. 2014. The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press" (The Moral Arc, chap. 12, n. 37, Kindle loc. 10858-61). It suffices to observe that Richard Epstein is a leading libertarian constitutional law scholar and that Locke's views of property and economic relations have been questioned by many scholars, including but not limited to Leo Strauss and C. B. Macpherson. Locke made a great contribution to the concept of political liberty, as evidenced by implicit references to and quotations from his Second Treatise of Government in the US Declaration of Independence. But Locke's views on property and economic matters are more problematic. It is not for nothing that Thomas Jefferson replaced Locke's "life, liberty, and estate" with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," though the precise historical meaning of the concept "pursuit of happiness" is itself complicated.
The Moral Arc is, unfortunately, not free from some significant historical errors, though these are probably the result of Shermer's overreliance on secondary—as distinguished from primary—historical sources. A striking example is his repetition of an inaccurate statement by historian Hugh Thomas about Roger Williams. I have discussed this matter in depth on pages 6-8 of my Errata and Supplemental Comments to The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience.
Notwithstanding the foregoing critique, Shermer's book is interesting and often informative. For example, his discussion near the end of the book of John Mackey's Conscious Capitalism shows how at least one capitalist is trying to transform capitalism from the inside, and Shermer appears to agree with this analysis.
In conclusion, the reader can profit from reading The Moral Arc, though it should be kept in mind that Shermer's analysis is often based on other sources and that those sources, as well as Shermer's conclusions regarding them, should be evaluated with a rational grain of salt.
(originally posted December 10, 2015; last revised September 13, 2021)
Although relying heavily on experimentalism and testability, Shermer rejects the fact-value distinction of twentieth-century behavioralism whereby social "science" can know only facts, not "values"—that the "ought" cannot be derived from the "is." Shermer thus arrives at a position that some other recent scientifically oriented scholars, notably Sam Harris, have also adopted but one that is heretical from the perspective of much twentieth-century social science scholarship. I agree with Shermer's view that ethics should be governed by rational rather than theological or emotional analysis, but I am not certain that reason is simply identifiable with the scientific method as currently understood. As mentioned above, Shermer himself implicitly seems to move beyond narrow experimentalism in his understanding of the nature of reason, but in so doing he blurs a distinction between philosophical reason and modern natural science that has often been taken as axiomatic by the general scientific community.
Chapter 10 of the book addresses the subject of free will. Shermer's views on this subject are complicated, but they are not predeterministic in the manner of classical physics, professional philosopher Ted Honderich, and neuroscientist Sam Harris. Instead, Shermer, relying on a number of scientific studies, explains that the brain is very complicated and that free will apparently developed in the course of evolution. My own views on free will are set forth in my book Free Will and Human Life (Philosophia 2021).
I am unable to rate this book. I agree with some of Shermer's statements and disagree with others. I tend to think that his faith in inevitable progress may be a bit naïve. He attempts to prove it mainly by overall trends—by statistics. But the victims of Stalin's and Hitler's genocidal insanity as well as the victims of twenty-first-century religious terrorism are unlikely to discern the progress that Shermer touts. Doubtless, on average, there are fewer murders (based on a percentage of total population) than in earlier times, but this question may be more appropriately considered from a qualitative—as distinguished from quantitative—perspective. Of course, quantitative analysis is a supreme value to modern scientists and to their epigones in the social science world.
To my mind, Shermer's knowledge and understanding of political and economic history as well as political philosophy are sometimes superficial. His "elements that make up a just and free society" do not address, for example, the massive economic dislocations that have attended the modern economy (most recently in the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath in the Great Recession) and that have resulted in millions of unemployed, underemployed, and/or underpaid persons. The Moral Arc, chap. 12, Kindle loc. 7936-51. Rather, he seems to adopt, at least implicitly, the questionable libertarian premise that all will be well if government abandons economic regulation. He concludes: "The closest label that summarizes these characteristics [of 'a just and free society'] is 'classical liberal,' and it follows John Locke’s model for the protection of natural rights that people possess by virtue of their humanity. For a good discussion of the US Constitution reflecting these values see Epstein, Richard A. 2014. The Classical Liberal Constitution: The Uncertain Quest for Limited Government . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press" (The Moral Arc, chap. 12, n. 37, Kindle loc. 10858-61). It suffices to observe that Richard Epstein is a leading libertarian constitutional law scholar and that Locke's views of property and economic relations have been questioned by many scholars, including but not limited to Leo Strauss and C. B. Macpherson. Locke made a great contribution to the concept of political liberty, as evidenced by implicit references to and quotations from his Second Treatise of Government in the US Declaration of Independence. But Locke's views on property and economic matters are more problematic. It is not for nothing that Thomas Jefferson replaced Locke's "life, liberty, and estate" with "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," though the precise historical meaning of the concept "pursuit of happiness" is itself complicated.
The Moral Arc is, unfortunately, not free from some significant historical errors, though these are probably the result of Shermer's overreliance on secondary—as distinguished from primary—historical sources. A striking example is his repetition of an inaccurate statement by historian Hugh Thomas about Roger Williams. I have discussed this matter in depth on pages 6-8 of my Errata and Supplemental Comments to The First American Founder: Roger Williams and Freedom of Conscience.
Notwithstanding the foregoing critique, Shermer's book is interesting and often informative. For example, his discussion near the end of the book of John Mackey's Conscious Capitalism shows how at least one capitalist is trying to transform capitalism from the inside, and Shermer appears to agree with this analysis.
In conclusion, the reader can profit from reading The Moral Arc, though it should be kept in mind that Shermer's analysis is often based on other sources and that those sources, as well as Shermer's conclusions regarding them, should be evaluated with a rational grain of salt.
(originally posted December 10, 2015; last revised September 13, 2021)
March 22, 2016
It's impossible to take this book seriously. For me, it's Alain de botton all over again -- the guy talks a lot, but doesn't demonstrate any understanding of the issues at play at all. The only thing worth reading in this book are the ocassionally relevant quotes, as well as the interesting facts and figures. But that is better gleaned elsewhere, unless one has a very sturdy forehead, which one would be smacking/banging a lot reading the ridiculously crude explanations he provides. Tell me again why this guy's stuff is still in Scientific American... They're a pretty decent magazine otherwise...
*****
Just to continue my rant, morality comes from reasons, and reasons are an imaginative process. I feel annoyed that he chose math as his exemplar for reasoning, because morally, we engage in embodied reasoning, whereas mathematics is about cutting out the living flesh from the bones. Only the structure, but not the content remains. Furthermore, maths comes after the fact. We reasoned imaginatively before we reasoned formally.
Such poor analogies + lousy abstractions = a totally unconvincing/annoying book.
*****
Actually, if one was being level-headed about this whole affair, one would argue that it is morality - moral faculties - being able to decide what to do based on an internal model and being able to communicate that reasoning process - that led to reason and science, definitely not the other way around.
*****
Just to continue my rant, morality comes from reasons, and reasons are an imaginative process. I feel annoyed that he chose math as his exemplar for reasoning, because morally, we engage in embodied reasoning, whereas mathematics is about cutting out the living flesh from the bones. Only the structure, but not the content remains. Furthermore, maths comes after the fact. We reasoned imaginatively before we reasoned formally.
Such poor analogies + lousy abstractions = a totally unconvincing/annoying book.
*****
Actually, if one was being level-headed about this whole affair, one would argue that it is morality - moral faculties - being able to decide what to do based on an internal model and being able to communicate that reasoning process - that led to reason and science, definitely not the other way around.
February 6, 2015
The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom by Michael Shermer
“The Moral Arc” makes the compelling case that the world is progressing morally and that most of this development is a result of secular forces. Best-selling author and well-known skeptic Michael Shermer takes a scientific approach to his thesis, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This provocative 560-page book includes twelve chapters and is broken in the following three parts: Part I, The Moral Arc Explained, Part II. The Moral Arc applied, and Part III. The Moral Arc Amended.
Positives:
1. I always expect a quality product from Shermer and once again he doesn’t disappoint.
2. A fascinating topic and thesis inspired by Martin Luther King, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
3. Address many hot-topic issues revolving his main thesis.
4. Many graphs and diagrams to support the excellent narrative.
5. Thought provoking and always enlightening. “In short, we are living in the most moral period in our species’ history.”
6. There are very few books as well referenced as Shermer’s and I like that very much.
7. In defense of science. “Evidence-based reasoning is the hallmark of science today. It embodies the principles of objective data, theoretical explanation, experimental methodology, peer review, public transparency and open criticism, and trial and error as the most reliable means of determining who is right—not only about the natural world, but about the social and moral worlds as well. In this sense many apparently immoral beliefs are actually factual errors based on incorrect causal theories.” Bonus, “Building theories means that the aim of science is to explain the world by constructing comprehensive explanations from numerous tested hypotheses.”
8. Great quotes abound including one of my all-time favorites from Voltaire, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
9. Defines and explains the moral arc to satisfaction. “I take moral progress to mean the improvement in the survival and flourishing of sentient beings.”
10. Shermer does an exceptional job of describing skepticism and the value of critical thinking and how it applies to morality. “Thinking abstractly is not the only cognitive tool of the scientist that we can apply to moral reasoning. Thinking about concepts both on a continuous scale and as categorical entities illuminates—and sometimes eliminates—a number of moral problems.”
11. Many great discussions, a public health model based on moral science. “Taking the findings of science about the way the world is and applying them to the way we would like the world to be.” In other words, informing policy based with evidence and analysis.
12. A look at the evolutionary logic of the five types aggressive emotions. Includes a look at terrorism.
13. Explains why science is the best driver for moral progress. “Never again should we allow ourselves to be the intellectual slaves of those who would bind our minds with the chains of dogma and authority. In its stead we use reason and science as the arbiters of truth and knowledge.” Bonus, “The constitutions of nations should be grounded in the constitution of humanity, which science and reason are best equipped to understand.”
14. Explains why religion is NOT the source of moral progress. Listed acts punishable by death in the Bible.
15. Always a personal favorite, the issue of slavery. Inexplicable how the Bible can get this paramount issue so wrong! “You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.—Leviticus 25:45” Despicable.
16. Morality as it applies to women’s rights. “The authors concluded, “Teaching about contraception was not associated with increased risk of adolescent sexual activity or STD. Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education had a lower risk of pregnancy than adolescents who received abstinence-only or no sex education.”
17. Gay rights. “Coupled with the overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is not a choice but part of human nature, we see in this rights revolution another example of how science and reason lead humanity toward truth, justice, and freedom.”
18. Ethical treatment of animals. “Animal rights will not be fully realized until we gain a deep emotional understanding that they are sentient beings who—like us—want to live and are afraid to die.”
19. Probably the best chapter of the book has to do with how and why Nazism spread to the evil level that it did. Worth the price of the book. The factors that led to turning good people into very bad people.
20. Free will and moral culpability. Are we truly free? Much more.
21. Extensive bibliography and notes.
Negatives:
1. I don’t agree with some of Shermer’s libertarian politics.
2. This book requires an investment of your time.
3. Shermer is not quite as disciplined in this book as he has been in the past. That is, he digressed from his main thesis of the moral arc bending toward justice. A tendency to go off tangents.
4. Was the atomic bomb as big a deterrent as Shermer claims? Or was Japan on its way to defeat and perhaps another method without so many losses of lives better suited? Perhaps bombing a desolate area as a warning? Just thinking.
5. Interesting look at the future but the truth is we humans have a very difficult time making predictions.
In summary, a provocative and interesting look at morality from Michael Shermer. I can always tell how much I like a book by how much it’s highlighted and I highlighted it quite a bit. I don’t always agree with Shermer’s conclusions but I admire and respect the methodology of science. Great references to other books and great selections of topics. A solid recommendation.
Further suggestions: “The Believing Brain”, “Why People Believe Weird Things”, The Science of Good and Evil”, and “How We Believe” by the same author; “The Better Angels of Our Nature” by Steven Pinker; “The Physics of the Future” by Michio Kaku; “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do” by Michal J. Sandel, “Rights from Wrongs” by Alan Dershowitz, “The Moral Landscape” and “Free Will” by Sam Harris, and “Think” by Guy P. Harrison.
“The Moral Arc” makes the compelling case that the world is progressing morally and that most of this development is a result of secular forces. Best-selling author and well-known skeptic Michael Shermer takes a scientific approach to his thesis, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” This provocative 560-page book includes twelve chapters and is broken in the following three parts: Part I, The Moral Arc Explained, Part II. The Moral Arc applied, and Part III. The Moral Arc Amended.
Positives:
1. I always expect a quality product from Shermer and once again he doesn’t disappoint.
2. A fascinating topic and thesis inspired by Martin Luther King, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
3. Address many hot-topic issues revolving his main thesis.
4. Many graphs and diagrams to support the excellent narrative.
5. Thought provoking and always enlightening. “In short, we are living in the most moral period in our species’ history.”
6. There are very few books as well referenced as Shermer’s and I like that very much.
7. In defense of science. “Evidence-based reasoning is the hallmark of science today. It embodies the principles of objective data, theoretical explanation, experimental methodology, peer review, public transparency and open criticism, and trial and error as the most reliable means of determining who is right—not only about the natural world, but about the social and moral worlds as well. In this sense many apparently immoral beliefs are actually factual errors based on incorrect causal theories.” Bonus, “Building theories means that the aim of science is to explain the world by constructing comprehensive explanations from numerous tested hypotheses.”
8. Great quotes abound including one of my all-time favorites from Voltaire, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
9. Defines and explains the moral arc to satisfaction. “I take moral progress to mean the improvement in the survival and flourishing of sentient beings.”
10. Shermer does an exceptional job of describing skepticism and the value of critical thinking and how it applies to morality. “Thinking abstractly is not the only cognitive tool of the scientist that we can apply to moral reasoning. Thinking about concepts both on a continuous scale and as categorical entities illuminates—and sometimes eliminates—a number of moral problems.”
11. Many great discussions, a public health model based on moral science. “Taking the findings of science about the way the world is and applying them to the way we would like the world to be.” In other words, informing policy based with evidence and analysis.
12. A look at the evolutionary logic of the five types aggressive emotions. Includes a look at terrorism.
13. Explains why science is the best driver for moral progress. “Never again should we allow ourselves to be the intellectual slaves of those who would bind our minds with the chains of dogma and authority. In its stead we use reason and science as the arbiters of truth and knowledge.” Bonus, “The constitutions of nations should be grounded in the constitution of humanity, which science and reason are best equipped to understand.”
14. Explains why religion is NOT the source of moral progress. Listed acts punishable by death in the Bible.
15. Always a personal favorite, the issue of slavery. Inexplicable how the Bible can get this paramount issue so wrong! “You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.—Leviticus 25:45” Despicable.
16. Morality as it applies to women’s rights. “The authors concluded, “Teaching about contraception was not associated with increased risk of adolescent sexual activity or STD. Adolescents who received comprehensive sex education had a lower risk of pregnancy than adolescents who received abstinence-only or no sex education.”
17. Gay rights. “Coupled with the overwhelming scientific evidence that homosexuality is not a choice but part of human nature, we see in this rights revolution another example of how science and reason lead humanity toward truth, justice, and freedom.”
18. Ethical treatment of animals. “Animal rights will not be fully realized until we gain a deep emotional understanding that they are sentient beings who—like us—want to live and are afraid to die.”
19. Probably the best chapter of the book has to do with how and why Nazism spread to the evil level that it did. Worth the price of the book. The factors that led to turning good people into very bad people.
20. Free will and moral culpability. Are we truly free? Much more.
21. Extensive bibliography and notes.
Negatives:
1. I don’t agree with some of Shermer’s libertarian politics.
2. This book requires an investment of your time.
3. Shermer is not quite as disciplined in this book as he has been in the past. That is, he digressed from his main thesis of the moral arc bending toward justice. A tendency to go off tangents.
4. Was the atomic bomb as big a deterrent as Shermer claims? Or was Japan on its way to defeat and perhaps another method without so many losses of lives better suited? Perhaps bombing a desolate area as a warning? Just thinking.
5. Interesting look at the future but the truth is we humans have a very difficult time making predictions.
In summary, a provocative and interesting look at morality from Michael Shermer. I can always tell how much I like a book by how much it’s highlighted and I highlighted it quite a bit. I don’t always agree with Shermer’s conclusions but I admire and respect the methodology of science. Great references to other books and great selections of topics. A solid recommendation.
Further suggestions: “The Believing Brain”, “Why People Believe Weird Things”, The Science of Good and Evil”, and “How We Believe” by the same author; “The Better Angels of Our Nature” by Steven Pinker; “The Physics of the Future” by Michio Kaku; “Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do” by Michal J. Sandel, “Rights from Wrongs” by Alan Dershowitz, “The Moral Landscape” and “Free Will” by Sam Harris, and “Think” by Guy P. Harrison.
December 28, 2018
Oh good grief.
I didn't know much about Michael Shermer except that he likes to make fun of people who believe things he doesn't. Apparently he wrote an actual good book on that once, and maybe I should have read that instead. But the word "Justice" in the title caught my eye, and so I decided to see what he had to say.
Friends, do not read this book.
He seems to think that People of Color and women of all races have it better now than at any time in history (in the case of many PoC, demonstrably not true) and so therefore all is well with people. Sure we have war, but less than at any time in history! Sure, women and people with uteri don't have the rights to decide what happens to their own internal organs, but hey, the vote! Sure, people of color are still being held as slaves in some parts of the world, but it's not very many so we can totally say the struggle for justice is done! Religion did all this nasty shit, but since the number of open atheists is higher it's only a matter of time till religion dies out, and then we'll REALLY be able to tackle all this because religion is the root of all of it!
Good grief. His chapter on animal cruelty is longer than the chapter on womens' rights (And by the way? Don't read that chapter if you're soft-hearted, because he does not mince words about animal cruelty - if he'd been half as upset about police brutality, I would perhaps be giving a different review, but he clearly isn't).
Shermer is absolutely right that science and reason improve humanity as a whole. I agree with that. But I disagree that everything is just fine where he seems to think it is. He'll even give a single paragraph about where things need serious, hard, soul-tearing work, and then lead off with a "but..." in the next paragraph! We're not nearly as far along as he thinks, and I don't think that atheism is the system responsible for what improvements we have.
Honestly, it reads like a self-congratulatory to cis guy atheists screed, and I have better things to do with my time.
Two of five stars, and that's being generous.
I didn't know much about Michael Shermer except that he likes to make fun of people who believe things he doesn't. Apparently he wrote an actual good book on that once, and maybe I should have read that instead. But the word "Justice" in the title caught my eye, and so I decided to see what he had to say.
Friends, do not read this book.
He seems to think that People of Color and women of all races have it better now than at any time in history (in the case of many PoC, demonstrably not true) and so therefore all is well with people. Sure we have war, but less than at any time in history! Sure, women and people with uteri don't have the rights to decide what happens to their own internal organs, but hey, the vote! Sure, people of color are still being held as slaves in some parts of the world, but it's not very many so we can totally say the struggle for justice is done! Religion did all this nasty shit, but since the number of open atheists is higher it's only a matter of time till religion dies out, and then we'll REALLY be able to tackle all this because religion is the root of all of it!
Good grief. His chapter on animal cruelty is longer than the chapter on womens' rights (And by the way? Don't read that chapter if you're soft-hearted, because he does not mince words about animal cruelty - if he'd been half as upset about police brutality, I would perhaps be giving a different review, but he clearly isn't).
Shermer is absolutely right that science and reason improve humanity as a whole. I agree with that. But I disagree that everything is just fine where he seems to think it is. He'll even give a single paragraph about where things need serious, hard, soul-tearing work, and then lead off with a "but..." in the next paragraph! We're not nearly as far along as he thinks, and I don't think that atheism is the system responsible for what improvements we have.
Honestly, it reads like a self-congratulatory to cis guy atheists screed, and I have better things to do with my time.
Two of five stars, and that's being generous.
Want to read
October 17, 2015Frankly, I'll probably never get around to reading this, because I'm one of the converted.
My only qualm here is that human nature itself is fundamentally conflicted between cooperating with others (i.e., collectivism) and trying out-compete everyone else (referred to as "defecting" in game theory, sometimes termed "competing" in casual use, but more like free-riding or parasitism). I suspect that aspect will slow down the final stages of "the moral arc" from decades to thousands of years.
But, anyway, here's a good interview with the author at KQED Forum: Michael Shermer on How Science and Reason Shape Morality .
P.S. After initially posting this, I glanced through some of the other reviews to see if it was likely I would be missing anything important. According to Bilblio Files' review, Shermer has a libertarian bent. There was a hint of this in the radio/podcast interview, but I'm dismayed to see that it was evident in the book. That "cooperate/compete" contradiction in human nature I referred to often expresses itself as a collectivist vs. individualist ideology, and libertarians are the ultimate individualists, adhering to a political belief system increasingly at odds with a densely-populated high-tech planet that is struggling to get along. If I read this, I'm afraid I might have my dentist asking when I started to grind my teeth ("well, doc, that actually started when I read a different libertarian-biased book that could have otherwise been excellent").
My only qualm here is that human nature itself is fundamentally conflicted between cooperating with others (i.e., collectivism) and trying out-compete everyone else (referred to as "defecting" in game theory, sometimes termed "competing" in casual use, but more like free-riding or parasitism). I suspect that aspect will slow down the final stages of "the moral arc" from decades to thousands of years.
But, anyway, here's a good interview with the author at KQED Forum: Michael Shermer on How Science and Reason Shape Morality .
P.S. After initially posting this, I glanced through some of the other reviews to see if it was likely I would be missing anything important. According to Bilblio Files' review, Shermer has a libertarian bent. There was a hint of this in the radio/podcast interview, but I'm dismayed to see that it was evident in the book. That "cooperate/compete" contradiction in human nature I referred to often expresses itself as a collectivist vs. individualist ideology, and libertarians are the ultimate individualists, adhering to a political belief system increasingly at odds with a densely-populated high-tech planet that is struggling to get along. If I read this, I'm afraid I might have my dentist asking when I started to grind my teeth ("well, doc, that actually started when I read a different libertarian-biased book that could have otherwise been excellent").
May 3, 2025
I loved this book. I took a bunch of semi-organized notes and it’s too late at night to polish them into a good review. Like Mark Twain was purported to have said, in paraphrase: “Sorry for the long letter. I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.” I’m just throwing my notes, mostly unedited, into this box as a review. They’re so long they will spill over into the comments. Good grief.
In The Moral Arc Michael Shermer brings together some cutting edge psychology, neuroscience, moral philosophy, anthropology, and an analysis of history to contemplate the moral progress of humanity. He pulls from hundreds of sources and studies and books by authors living and dead, like Steven Pinker and Peter Singer and Hobbes and Hume and Locke and Rawls and Bentham and countless other philosophers and scientists and historians and scholars. He argues that humans are on the whole becoming more moral, making our world a better place to live, and demonstrates this through some of the same metrics and studies that authors like Steven Pinker have also written about, but looks more closely at other causes and ideas. He is not reluctant, however, to point to where we fall short, how much further we have to go, and where our present blind spots and failures seem most and least obvious.
But this isn’t really the point. The point is that this moral progress is explained not by religious influence, or postmodern moral relativism, or collectivist utopian dreaming, or any particular political party’s strength of will and vision. It is due, in large part, to science: both to science’s development of knowledge that has made possible many improved conditions and capabilities leading to a cascade of well-being improvements around the world, but also to scientific reasoning more generally applied to a broader set of problems than just the natural and physical.
Our expanding moral circle over time seems to be largely due to our abilities to reason, our growing capacity for abstract thought as opposed to purely concrete thought, our application of empiricism and rationality to the many problems of not just human but also animal suffering, well-being, and flourishing. He explains the evolutionary origins of morality and the logic of moral interactions. The book is a magnificent examination of where we have been, how we got where we are, how we could and should proceed, and offers some highly educated speculation on how we might get there. This speculation culminates, toward the end, in some fun thought experiments about the heightened moral condition of advanced interstellar species and how our first contact with them might go.
Shermer’s expertise in psychology gives him the language and machinery necessary to illuminate many of the cognitive and psychological factors that go into our moral behavior and moral reasoning, particularly our litany of failures, biases, distortions, compulsions, self-interest, and blind spots. He studies the evolutionary logic of our greed, avarice, competitiveness, aggression, and violence. But he also examines our capacity for socially positive emotions, our improvements in reasoning and abstraction and compassion, connecting these to large, gradual overhauls in our values and sentiments. Throughout the book he opens up the neuroscience and psychology behind many of the intricate systems and behaviors and events that make up the book.
In focusing on the intersecting regions of science and philosophy Shermer is able to examine our evolved sense of justice and morality — the moral conscience — which make it more than a mere social construct, separating it from religious-inspired thinking. “For a species of social animal to survive, individuals must have the cognitive tools and behavioral repertoire to resolve conflicts, keep the peace, and suppress their aggressive tendencies when they bubble up from below.” All sorts of experiments with non-human primates show they have a propensity for justice and morality as we might suspect our ancestors would have, not too different from our own.
The emotions behind morality, like empathy and sociability, have been observed in many other mammals, many non-primates. Anthropologists studying modern hunter-gatherer and forager societies, considered a close approximation to how our ancestors lived, have found crimes and sins and punishments that seem common, sometimes universal. “We evolved emotions that lead us to care about the outcome of interactions with our fellow group members, most notably that these exchanges and interactions be fair.” As Shermer puts it, an evolutionary arms race has left us with cheaters and cheating detection, free riding and free riding deterence, bullies and bullying punishment.
Out of this eternal race and the development of human psychology tuned for coexisting within this environment evolved a moral conscience, the inner voice of self control. Self-inhibition is one function of the moral conscience, as is our propensity for punishment not just as a means to punish, but as a means to remove the offender from society in order for society to thrive. It is the interplay between our consciences and reason and social cues that are behind our development of criminal justice in the West. And it is scientific thinking and research that allow us to better understand the internal and external factors that contribute to, and the many consequences of, what we call evil, or crime, or vice, as well as goodness, compassion, empathy, and tolerance.
Abstract reasoning produces an advanced moral intelligence as we are able to imagine other minds and experiences besides only our own. This in part explains the expanding moral sphere and the principle of interchangeable perspectives — like the moral circle and the equal consideration of interests. With gains in intelligence over time, not corresponding to improvements in how academic subjects are taught, but to improvements in our abilities for reasoning and abstraction, humans have also developed a greater capacity for understanding and appreciating that which is outside of themselves or beyond their experience. This is reflected in the expanding moral circle, in the ability to inhibit one’s compulsion for self-interest, to weigh the interests of other living things correctly when making decisions, even when it is difficult, to anticipate the consequences of one’s actions far in the future and on others instead of in terms of immediate self-gratification.
Shermer anchors much of these advances in moral clarity to the principle of interchangeable perspectives, which he invokes consistently throughout the book. The ability to imagine what another one experiences and feels, especially those whose conscious lives are very different from our own, and to pair that with compassion and a dampening of our own selfish interests, is the very bedrock of moral thinking.
Rationally examining the consequences of our actions is the true engine of moral progress. The continuity and convergence of sentience as a universal trait among all living species is a vital characteristic in moral consideration, as opposed to the archaic dichotomous thinking in terms of binary categories that humans long practiced, and that some still do. A common theme here is the civilizing process of reason.
In the book Shermer discusses a reality that many academics and politicians have either gotten wrong or neglected to say explicitly: collectives do not matter in any important moral or ethical sense. Family, tribe, community, race, nation, species — none of these possess, or even can possess, moral importance. It is the individuals who make up the nation or tribe or race or species who matter, they are the ones who are conscious and who think or feel or have autonomy, not the collective itself. A group isn’t conscious, a group cannot experience, a group has no importance aside from the consciousness and experiences of those who make it up. And a group is not monolithic, so we generally cannot speak of “the” experience or feelings of a group.
The focus of collectivism on serving the collective and its thriving is a clumsy mistake too many still make if they haven’t thought too hard about the question of ethics. Stalin and Mao were a couple guys who made this error at the cost of millions of lives. Michael Shermer does not make this mistake. This clarity is important for any serious exploration of ethics and morality, and seeing his careful handling of this point early in the book gave me confidence in his ability to think cogently on the problems that would come. Only individual beings matter and their memberships are ephemeral and ultimately not important at the moral level.
He cites research pointing to a link between deep, contemplative reading of literary fiction with enhanced moral reasoning, involving matrix-like rotations of relational positions coupled to emotional empathy for experiencing that which the characters experience.
He discusses the importance of thinking in terms of continuities rather than binary categorical terms which blind us to moral complexity and instill the illusion of black and white moral simplicity. Throughout the book he draws on cases of binary thinking that lead to moral regress or oversimplification to the detriment of those affected by such simplifications.
As he digs into specific issues he lays out our path to nuclear zero, or the closest we might come to achieving total denuclearization, with a small history of how this project has evolved and how it might continue to evolve. He looks at terrorism and the myths surrounding it, which claim it to be an effective, organized, highly dangerous, simplistic enterprise appealing mostly to the poor. Shermer explains that the opposite tends to be true.
With the aid of other scholarship he debunks the myths of the peaceful noble savage and highlights humanity’s long brutal history of violence and war and rape and murder and driving creatures toward extinction, even in societies modern people tend to believe lived in harmony with nature, in peace with one another, and with the utmost virtue to their culture and behaviors. The rates of violent death today in the world, on average, are orders of magnitude lower than they have been throughout most of human history. Even in the violent 20th century, with its two world wars, many other major wars, genocides and gulags and famines, the rate of violent death was an order of magnitude lower than it is in average tribal societies.
We are presented the statistics about nonviolent change and its tremendous advantages and greater success rates over violent, radical upheavals and revolutions.
Science and reason gave us the tools to leave behind supernatural beliefs, to awaken from the delusion of witchcraft and astrology. Shermer quotes historian Keith Thomas, from his book Religion and the Decline of Magic: “The notion that the universe was subject to immutable natural laws killed the concept of miracles, weakened the belief in the physical efficacy of prayer, and diminished faith in the possibility of divine inspiration. The triumph of the mechanical philosophy meant the end of the animistic conception of the universe which had constituted the basic rationale for magical thinking.”
Science and reason were not the only forces at work, but they did the heaviest lifting for the longest period of time. Through the works of Newton, Descartes, Hume, Hobbes, Smith, and others we trace a lineage of scientific principles extending from the natural domain to the domain of the social. Our modern conceptions of governance, which has led to more harmonious, prosperous, and thriving well-being, came from, in Shermer’s words, “our drive to apply reason and science to any and all problems, including human social problems.”
The Founding Fathers of the US were more scientists than politicians, and their philosophy of experimentation toward finding the best ways to govern a nation led to democracy not as an end but as a means to an end. It is an ongoing experiment, designed to be open to peer criticism and the freedom to debate to discover provisional truths, depending unconditionally on open access to knowledge, freedom of speech, and the freedom of the population to think for themselves.
The hypothesis of reason-based enlightenment leading to moral progress is one that Shermer says can be tested through historical comparison to countries that quell free inquiry, practice pseudoscience, place value in the collective instead of the individual, and distrust reason, like Revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, and Islamic states. These collectivist, anti-individual nations saw the sacrifice of the individual for the success of the collective as acceptable, a moral calculus which can, when multiplied and coupled with a belief in some form of fundamental and clear inequality, quickly lead to justifying mass murder or genocide.
From the seed of reason and a scientifically minded approach to the problems of governance and personal behavioral change there evolves the careful balancing of altruism against self-interest, and a growing understanding of the role nurture and nature have in forming our emotional dispositions, our personalities, and our adaptive traits. Moderate personalities with flexibility to change prove to be the best fit for the greatest number of social interactions, as opposed to extreme personalities, like those tending toward hard conservatism or progressivism. This seems to agree with the research I’ve read in other books recently, like Blueprint by Robert Plomin and the Myth of Left and Right by Hyrum and Verlan Lewis.
Parts of the Moral Arc seem to recite the ideological essentialism that the latter book so elegantly dismantled. But in doing this Shermer is only making observations on the differences that appear in each political tribe at our present snapshot in time, which turns out to be remarkably accurate. Although the social theory of ideology shows that these similarities in the tribal beliefs are not underlined by common principles or essential character, it is true that they cluster together anyway, and predictably define an enormous segment of our population. As Shermer observes, the brilliant John Stuart Mill condensed all political debates into a simple statement: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”
Shermer argues that moral progress does not come from religion. It is not the driver of moral progress because it does not provide a basis for rational examination of our actions, nor a metric by which actions can be said to have moral value. He explains why it cannot be the driver by looking at the tribalistic nature of religion, the barbarity of the Bible’s and Quran’s morality obviously derived from a time and culture that is ancient and comparatively barbaric by our standards. Religion may offer benefits for social health and happiness, for personal reflection, but on the whole can also produce extremely unhealthy, harmful, and dangerous behaviors and beliefs about reality. In examining the Ten Commandments, we see how self-obsessed, contradictory, and psychotic the biblical God must be. Shermer puts up a Provisional Rational Decalogue as an alternative to rules derived from holy scripture and as a better set of principles for a moral framework, extending from the Golden Rule, to the Ask-First principle, to the Happiness principle, the liberty, fairness, and reason principles, the defend others principle, the expanding moral category principle, and the biophilia principle.
Shermer’s moral blindspots are smaller than those of most meat-eaters and he admits his speciesist shortcomings while acknowledging the rightness of granting animals moral consideration, making use of some classic arguments by Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer, as well as others who advanced strong cases that have never been effectively refuted by even the most determined preservers of self-gratification.
He recognizes the importance of animal welfare in any serious model of moral progress, and exercises the principles of shifting perspective and empathy. He even hits on the uselessness of philosopher Daniel Dennett’s poorly reasoned arguments against the existence of animal suffering, when discussing the heart-wrenching scenes in various animal rights documentaries showcasing the unmatched brutality and cruelty of human beings toward animals, observing that animals do suffer, and possess great capacity for it just like humans. Shermer acknowledges that the arguments for animal moral inclusion are magnitudes better than the arguments against, which are deflating every day, or with every new study on animal cognition.
Blindspots do pop up, however, like when he claims that the ways humans use animals more generally being compared to the Holocaust is missing the mark and too extreme. I think he’s wrong in a few ways, but this is a side track and not important for the review.
In The Moral Arc Michael Shermer brings together some cutting edge psychology, neuroscience, moral philosophy, anthropology, and an analysis of history to contemplate the moral progress of humanity. He pulls from hundreds of sources and studies and books by authors living and dead, like Steven Pinker and Peter Singer and Hobbes and Hume and Locke and Rawls and Bentham and countless other philosophers and scientists and historians and scholars. He argues that humans are on the whole becoming more moral, making our world a better place to live, and demonstrates this through some of the same metrics and studies that authors like Steven Pinker have also written about, but looks more closely at other causes and ideas. He is not reluctant, however, to point to where we fall short, how much further we have to go, and where our present blind spots and failures seem most and least obvious.
But this isn’t really the point. The point is that this moral progress is explained not by religious influence, or postmodern moral relativism, or collectivist utopian dreaming, or any particular political party’s strength of will and vision. It is due, in large part, to science: both to science’s development of knowledge that has made possible many improved conditions and capabilities leading to a cascade of well-being improvements around the world, but also to scientific reasoning more generally applied to a broader set of problems than just the natural and physical.
Our expanding moral circle over time seems to be largely due to our abilities to reason, our growing capacity for abstract thought as opposed to purely concrete thought, our application of empiricism and rationality to the many problems of not just human but also animal suffering, well-being, and flourishing. He explains the evolutionary origins of morality and the logic of moral interactions. The book is a magnificent examination of where we have been, how we got where we are, how we could and should proceed, and offers some highly educated speculation on how we might get there. This speculation culminates, toward the end, in some fun thought experiments about the heightened moral condition of advanced interstellar species and how our first contact with them might go.
Shermer’s expertise in psychology gives him the language and machinery necessary to illuminate many of the cognitive and psychological factors that go into our moral behavior and moral reasoning, particularly our litany of failures, biases, distortions, compulsions, self-interest, and blind spots. He studies the evolutionary logic of our greed, avarice, competitiveness, aggression, and violence. But he also examines our capacity for socially positive emotions, our improvements in reasoning and abstraction and compassion, connecting these to large, gradual overhauls in our values and sentiments. Throughout the book he opens up the neuroscience and psychology behind many of the intricate systems and behaviors and events that make up the book.
In focusing on the intersecting regions of science and philosophy Shermer is able to examine our evolved sense of justice and morality — the moral conscience — which make it more than a mere social construct, separating it from religious-inspired thinking. “For a species of social animal to survive, individuals must have the cognitive tools and behavioral repertoire to resolve conflicts, keep the peace, and suppress their aggressive tendencies when they bubble up from below.” All sorts of experiments with non-human primates show they have a propensity for justice and morality as we might suspect our ancestors would have, not too different from our own.
The emotions behind morality, like empathy and sociability, have been observed in many other mammals, many non-primates. Anthropologists studying modern hunter-gatherer and forager societies, considered a close approximation to how our ancestors lived, have found crimes and sins and punishments that seem common, sometimes universal. “We evolved emotions that lead us to care about the outcome of interactions with our fellow group members, most notably that these exchanges and interactions be fair.” As Shermer puts it, an evolutionary arms race has left us with cheaters and cheating detection, free riding and free riding deterence, bullies and bullying punishment.
Out of this eternal race and the development of human psychology tuned for coexisting within this environment evolved a moral conscience, the inner voice of self control. Self-inhibition is one function of the moral conscience, as is our propensity for punishment not just as a means to punish, but as a means to remove the offender from society in order for society to thrive. It is the interplay between our consciences and reason and social cues that are behind our development of criminal justice in the West. And it is scientific thinking and research that allow us to better understand the internal and external factors that contribute to, and the many consequences of, what we call evil, or crime, or vice, as well as goodness, compassion, empathy, and tolerance.
Abstract reasoning produces an advanced moral intelligence as we are able to imagine other minds and experiences besides only our own. This in part explains the expanding moral sphere and the principle of interchangeable perspectives — like the moral circle and the equal consideration of interests. With gains in intelligence over time, not corresponding to improvements in how academic subjects are taught, but to improvements in our abilities for reasoning and abstraction, humans have also developed a greater capacity for understanding and appreciating that which is outside of themselves or beyond their experience. This is reflected in the expanding moral circle, in the ability to inhibit one’s compulsion for self-interest, to weigh the interests of other living things correctly when making decisions, even when it is difficult, to anticipate the consequences of one’s actions far in the future and on others instead of in terms of immediate self-gratification.
Shermer anchors much of these advances in moral clarity to the principle of interchangeable perspectives, which he invokes consistently throughout the book. The ability to imagine what another one experiences and feels, especially those whose conscious lives are very different from our own, and to pair that with compassion and a dampening of our own selfish interests, is the very bedrock of moral thinking.
Rationally examining the consequences of our actions is the true engine of moral progress. The continuity and convergence of sentience as a universal trait among all living species is a vital characteristic in moral consideration, as opposed to the archaic dichotomous thinking in terms of binary categories that humans long practiced, and that some still do. A common theme here is the civilizing process of reason.
In the book Shermer discusses a reality that many academics and politicians have either gotten wrong or neglected to say explicitly: collectives do not matter in any important moral or ethical sense. Family, tribe, community, race, nation, species — none of these possess, or even can possess, moral importance. It is the individuals who make up the nation or tribe or race or species who matter, they are the ones who are conscious and who think or feel or have autonomy, not the collective itself. A group isn’t conscious, a group cannot experience, a group has no importance aside from the consciousness and experiences of those who make it up. And a group is not monolithic, so we generally cannot speak of “the” experience or feelings of a group.
The focus of collectivism on serving the collective and its thriving is a clumsy mistake too many still make if they haven’t thought too hard about the question of ethics. Stalin and Mao were a couple guys who made this error at the cost of millions of lives. Michael Shermer does not make this mistake. This clarity is important for any serious exploration of ethics and morality, and seeing his careful handling of this point early in the book gave me confidence in his ability to think cogently on the problems that would come. Only individual beings matter and their memberships are ephemeral and ultimately not important at the moral level.
He cites research pointing to a link between deep, contemplative reading of literary fiction with enhanced moral reasoning, involving matrix-like rotations of relational positions coupled to emotional empathy for experiencing that which the characters experience.
He discusses the importance of thinking in terms of continuities rather than binary categorical terms which blind us to moral complexity and instill the illusion of black and white moral simplicity. Throughout the book he draws on cases of binary thinking that lead to moral regress or oversimplification to the detriment of those affected by such simplifications.
As he digs into specific issues he lays out our path to nuclear zero, or the closest we might come to achieving total denuclearization, with a small history of how this project has evolved and how it might continue to evolve. He looks at terrorism and the myths surrounding it, which claim it to be an effective, organized, highly dangerous, simplistic enterprise appealing mostly to the poor. Shermer explains that the opposite tends to be true.
With the aid of other scholarship he debunks the myths of the peaceful noble savage and highlights humanity’s long brutal history of violence and war and rape and murder and driving creatures toward extinction, even in societies modern people tend to believe lived in harmony with nature, in peace with one another, and with the utmost virtue to their culture and behaviors. The rates of violent death today in the world, on average, are orders of magnitude lower than they have been throughout most of human history. Even in the violent 20th century, with its two world wars, many other major wars, genocides and gulags and famines, the rate of violent death was an order of magnitude lower than it is in average tribal societies.
We are presented the statistics about nonviolent change and its tremendous advantages and greater success rates over violent, radical upheavals and revolutions.
Science and reason gave us the tools to leave behind supernatural beliefs, to awaken from the delusion of witchcraft and astrology. Shermer quotes historian Keith Thomas, from his book Religion and the Decline of Magic: “The notion that the universe was subject to immutable natural laws killed the concept of miracles, weakened the belief in the physical efficacy of prayer, and diminished faith in the possibility of divine inspiration. The triumph of the mechanical philosophy meant the end of the animistic conception of the universe which had constituted the basic rationale for magical thinking.”
Science and reason were not the only forces at work, but they did the heaviest lifting for the longest period of time. Through the works of Newton, Descartes, Hume, Hobbes, Smith, and others we trace a lineage of scientific principles extending from the natural domain to the domain of the social. Our modern conceptions of governance, which has led to more harmonious, prosperous, and thriving well-being, came from, in Shermer’s words, “our drive to apply reason and science to any and all problems, including human social problems.”
The Founding Fathers of the US were more scientists than politicians, and their philosophy of experimentation toward finding the best ways to govern a nation led to democracy not as an end but as a means to an end. It is an ongoing experiment, designed to be open to peer criticism and the freedom to debate to discover provisional truths, depending unconditionally on open access to knowledge, freedom of speech, and the freedom of the population to think for themselves.
The hypothesis of reason-based enlightenment leading to moral progress is one that Shermer says can be tested through historical comparison to countries that quell free inquiry, practice pseudoscience, place value in the collective instead of the individual, and distrust reason, like Revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, and Islamic states. These collectivist, anti-individual nations saw the sacrifice of the individual for the success of the collective as acceptable, a moral calculus which can, when multiplied and coupled with a belief in some form of fundamental and clear inequality, quickly lead to justifying mass murder or genocide.
From the seed of reason and a scientifically minded approach to the problems of governance and personal behavioral change there evolves the careful balancing of altruism against self-interest, and a growing understanding of the role nurture and nature have in forming our emotional dispositions, our personalities, and our adaptive traits. Moderate personalities with flexibility to change prove to be the best fit for the greatest number of social interactions, as opposed to extreme personalities, like those tending toward hard conservatism or progressivism. This seems to agree with the research I’ve read in other books recently, like Blueprint by Robert Plomin and the Myth of Left and Right by Hyrum and Verlan Lewis.
Parts of the Moral Arc seem to recite the ideological essentialism that the latter book so elegantly dismantled. But in doing this Shermer is only making observations on the differences that appear in each political tribe at our present snapshot in time, which turns out to be remarkably accurate. Although the social theory of ideology shows that these similarities in the tribal beliefs are not underlined by common principles or essential character, it is true that they cluster together anyway, and predictably define an enormous segment of our population. As Shermer observes, the brilliant John Stuart Mill condensed all political debates into a simple statement: “A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”
Shermer argues that moral progress does not come from religion. It is not the driver of moral progress because it does not provide a basis for rational examination of our actions, nor a metric by which actions can be said to have moral value. He explains why it cannot be the driver by looking at the tribalistic nature of religion, the barbarity of the Bible’s and Quran’s morality obviously derived from a time and culture that is ancient and comparatively barbaric by our standards. Religion may offer benefits for social health and happiness, for personal reflection, but on the whole can also produce extremely unhealthy, harmful, and dangerous behaviors and beliefs about reality. In examining the Ten Commandments, we see how self-obsessed, contradictory, and psychotic the biblical God must be. Shermer puts up a Provisional Rational Decalogue as an alternative to rules derived from holy scripture and as a better set of principles for a moral framework, extending from the Golden Rule, to the Ask-First principle, to the Happiness principle, the liberty, fairness, and reason principles, the defend others principle, the expanding moral category principle, and the biophilia principle.
Shermer’s moral blindspots are smaller than those of most meat-eaters and he admits his speciesist shortcomings while acknowledging the rightness of granting animals moral consideration, making use of some classic arguments by Jeremy Bentham and Peter Singer, as well as others who advanced strong cases that have never been effectively refuted by even the most determined preservers of self-gratification.
He recognizes the importance of animal welfare in any serious model of moral progress, and exercises the principles of shifting perspective and empathy. He even hits on the uselessness of philosopher Daniel Dennett’s poorly reasoned arguments against the existence of animal suffering, when discussing the heart-wrenching scenes in various animal rights documentaries showcasing the unmatched brutality and cruelty of human beings toward animals, observing that animals do suffer, and possess great capacity for it just like humans. Shermer acknowledges that the arguments for animal moral inclusion are magnitudes better than the arguments against, which are deflating every day, or with every new study on animal cognition.
Blindspots do pop up, however, like when he claims that the ways humans use animals more generally being compared to the Holocaust is missing the mark and too extreme. I think he’s wrong in a few ways, but this is a side track and not important for the review.
October 8, 2017
OK, I have a credibility problem. I think. You see, I agree with Michael Shermer about almost everything: ethics, science, religion, politics, economics. Can I be trusted to review this book fairly? (This, by the way, is the sort of question that being a skeptic allows me to ask in all humility.)
Well, let's see... oh, I know! How about I start with pointing out the negatives! That way I can prove that I am not biased beyond repair. Mm, okay, let's see... Can I do it?
Actually, finding faults is not hard: the book suffers from one big flaw, namely its structure. It's rambling, unfocused, overlong and partially inchoate. Shermer is a popularizer and an essayist, and the different chapters feel like attempts to popularize idea A, idea B or idea C in the form of essay 1, essay 2 and essay 3. Overall, the narrative arc of the moral arc is not so clear. It is supposed to tell the story from our (bad) past to our (good) future but some chapters feel disjointed. The long excursion into religious criticism feel especially overblown, but I guess they are to be expected from him. Even worse are the tedious armchair reveries about the moral justifications of bombing Hiroshima, where Shermer's shortcomings as a moral philosopher are easily exposed.
Stylistically, Shermer's book doesn't reach the heights of the truly first class popular science books of the recent decades, like those of Richard Dawkins or Steven Pinker, but it scratches the same itch. I really enjoyed the contents, for the most parts. The chapters on the evolutionary path of morality, about the expansion of moral consciousness towards the whole of humanity and the rest of creation, are inspiring and insightful. The musings into the operation of global capitalism should satisfy left-wing and right-wing readers alike, and his honest and balanced discussion of income inequality and social cohesion manage to sidestep many of the partisan weaknesses that plague similar analyses in other books. Shermer's centrist views are inoffensive without being ineffectual. There is a giddy optimism about the whole enterprise, which captures the hesitant reader.
I believe the attentive reader can walk away from having read the book with lots of actionable intelligence. The reader's mind, the ultimate resource of humanity, will be coloured by realistic optimism of the sort that only science can bring, having disposed of the myths of our dark past.
Sure, Shermer's arguments can be shallow or underdeveloped at points, but he is careful to back up his points with good research from a wide variety of sources. Unlike so many others who skew one way or another, he is generally very capable of picking his premises from nonpartisan sources, including a wide range of social scientists, psychologists, biologists, economists and philosophers.
The book feels like being doused in a nice warm bath made from the best ingredients available in the Zeitgeist - with a dose of Peter Singer, a spoonful of Hayek and several gallons of Darwin. Whatever you may say about Shermer's optimism, there are worse recipes for human progress.
Well, let's see... oh, I know! How about I start with pointing out the negatives! That way I can prove that I am not biased beyond repair. Mm, okay, let's see... Can I do it?
Actually, finding faults is not hard: the book suffers from one big flaw, namely its structure. It's rambling, unfocused, overlong and partially inchoate. Shermer is a popularizer and an essayist, and the different chapters feel like attempts to popularize idea A, idea B or idea C in the form of essay 1, essay 2 and essay 3. Overall, the narrative arc of the moral arc is not so clear. It is supposed to tell the story from our (bad) past to our (good) future but some chapters feel disjointed. The long excursion into religious criticism feel especially overblown, but I guess they are to be expected from him. Even worse are the tedious armchair reveries about the moral justifications of bombing Hiroshima, where Shermer's shortcomings as a moral philosopher are easily exposed.
Stylistically, Shermer's book doesn't reach the heights of the truly first class popular science books of the recent decades, like those of Richard Dawkins or Steven Pinker, but it scratches the same itch. I really enjoyed the contents, for the most parts. The chapters on the evolutionary path of morality, about the expansion of moral consciousness towards the whole of humanity and the rest of creation, are inspiring and insightful. The musings into the operation of global capitalism should satisfy left-wing and right-wing readers alike, and his honest and balanced discussion of income inequality and social cohesion manage to sidestep many of the partisan weaknesses that plague similar analyses in other books. Shermer's centrist views are inoffensive without being ineffectual. There is a giddy optimism about the whole enterprise, which captures the hesitant reader.
I believe the attentive reader can walk away from having read the book with lots of actionable intelligence. The reader's mind, the ultimate resource of humanity, will be coloured by realistic optimism of the sort that only science can bring, having disposed of the myths of our dark past.
Sure, Shermer's arguments can be shallow or underdeveloped at points, but he is careful to back up his points with good research from a wide variety of sources. Unlike so many others who skew one way or another, he is generally very capable of picking his premises from nonpartisan sources, including a wide range of social scientists, psychologists, biologists, economists and philosophers.
The book feels like being doused in a nice warm bath made from the best ingredients available in the Zeitgeist - with a dose of Peter Singer, a spoonful of Hayek and several gallons of Darwin. Whatever you may say about Shermer's optimism, there are worse recipes for human progress.
September 4, 2015
If I could give a 3.5 rating, I would have for this book. This book had a lot of potential considering it was pulling off of two great books; The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker and The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. However, I don't think it really delivered all too well. Pieces of Shermer's case were very well done, while others were pretty weak in my opinion. Especially the portions on economics. If you came away not realizing that he is a libertarian, I'll wonder if you even read the book, or at least the later portion of it.
Many of his digressions off the overall topic took away from his case. His previous book 'The Believing Brain', while still clouded in parts with his politics, stayed on topic more. This book requires an investment in ones time due to the extensive notation and use of sources throughout the book. Much of what he mentions is worth further review outside of the book itself.
Overall, it's worth the read if you have the time and specific interest in the topic. It is not, however, the be-all, end-all of the topic. He largely misses the mark on many of the topics due to not being as in-depth as he could have been, or by only focusing on his own case while not directing any attention to the criticisms. Which in mind is important, considering I think the criticisms against some of his cases show how inadequate they are. His analysis on income and wealth inequalities is a shining example of this. Very concerning considering his thesis of a "moral arc". He shouldn't have ended the book with the speculations on the future from himself and other thinkers. Especially considering how much evidence we have of the unstable environment the Earth will be given climate change within the coming decades. Something he paid little attention to in my opinion.
Many of his digressions off the overall topic took away from his case. His previous book 'The Believing Brain', while still clouded in parts with his politics, stayed on topic more. This book requires an investment in ones time due to the extensive notation and use of sources throughout the book. Much of what he mentions is worth further review outside of the book itself.
Overall, it's worth the read if you have the time and specific interest in the topic. It is not, however, the be-all, end-all of the topic. He largely misses the mark on many of the topics due to not being as in-depth as he could have been, or by only focusing on his own case while not directing any attention to the criticisms. Which in mind is important, considering I think the criticisms against some of his cases show how inadequate they are. His analysis on income and wealth inequalities is a shining example of this. Very concerning considering his thesis of a "moral arc". He shouldn't have ended the book with the speculations on the future from himself and other thinkers. Especially considering how much evidence we have of the unstable environment the Earth will be given climate change within the coming decades. Something he paid little attention to in my opinion.
January 23, 2015
Part Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature”, part Matt Ridley’s “The Rational Optimist”. Part new-atheism, part pop-libertarianism. I find myself in the odd position of agreeing with every single point being made and not fully enjoying it because each of these points has been professed elsewhere, more thoroughly, more originally, and often more, if I may be so crass, poetically. Everything here is stated plainly. And that is great, to a point. Everything said serves its purpose. But nothing more. Though the topic is one for which the moniker “lofty” is often paired, the language, the structure, and the overall narrative is anything but. It’s very accessible. It is very readable. It is very good.
However, perhaps it is because in this book I hear the droning echo chamber of my own mind that I find it not as good as it could be. I wasn’t particularly challenged, my views weren’t particularly put in new light. In reading this book I read an excellent synthesis of great positions, suffering only from not going beyond a baseline familiarity with the material. A good starting point for this kind of stuff, but definitely only a starting point. And I was kind of hoping for more out of it.
However, perhaps it is because in this book I hear the droning echo chamber of my own mind that I find it not as good as it could be. I wasn’t particularly challenged, my views weren’t particularly put in new light. In reading this book I read an excellent synthesis of great positions, suffering only from not going beyond a baseline familiarity with the material. A good starting point for this kind of stuff, but definitely only a starting point. And I was kind of hoping for more out of it.
March 4, 2015
Shermer argues for the forward progress of moral thinking throughout history. This "moral arc" bends, he says, towards truth, justice, and freedom. He makes a good case from sociological evidence of humans past and present.
He follows this arc to its logical conclusion which is, in his opinion, inclusion of consideration for non-human animals. He gets a little extreme at times, granting lab rats and livestock equal status as "sentient beings". He recites with surprising lack of skepticism myths and misunderstandings of animal treatment such as "tail docking" in pig farms. He predicts a more ethical future of family farms rather than factory farms. This is naive.
But aside from this sacred cow of his (pun intended) the book is well written and poignant as we're seeing yet another civil rights revolution unfold in our time with the fast adoption of marriage equality for homosexual couples.
Shermer cuts through some difficult philosophy using what he calls "continuous thinking" which treats things as a matter of degree as opposed to black-and-white thinking and even rigid categorization. It's a good philosophical tool.
He follows this arc to its logical conclusion which is, in his opinion, inclusion of consideration for non-human animals. He gets a little extreme at times, granting lab rats and livestock equal status as "sentient beings". He recites with surprising lack of skepticism myths and misunderstandings of animal treatment such as "tail docking" in pig farms. He predicts a more ethical future of family farms rather than factory farms. This is naive.
But aside from this sacred cow of his (pun intended) the book is well written and poignant as we're seeing yet another civil rights revolution unfold in our time with the fast adoption of marriage equality for homosexual couples.
Shermer cuts through some difficult philosophy using what he calls "continuous thinking" which treats things as a matter of degree as opposed to black-and-white thinking and even rigid categorization. It's a good philosophical tool.
November 27, 2018
This was an interesting read/listen. Shermer presents a number of arguments to show and explain the apparent correlation between the advance of science and the advance of our moral sensibilities. Having considered Shermer's arguments I am still not fully convinced that it is the rise of science and reason that is informing and driving the moral insights of society and is the prime mover of 'bending the moral arc' as Shermer calls it. We have had science and scientific progress in any number of societies over the course of history; the Chinese and the Arab world are two that come to mind yet there was no corresponding rise in either the standard of living or moral sensibilities which mimic Western society over the past 100 years. While I would agree that science is a necessary condition for moral progress to occur I don't think that Shermer makes the case that it is a sufficient condition.
February 19, 2015
There are three sections of this book. The first section explains what the moral arc is, how 'morality' has arced towards justice since the enlightenment, and how this is due to the influence of science and reason rather than religion, which has fought moral progress at every stage.
The second section, is probably the most interesting however, and the most persuasive. I was, by the time I got to the last chapter in the section, quite moved, and think that this section of the book deserves some discussion, because apart from anything else, it is very, very well done.
The first chapter is about the abolition of slavery. This is moral progress, there really is no one alive today who can hand on heart say they believe the world was a better place when we were able to trade in humans. There is discussion about the abolitionist movement, and the influence of religion on the process, but Shermer (successfully IMO) argues that it was on the back of the enlightenment, not a 2000 year old book that has quite a bit of slavery in it that ultimately won out.
Next chapter covers Women's Rights. Again, not much to argue with here, though I imagine that there are some sticky bits for some around abortion, but the fact is the moral arc is bending towards women having the right to choose, backed up by scientific evidence, and not some unprovable belief.
Third chapter is about Gay Rights. Shermer argues (again successfully IMV), that despite the older generation not being so keen on it, this is basically a done deal. You would be hard pushed to find a millennial who would be able to comment in any other way except 'so what if those two women want to get married?', and thus demonstrating that the moral arc is bending even more towards a liberal and equal future.
Final chapter in this section. This is where it starts to get a little uncomfortable. Animal rights. Comparing sentient beings (of whatever species) we know from science that there is but little difference. We know that animals can suffer and feel pain, empathy and distress. Why do we therefore treat them so badly? Of course the answer a lot of the time is because we want to eat them, and eat a lot of them at that. There are things we can do, like make sure that our livestock lives as full a life as possible before the 'one bad day at the end', but the direction of the arc suggests that we shouldn't be eating them at all, and should have consideration for all sentient beings that share this world. Now, as Shermer admits this himself, I am a carnivore, and I would not want to give up eating meat, ever. However, the idea is now planted and it is something that may well fester while I guiltily chomp my way through my next chunk of pig.
The third section of the book, is less compelling, concerning itself with the rise of democracy and capitalism, in tandum with science and reason, with the argument that the two go together, and that the world is a better place without.
Shermer then talks about 'free will' and the current understanding of brain function and how this might ultimately affect our culpability in our actions. This is quite hard to accept, not because it is necessarily wrong, but because (for me anyway) it leaves the wiggle room for people not to take responsibility for their actions. To be fair to Shermer though, he does argue that free will or otherwise, there are enough in-built mechanisms in the brain, excepting some diseases, to moderate ourselves sufficiently such that responsibility for ones actions should be taken as a given.
The next chapter is the most difficult. Retribution VS Restoration. There is the idea that sitting down and talking with the victims of a crime is actually better for the victim and better for the criminal than simple retribution. While Shermer does provide evidence for this, I really don;t think the world is ready for this. I guess that is the point that Shermer is trying to get at. Three hundred years ago, no one would have batted an eyelid at people owning slaves, but now the idea is abhorrent. Maybe ditto for retributive punishment in 300 years. Just not yet.
The final chapter is pure speculation and futurology. Qualified of course, but still 'what could be'.
Over all and excellent book. Shermer is a little too liberal for me at times, but argues his case clearly and well. He is also probably right.
The second section, is probably the most interesting however, and the most persuasive. I was, by the time I got to the last chapter in the section, quite moved, and think that this section of the book deserves some discussion, because apart from anything else, it is very, very well done.
The first chapter is about the abolition of slavery. This is moral progress, there really is no one alive today who can hand on heart say they believe the world was a better place when we were able to trade in humans. There is discussion about the abolitionist movement, and the influence of religion on the process, but Shermer (successfully IMO) argues that it was on the back of the enlightenment, not a 2000 year old book that has quite a bit of slavery in it that ultimately won out.
Next chapter covers Women's Rights. Again, not much to argue with here, though I imagine that there are some sticky bits for some around abortion, but the fact is the moral arc is bending towards women having the right to choose, backed up by scientific evidence, and not some unprovable belief.
Third chapter is about Gay Rights. Shermer argues (again successfully IMV), that despite the older generation not being so keen on it, this is basically a done deal. You would be hard pushed to find a millennial who would be able to comment in any other way except 'so what if those two women want to get married?', and thus demonstrating that the moral arc is bending even more towards a liberal and equal future.
Final chapter in this section. This is where it starts to get a little uncomfortable. Animal rights. Comparing sentient beings (of whatever species) we know from science that there is but little difference. We know that animals can suffer and feel pain, empathy and distress. Why do we therefore treat them so badly? Of course the answer a lot of the time is because we want to eat them, and eat a lot of them at that. There are things we can do, like make sure that our livestock lives as full a life as possible before the 'one bad day at the end', but the direction of the arc suggests that we shouldn't be eating them at all, and should have consideration for all sentient beings that share this world. Now, as Shermer admits this himself, I am a carnivore, and I would not want to give up eating meat, ever. However, the idea is now planted and it is something that may well fester while I guiltily chomp my way through my next chunk of pig.
The third section of the book, is less compelling, concerning itself with the rise of democracy and capitalism, in tandum with science and reason, with the argument that the two go together, and that the world is a better place without.
Shermer then talks about 'free will' and the current understanding of brain function and how this might ultimately affect our culpability in our actions. This is quite hard to accept, not because it is necessarily wrong, but because (for me anyway) it leaves the wiggle room for people not to take responsibility for their actions. To be fair to Shermer though, he does argue that free will or otherwise, there are enough in-built mechanisms in the brain, excepting some diseases, to moderate ourselves sufficiently such that responsibility for ones actions should be taken as a given.
The next chapter is the most difficult. Retribution VS Restoration. There is the idea that sitting down and talking with the victims of a crime is actually better for the victim and better for the criminal than simple retribution. While Shermer does provide evidence for this, I really don;t think the world is ready for this. I guess that is the point that Shermer is trying to get at. Three hundred years ago, no one would have batted an eyelid at people owning slaves, but now the idea is abhorrent. Maybe ditto for retributive punishment in 300 years. Just not yet.
The final chapter is pure speculation and futurology. Qualified of course, but still 'what could be'.
Over all and excellent book. Shermer is a little too liberal for me at times, but argues his case clearly and well. He is also probably right.
May 5, 2015
Sloppy, sloppy and sloppy.
At first, I thought I would really like this book. It deals with a topic that interests me: the moral development of human beings. And its premise is very optimistic: that human behavior, and perhaps human nature itself, have slowly been changing for the better.
But, in the early chapters, which I enjoyed, I started to notice that there was a lot of leaping to the conclusion that correlation = causation, and it seemed like the author was picking and choosing time frames and facts to support his preconceived notions. That bothered me a little. It seemed like pretty sloppy social science.
Then I got to the chapters that dealt with religion, abortion and infanticide, and I was bothered a LOT.
I am a person of faith. But I am not a closed-minded, easily-offended person of faith. If you need proof, read some of my reviews of other books written by atheists. I can take criticism of religion in general, and Christianity in particular, pretty well, and consider some of the points well-made.
But the chapter on religion in this book was just a hit job. The author quotes the Bible selectively and out of context, and ignores both 2000+ years of Biblical exegesis and every single decent action taken by Christians anywhere in the world ever. It is very sloppy literary interpretation. And, yes, I do know that many Christians also quote the Bible selectively and out of context, and I don’t approve of that, either.
Then he takes about one paragraph to reason his way to defense of abortion all the way up to the third trimester. Again, I am not an anti-abortion fanatic. I think it is an excruciatingly difficult issue. But third-trimester abortion is a pretty extreme position, and extreme positions require more than a single paragraph of justification.
Then he seems to defend INFANTICIDE. Again, with minimal justification, he makes the sweeping statement that women, or whole societies, only put their children to death under duress. Well, probably true, but that doesn’t make it okay. But he stops there, with the statement that it’s only under duress, and implies that it is therefore justified. And this is in a book, mind you, where he is later going to claim that we should include sentient animals in our moral sphere. So animals are worthy of moral consideration but fetuses and INFANTS (!!!!) are not?! This goes beyond sloppy moral reasoning, into pure evil. I had to stop reading.
At first, I thought I would really like this book. It deals with a topic that interests me: the moral development of human beings. And its premise is very optimistic: that human behavior, and perhaps human nature itself, have slowly been changing for the better.
But, in the early chapters, which I enjoyed, I started to notice that there was a lot of leaping to the conclusion that correlation = causation, and it seemed like the author was picking and choosing time frames and facts to support his preconceived notions. That bothered me a little. It seemed like pretty sloppy social science.
Then I got to the chapters that dealt with religion, abortion and infanticide, and I was bothered a LOT.
I am a person of faith. But I am not a closed-minded, easily-offended person of faith. If you need proof, read some of my reviews of other books written by atheists. I can take criticism of religion in general, and Christianity in particular, pretty well, and consider some of the points well-made.
But the chapter on religion in this book was just a hit job. The author quotes the Bible selectively and out of context, and ignores both 2000+ years of Biblical exegesis and every single decent action taken by Christians anywhere in the world ever. It is very sloppy literary interpretation. And, yes, I do know that many Christians also quote the Bible selectively and out of context, and I don’t approve of that, either.
Then he takes about one paragraph to reason his way to defense of abortion all the way up to the third trimester. Again, I am not an anti-abortion fanatic. I think it is an excruciatingly difficult issue. But third-trimester abortion is a pretty extreme position, and extreme positions require more than a single paragraph of justification.
Then he seems to defend INFANTICIDE. Again, with minimal justification, he makes the sweeping statement that women, or whole societies, only put their children to death under duress. Well, probably true, but that doesn’t make it okay. But he stops there, with the statement that it’s only under duress, and implies that it is therefore justified. And this is in a book, mind you, where he is later going to claim that we should include sentient animals in our moral sphere. So animals are worthy of moral consideration but fetuses and INFANTS (!!!!) are not?! This goes beyond sloppy moral reasoning, into pure evil. I had to stop reading.
December 31, 2018
I read some bad reviews about this book before I started reading it (off of Goodreads) and so I really wanted to read it with a critical lens.
Despite that, I have concluded that this is one of the best books I've read and I think it's a monumental achievement. I enjoyed reading every bit of it (all 450 pages).
The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Shermer defends the view that Religion is not the source of moral progress. He addresses d'Souza's work and Rodney Stark's position (both defending Christianity). He addresses the 10 commandments thoughtfully and also looks at the New Testament in considerable detail. I was on the lookout for straw-manning throughout this part of the book and I conclude that Shermer does a respectful job and looks at the data carefully.
In the second part, Shermer discusses arguments against slavery and for freedom, the science of morality concerning women's rights, gay rights, & animal rights. This is my favorite part of the book. I would enjoy if Shermer expanded on certain points but the book can only be so long.
The third part addresses moral regress in conjunction with Nazi's and the Holocaust. Then he discusses morality with regards to free will (+ are psychopaths free?) and finally, he addresses the criminal system in defense of restorative justice.
All in all, I thought this book was well defended and a good contribution to the literature on the science of morality. It's hard to write a better book than this. I am putting it on my favorite shelf.
Despite that, I have concluded that this is one of the best books I've read and I think it's a monumental achievement. I enjoyed reading every bit of it (all 450 pages).
The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, Shermer defends the view that Religion is not the source of moral progress. He addresses d'Souza's work and Rodney Stark's position (both defending Christianity). He addresses the 10 commandments thoughtfully and also looks at the New Testament in considerable detail. I was on the lookout for straw-manning throughout this part of the book and I conclude that Shermer does a respectful job and looks at the data carefully.
In the second part, Shermer discusses arguments against slavery and for freedom, the science of morality concerning women's rights, gay rights, & animal rights. This is my favorite part of the book. I would enjoy if Shermer expanded on certain points but the book can only be so long.
The third part addresses moral regress in conjunction with Nazi's and the Holocaust. Then he discusses morality with regards to free will (+ are psychopaths free?) and finally, he addresses the criminal system in defense of restorative justice.
All in all, I thought this book was well defended and a good contribution to the literature on the science of morality. It's hard to write a better book than this. I am putting it on my favorite shelf.
December 25, 2014
This book is very thought-provoking. Although I do not agree with everything the author said, I found many of his arguments persuasive. He often cited the literature to back up the arguments he made which I appreciate. In many ways I did not like this book, not because it was poorly written or poorly researched (because it was well-written and well-researched), but because it forced me to rethink some of the things I believe and to think about topics that quite frankly I would rather not think about because they are depressing. Yet I would encourage all individuals to read this book and truly think about the topics he discusses. You don't have to change your beliefs (I didn't in many cases) but I think it is good to deliberately consider these topics for yourselves and what these issues represent for society.
August 9, 2015
A great argument in favor of civil rights and human progress based in science rather than superstition. Instead of the Ten Commandments, Shermer proposes a Provisional Rational Decalogue, which to this modern thinker makes perfect sense.
We have come a long, long way over the centuries indeed. Ending slavery, boosting the rights of women, boosting the rights of gay people, and improving our treatment of animals -- all are covered exceptionally well.
I feel like a better person after reading this book. It has made me think about philosophy, psychology, and economics in a way that I haven't for a number of years.
We have come a long, long way over the centuries indeed. Ending slavery, boosting the rights of women, boosting the rights of gay people, and improving our treatment of animals -- all are covered exceptionally well.
I feel like a better person after reading this book. It has made me think about philosophy, psychology, and economics in a way that I haven't for a number of years.
March 19, 2021
I'll read just about anything Michael Shermer writes. He's a gift to this world and is so well-versed on a variety of topics. I found him while reading books on skepticism, and as a fan of moral philosophy, I was extremely excited to discover this book. This book is pretty long, but it's worth the read. Shermer covers every nook and cranny of morality from various angles and does a great job making you question your own opinions about morality, justice, and how we live with one another.
April 16, 2017
Interessant en veel omvattend boek.
Op veel vlakken nuanceert hij ook.
Interessant vond ik het deel waarin hij over dierenrechten spreekt. Ik volg hem daar sterk in. Mensen als Peter Singer gaan zo ver dat ze vlees eten immoreel vinden. Schermer gaat niet zo ver. Ik ook niet...
Op veel vlakken nuanceert hij ook.
Interessant vond ik het deel waarin hij over dierenrechten spreekt. Ik volg hem daar sterk in. Mensen als Peter Singer gaan zo ver dat ze vlees eten immoreel vinden. Schermer gaat niet zo ver. Ik ook niet...
June 25, 2018
The Moral Arc by Michael Shermer is one of the best and most thorough defenses of secular morality I’ve read. The research is extensive and the arguments are persuasive, revealing humanity’s true drivers of moral progress.
First, Shermer presents the idea that many, if not most, historical instances of immorality were the result of factual errors. Human sacrifices, the burning of witches, withholding medication in favor of prayer, as a few examples, were all instances of serious misunderstandings regarding the way the world works. As science progressed, and the material world was investigated in naturalistic terms, these practices were slowly eradicated. Today, if we can laugh at the suggestion of throwing virgins into volcanoes for better crop yields, we have science to thank.
Second, secularism began to improve morality because the motivations for ethical behavior shifted from following scripture and valuing God and the afterlife above earthly concerns to the prioritizing of individual well-being and rights.
With religion, actions are justified through scriptural interpretation. This is a problem for a number of reasons. First, taking the example of Christianity, the amount of scripture in the Bible is vast and often contradictory, so justification can be found for almost any action or belief. Scripture ranges from the pacifism of the New testament (turning the other cheek) to the brutal violence of the Old Testament (stoning non-virgin brides to death). Depending on your mood and inclinations, you’ll find support somewhere in scripture.
The point is, you can justify anything by claiming it is the will of God. If someone disagrees, they are simply the enemy of God. With God on your side, you can’t be wrong, even if the consequences of your actions are clearly destructive and adverse to the well-being of other people.
With secular morality, you don’t have this convenience. Without recourse to scripture, you now must justify your actions on their own terms. In other words, you have to provide reasons why other people should agree with your behavior.
If you say your behavior is the will of God, secularism will reject it. If you claim moral priority over others simply because you are superior, others will reject it. With secular morality, your only recourse is to provide reasons everyone can accept. This forces you to change perspectives, thinking from the perspective of others and adopting an objective third-person viewpoint where your actions can be agreed as moral by everyone.
This leads quite naturally to very basic moral precepts like the Golden Rule, that life is better than death, well-being is better than suffering, happiness is better than sadness, freedom is better than slavery, etc. This is how secularism promotes the kind of empathy and perspective changing that drives moral progress for the greatest number of people, not only for the members of religious sects or specific groups.
Of course, there is nothing stopping you from acting immoral and violating these basic precepts. However, if you do, you can count on alienating yourself from society either through legal injunction or through damaged relationships. The path to a fulfilling life is through good relationships, helping others, and acting in moral ways easily discovered, and altered, by reason alone.
First, Shermer presents the idea that many, if not most, historical instances of immorality were the result of factual errors. Human sacrifices, the burning of witches, withholding medication in favor of prayer, as a few examples, were all instances of serious misunderstandings regarding the way the world works. As science progressed, and the material world was investigated in naturalistic terms, these practices were slowly eradicated. Today, if we can laugh at the suggestion of throwing virgins into volcanoes for better crop yields, we have science to thank.
Second, secularism began to improve morality because the motivations for ethical behavior shifted from following scripture and valuing God and the afterlife above earthly concerns to the prioritizing of individual well-being and rights.
With religion, actions are justified through scriptural interpretation. This is a problem for a number of reasons. First, taking the example of Christianity, the amount of scripture in the Bible is vast and often contradictory, so justification can be found for almost any action or belief. Scripture ranges from the pacifism of the New testament (turning the other cheek) to the brutal violence of the Old Testament (stoning non-virgin brides to death). Depending on your mood and inclinations, you’ll find support somewhere in scripture.
The point is, you can justify anything by claiming it is the will of God. If someone disagrees, they are simply the enemy of God. With God on your side, you can’t be wrong, even if the consequences of your actions are clearly destructive and adverse to the well-being of other people.
With secular morality, you don’t have this convenience. Without recourse to scripture, you now must justify your actions on their own terms. In other words, you have to provide reasons why other people should agree with your behavior.
If you say your behavior is the will of God, secularism will reject it. If you claim moral priority over others simply because you are superior, others will reject it. With secular morality, your only recourse is to provide reasons everyone can accept. This forces you to change perspectives, thinking from the perspective of others and adopting an objective third-person viewpoint where your actions can be agreed as moral by everyone.
This leads quite naturally to very basic moral precepts like the Golden Rule, that life is better than death, well-being is better than suffering, happiness is better than sadness, freedom is better than slavery, etc. This is how secularism promotes the kind of empathy and perspective changing that drives moral progress for the greatest number of people, not only for the members of religious sects or specific groups.
Of course, there is nothing stopping you from acting immoral and violating these basic precepts. However, if you do, you can count on alienating yourself from society either through legal injunction or through damaged relationships. The path to a fulfilling life is through good relationships, helping others, and acting in moral ways easily discovered, and altered, by reason alone.
March 13, 2018
While I enjoyed so much reading this book,I don't think I'm on right position to give a good review simply because the author confessed that he was inspired mainly by Steven Pinker and Steven Pinker himself,endorsed this book as a sequel to his critical acclaimed masterpiece Better Angel of our time which I haven't read it yet,and throughout reading this book I had this weird feeling that I missing something since I didn't read the original work...
But my personal weird feelings aside,This is a very good book,Michael Shermer is one of the greatest researcher,a very good science historian and a magnificent storyteller,He manage to take his readers throughout History and show us how Enlightment,Science and Reason are responsible for many great virtues/moral progress that we have achieve as Human being today.
The book includes Powerful Chapters on topics like Freewill,Retributive vs Restoration justice,Death penalty and the future of moral progress.
While we have a long way to go and facing many new challenges everyday,Michael Shermer tries to remind us the progress that we have made and the need to invest more on these tools that has create a better world that we are living today.
I believe policy makers and voters across the globe,should read works like this,before making great decisions inorder to understand the value of thing like science/scientific facts,reason,torelence,equality,kindness and importance of expanding the moral sphere of justice
These above are the tools we need to create better societies and better future of our countries and the globe as well.
Best quote from the book "THINK HISTORICALLY,ACT RATIONALLY"
But my personal weird feelings aside,This is a very good book,Michael Shermer is one of the greatest researcher,a very good science historian and a magnificent storyteller,He manage to take his readers throughout History and show us how Enlightment,Science and Reason are responsible for many great virtues/moral progress that we have achieve as Human being today.
The book includes Powerful Chapters on topics like Freewill,Retributive vs Restoration justice,Death penalty and the future of moral progress.
While we have a long way to go and facing many new challenges everyday,Michael Shermer tries to remind us the progress that we have made and the need to invest more on these tools that has create a better world that we are living today.
I believe policy makers and voters across the globe,should read works like this,before making great decisions inorder to understand the value of thing like science/scientific facts,reason,torelence,equality,kindness and importance of expanding the moral sphere of justice
These above are the tools we need to create better societies and better future of our countries and the globe as well.
Best quote from the book "THINK HISTORICALLY,ACT RATIONALLY"
June 1, 2022
There are several excellently written section in this book. My particular favourite was the author breakdown of natural progression of morality throughout human evolution. Apart from that, I particularly enjoyed the section where the author explains the causality perspective and how it is different from a religious person and a person who are more secularly inclined.
Whilst I enjoy a huge section of the book, I can't help but feel that the writing is dry at a times. The introduction was particularly brutal where the author outlines barrage and barrage of definition. I understand the author intention to be painstakingly careful but it felt pedantic and unnecessary.
I particularly dislike when the author tried to re-create the 10 commandments for the secular - the rational decalogue. In my mind, I couldn't help but imagine the author picture himself as Moses, descending Mt. Sinai, carrying a slab of stone carved with the decalogue. What was the purpose of him exuberantly tried to create a perfectly symmetrical rules as if it is a perfect counter to 10 commandments. This felt particularly in bad taste because he literally spends his time in previous chapter to deconstruct the 10 commandments by blaming it to be futile and reduntant. I couldn't help but be reminded by the random facts of how pompous Robespierre was when he tried to ascend godhood after denouncing religious institutions as a sham. This has the same vibe.
Not that I'm saying the decalogue was a terrible principle to live by. I bookmarked that section because it is indeed a good principle that one should hold to. However, I couldn't help but feel this nauseousness while I was reading that decalogue's section.
Whilst I enjoy a huge section of the book, I can't help but feel that the writing is dry at a times. The introduction was particularly brutal where the author outlines barrage and barrage of definition. I understand the author intention to be painstakingly careful but it felt pedantic and unnecessary.
I particularly dislike when the author tried to re-create the 10 commandments for the secular - the rational decalogue. In my mind, I couldn't help but imagine the author picture himself as Moses, descending Mt. Sinai, carrying a slab of stone carved with the decalogue. What was the purpose of him exuberantly tried to create a perfectly symmetrical rules as if it is a perfect counter to 10 commandments. This felt particularly in bad taste because he literally spends his time in previous chapter to deconstruct the 10 commandments by blaming it to be futile and reduntant. I couldn't help but be reminded by the random facts of how pompous Robespierre was when he tried to ascend godhood after denouncing religious institutions as a sham. This has the same vibe.
Not that I'm saying the decalogue was a terrible principle to live by. I bookmarked that section because it is indeed a good principle that one should hold to. However, I couldn't help but feel this nauseousness while I was reading that decalogue's section.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 12, 2020
A nice intro to the basics of moral thought and how the Enlightenment, science, and reason have led to a more moral world. The author examines 4 specific moral issues that have plagued civilization (focusing more on how we have treated them in Western culture): slavery, women's rights, gay rights, and animal rights. Through each of these moral issues the author argues several key points.
1) Morality tends to occur on a continuum and shouldn't be treated as dichotomous.
2) Antiquated societies acting in ways that today would be considered immoral, were doing so, not because they were necessarily evil, but because they had a misunderstanding of the facts.
3) Though we may assume that our morality steeps from religious teachings and values, the author argues they actually are a result of the constant improvement of our understanding of scientific facts, while the church has historically been dragged toward higher morals by social pressure.
Later chapters discuss the morality of criminal behavior such as murder, rape, and torture while exploring the context of free will vs determinism. This chapter asks the question, If free will is an illusion, should people who commit homicide responsible for their actions? This argument was not made clearly to me as the idea of determinism makes sense, however, it seems impractical to say that a person cannot be held responsible for their behavior. Unfortunately, the book didn't provide me we a clear answer here. (If you had a better understanding or if you have a perspective, please share.)
Still a great read and definitely worth a try!
1) Morality tends to occur on a continuum and shouldn't be treated as dichotomous.
2) Antiquated societies acting in ways that today would be considered immoral, were doing so, not because they were necessarily evil, but because they had a misunderstanding of the facts.
3) Though we may assume that our morality steeps from religious teachings and values, the author argues they actually are a result of the constant improvement of our understanding of scientific facts, while the church has historically been dragged toward higher morals by social pressure.
Later chapters discuss the morality of criminal behavior such as murder, rape, and torture while exploring the context of free will vs determinism. This chapter asks the question, If free will is an illusion, should people who commit homicide responsible for their actions? This argument was not made clearly to me as the idea of determinism makes sense, however, it seems impractical to say that a person cannot be held responsible for their behavior. Unfortunately, the book didn't provide me we a clear answer here. (If you had a better understanding or if you have a perspective, please share.)
Still a great read and definitely worth a try!
March 28, 2016
I really enjoyed "Why People Believe Weird Things," so I thought this book would be great. Shermer's Introduction was absolutely wonderful, and included one of my favorite paragraphs ever. I've re-read it so much, and so want it to be true, that I'll post it here:
"Improvements in the domain of morality are evident in many areas of life: governance (the rise of liberal democracies and the decline of theocracies and autocracies); economics (broader property rights and the freedom to trade goods and services with others without oppressive restrictions); rights (to life, liberty, property, marriage, reproductionm, voting, speech, worship, assembly, protest, autonomy, and the pursuit of happiness); prosperity (the explosion of wealth and increasing affluence for more people in more places; and the decline of poverty worldwide in which a smaller percentage of the world's people are impoverished than at any time in history); health and longevity (more people in more places more of the time live longer, healthier lives than at any time in the past); war (a smaller percentage of people die as a result of violent conflict today than at any time since our species began); slavery (outlawed everywhere in the world and practiced in only a few places in the form of sexual slavery and slave labor that are now being targeted for total abolition); homicide (rates have fallen precipitously from over 100 murders per 100,000 people in the Middle Ages to less than one per 100,000 today in the industrial West, and the chances of an individual dying violently is the lowest it has ever been in history); rape and sezual assault (trending downward, and while still too prevalent, it is outlawed by all Western states and increasingly prosecuted); judicial restraint (torture and the death penalty have been almost universally outlawed by states, and where it is still legal is less frequently practiced); judical equality (citizens of nations are treated more equally under the law than at any time in the past); and civility (people are kinder, more civilized, and less violent to one another than ever before." p. 4.
I had my first doubts when Shermer discussed "The Logic of Moral Dilemmas." He posits a mathematical formula wherein it's always best to rat out your friend. Now, if neither of you rat, you both receive minimal punishment. He still concludes that it's always better to rat, because in that scenario you'll always receive either zero or minimal punishment. That kind of mathematical thinking forgets that: (a) there are external reasons not to rat -- in prison it's called a "snitch jacket," and it ensures a short and/or painful life; and (b) among anti-authoritarians, there is moral value simply in not-ratting, regardless of whether one suffers additional punishment. He makes the same mistake applying his game matrix to doping in bicycling, concluding that bikers should -- logically -- always have doped, traditionally. Again, he has a moral blind-spot for the fact that some bikers would be motivated to simply not dope because it's the right thing to do. In other words, it's a common human experience that virtue is often its own reward, and somehow he misses it. Some people do the right thing simply because it's the right thing to do.
Once Shermer's myopia on this topic was entrenched in my mind, I had trouble enjoying the rest of the book. His myopia extends to Christianity (in which he posits that Jewish dietary restrictions are still a matter of legitimate debate for Christians. No, they're not. I'm not saying it was resolved 300 years later at Nicea -- I'm saying it was resolved in the biblical text itself, in Acts). There may be outlier opinion on this issue, but that is not the same as legitimate debate.
I do not understand the near-Deification of Enlightenment thought. It's not that the world has forgotten The Enlightenment -- it's that we remember how it ended, with the Reign of Terror and the rise of Napoleon. Logic and rhetoric simply do not hold all the answers. Empathy and morality (for its own sake) and education get us closer to Humanism than logic games. Logic and science gave us the A-bomb and gas chambers and eugenics. Point being, science disconnected from ethics is a problem, and I disagree that science or math can without fail get us to morality (by that word I mean not hurting others) mathematically, which it seems is Shermer's major thesis: that we will logic ourselves to doing the right thing, if we just think about it hard enough. Sometimes the right thing has zero benefit for you, like helping an enemy or being kind to those who are unkind.
I also disagree with Shermer's ideas about Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil. Working in the American criminal justice system, I see fairness and proportion often take a back seat to careerism and ego. Evil is most prevalent in my experience through thoughtlessness, carelessness, and, well, banality. I'm not saying those are the most obvious or insidious forms of evil, but they are the most rife.
Where "Why Do People Believe Weird Things" exposed logical error in Shermer's funny, deprecating, accessible way, this book really exposes the blind-spot in his thinking. I like Shermer, and I think he's by far the most accessible of atheist writers for non-atheists (including Free Thinkers and Humanists), but this was not consistently a good read. I changed my rating from 2 stars to 3, because it has gems like this: "...of those who did not stop [for a pedestrian at a cross-walk], the overwhelming majority--by a factor of three or four times--were driving luxury automobiles (for example, BMWs, Mercedes, Por[s]ches)[.]" Shermer's exhaustive research and occasionally brilliant writing kept me skimming the book, even after I'd decided to give it up.
"Improvements in the domain of morality are evident in many areas of life: governance (the rise of liberal democracies and the decline of theocracies and autocracies); economics (broader property rights and the freedom to trade goods and services with others without oppressive restrictions); rights (to life, liberty, property, marriage, reproductionm, voting, speech, worship, assembly, protest, autonomy, and the pursuit of happiness); prosperity (the explosion of wealth and increasing affluence for more people in more places; and the decline of poverty worldwide in which a smaller percentage of the world's people are impoverished than at any time in history); health and longevity (more people in more places more of the time live longer, healthier lives than at any time in the past); war (a smaller percentage of people die as a result of violent conflict today than at any time since our species began); slavery (outlawed everywhere in the world and practiced in only a few places in the form of sexual slavery and slave labor that are now being targeted for total abolition); homicide (rates have fallen precipitously from over 100 murders per 100,000 people in the Middle Ages to less than one per 100,000 today in the industrial West, and the chances of an individual dying violently is the lowest it has ever been in history); rape and sezual assault (trending downward, and while still too prevalent, it is outlawed by all Western states and increasingly prosecuted); judicial restraint (torture and the death penalty have been almost universally outlawed by states, and where it is still legal is less frequently practiced); judical equality (citizens of nations are treated more equally under the law than at any time in the past); and civility (people are kinder, more civilized, and less violent to one another than ever before." p. 4.
I had my first doubts when Shermer discussed "The Logic of Moral Dilemmas." He posits a mathematical formula wherein it's always best to rat out your friend. Now, if neither of you rat, you both receive minimal punishment. He still concludes that it's always better to rat, because in that scenario you'll always receive either zero or minimal punishment. That kind of mathematical thinking forgets that: (a) there are external reasons not to rat -- in prison it's called a "snitch jacket," and it ensures a short and/or painful life; and (b) among anti-authoritarians, there is moral value simply in not-ratting, regardless of whether one suffers additional punishment. He makes the same mistake applying his game matrix to doping in bicycling, concluding that bikers should -- logically -- always have doped, traditionally. Again, he has a moral blind-spot for the fact that some bikers would be motivated to simply not dope because it's the right thing to do. In other words, it's a common human experience that virtue is often its own reward, and somehow he misses it. Some people do the right thing simply because it's the right thing to do.
Once Shermer's myopia on this topic was entrenched in my mind, I had trouble enjoying the rest of the book. His myopia extends to Christianity (in which he posits that Jewish dietary restrictions are still a matter of legitimate debate for Christians. No, they're not. I'm not saying it was resolved 300 years later at Nicea -- I'm saying it was resolved in the biblical text itself, in Acts). There may be outlier opinion on this issue, but that is not the same as legitimate debate.
I do not understand the near-Deification of Enlightenment thought. It's not that the world has forgotten The Enlightenment -- it's that we remember how it ended, with the Reign of Terror and the rise of Napoleon. Logic and rhetoric simply do not hold all the answers. Empathy and morality (for its own sake) and education get us closer to Humanism than logic games. Logic and science gave us the A-bomb and gas chambers and eugenics. Point being, science disconnected from ethics is a problem, and I disagree that science or math can without fail get us to morality (by that word I mean not hurting others) mathematically, which it seems is Shermer's major thesis: that we will logic ourselves to doing the right thing, if we just think about it hard enough. Sometimes the right thing has zero benefit for you, like helping an enemy or being kind to those who are unkind.
I also disagree with Shermer's ideas about Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil. Working in the American criminal justice system, I see fairness and proportion often take a back seat to careerism and ego. Evil is most prevalent in my experience through thoughtlessness, carelessness, and, well, banality. I'm not saying those are the most obvious or insidious forms of evil, but they are the most rife.
Where "Why Do People Believe Weird Things" exposed logical error in Shermer's funny, deprecating, accessible way, this book really exposes the blind-spot in his thinking. I like Shermer, and I think he's by far the most accessible of atheist writers for non-atheists (including Free Thinkers and Humanists), but this was not consistently a good read. I changed my rating from 2 stars to 3, because it has gems like this: "...of those who did not stop [for a pedestrian at a cross-walk], the overwhelming majority--by a factor of three or four times--were driving luxury automobiles (for example, BMWs, Mercedes, Por[s]ches)[.]" Shermer's exhaustive research and occasionally brilliant writing kept me skimming the book, even after I'd decided to give it up.
July 14, 2018
A very optimistic, pre-Trump appraisal of the generally forward momentum of logic and reason and their role in improving life for everyone in the human race. Sadly, his prediction that no one can turn the clock back to ignorance and superstition that harms formerly marginalized groups seems a bit premature at the moment . . . but on the whole, the scholarship is good and most of the conclusions are sound.
Want to read
October 16, 2021Related reading to Mat Ridley's How Innovation Works
October 6, 2023
Amazone
Simplistic and too idealistic - Does not do justice to the complex issue
Of the four books by Michael Shermer I have read so far, this is by far the weakest.
I'm pretty disappointed because it was advertised as a kind of sequel to Pinkers The Better Angels of our Nature (which I liked very much), but it certainly isn't.
In addition, the book lacks intellectual depth.
Basically it's not much more than a colorful hodgepodge of many facts (which is not bad!), stories and anecdotes, but a stringent reasoning lacks.
Above all, the author cannot afford what he promises in the title: to show that it was above all science that caused moral progress, made us “better people”.
It is truly astonishing that Shermer apparently makes a beginner's mistake on this important issue by simply confusing correlation with causality: because science has taken a strong and steady upswing over the last two centuries, and because humanity has become more and more moral at the same time, the the former caused the second.
No, it doesn't have to. Moreover, the author does not even make a real, serious attempt to show this causality.
All he can think of is rationality in general and science in particular promote abstract thinking. This has led people to abstract from the differences between them and to look at something like “humanity”, and their intra-group sympathy and empathy drew more and more circles.
“Abstract reasoning leads us to consider members of other tribes (nations) as potential trading partners to be respected rather than as potential enemies to be conquered or killed.”
Unfortunately, this is not covered by the facts.
Unfortunately, the rise of sciences was also accompanied by colonial exploitation and the rise of racism. Science led (also) to better weapons, which allowed Europeans to subjucate and exploit half the world.
“Trading partners”? The kind of “trade” the English, Dutch or French did with the peoples of Africa, America, India or East Asia was definitely not ethical (to put it mildly).
Quite a few enlighteners were flawless racists and anti-Semites who used their ability to abstract thinking to question qualitative differences between “the whites” and “the blacks”, as well as about the (corrupted) nature of the “Jew”.
Yes, “racial science” was a real science in the 19th century; it was eugenics until well into the 20th century.
Moral progress through science? Certainly not on this front (and if, it was not until late in the 20th century, when genetics made it clear that there are no breeds at all).
In general, this book is extremely simplistic and blurred in its reasoning.
Under the heading “moral progress”, the author mingles every kind of improvement in recent centuries, from the decline in violent crime, to the extension of rights (e.g. to slaves, women, children, and finally animals) and the improvement of hygiene, to economic improvements and democratization.
Common sense should tell you that behind this kaleidoscope of improvements there is also a variety of causes.
All attributed to “reason and science” is nonsensical - although science of course has its share, but a good and carefully working author would have had to work out it instead of simply putting up theses and then painting with a very wide brush.
Towards the end of the book, our author then goes among the utopists.
He would like to replace the word “utopia” with “Protopia” (“... a place where progress is steadfast and measured...”).
Here he fantasizes in a tried and tested libertarian manner of a world without governments and nation states, where the mayors are the most powerful men and women (and essentially deal with solutions to practical problems, such as repairing roads and providing enough kita places...).
Swarm intelligence already takes care of everything else: “In other words, there will be no power centers because power will be distributed all over the globe and placed in the hands of ordinary citizens. Distributed politics wants to be powered by distributed intelligence.
If this happens, the very idea of political power as it has been practiced for millennia will dissolve before our very eyes.
All this is quite funny, especially considering that this book was published in 2015, and already in 2016 the world experienced various backlashes that do not fit into the “protopic” image: Trump and Brexit are just called pars pro toto.
But our libertarian idealist simply did not have this danger on the screen — which certainly does not speak for him, for example, that the Internet is not only used to form the swarm intelligence, but also for a powerful swarm stupidity, for conspiracy theories, for hatred and incitement... slightly smarter minds.
And here is the central defect of the book: Michael Shermer never understood what constitered and caused the “moral progress” of the last centuries, and therefore he is blind to the fact that this progress is neither inevitable nor irreversible.
For if his thesis is true that moral progress is a consequence of scientific progress, then the former must be inevitable and irreversible, because science is also making further progress — Trump or Xi ago. But just as democracies can die, so can moral progress pause or even go backwards.
To those who really care about the topic of “moral progress”, I can only recommend the book “The Evolution of Moral Progress: A Biocultural Theory” by Allen Buchanan and Russell Powell. It does not read as smoothly as that of Shermer, but the authors have really penetrated the subject, and also clearly indicate under what conditions there is a “moral backward” step.
Matias Berg, Germany
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Wrong and Hopelessly Optimistic
4/10
In the nineteenth century American abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker said: "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice."
Michael Shermer, a 21st-century American professor, believes even more confidently in the justice-bound shape of the moral arc, not through religious intuition, but because data tell him "in general, as a species, we are becoming increasingly moral.
The thesis of Shermer's book is very simple: that the human species is progressing and that this progress is overwhelmingly due to the European Enlightenment and the continuing use of scientific rationalism in our decision making.
By progress Shermer means advancement to a further or higher stage and by moral progress he means the improvement in the survival and flourishing of sentient beings.
And certainly there is enough evidence for this claim for those who advance it not to be immediately laughed out of court
The global population has expanded enormously over the past century; living standards have risen; there are more liberal democracies about; and a smaller percentage of the population is dying from warfare than ever before.
Moreover, Shermer says with what I presume must be a straight face, it is no longer acceptable simply to assert something for an argument to have force, we must prove it in fine scientific fashion.
Sadly, there is much more naked assertion going on in this book than proof.
During the week that I write this, members of the human species have gunned down dozens of holiday-makers on a Tunisian beach, drowned prisoners in a swimming pool, burned others alive, decapitated them with explosive charges, stuck victims' heads on fences and thrown homosexuals off of roof tops to their deaths. Ah, you say, these are rude, unlettered religious fanatics, nothing better can be expected from those who do not operate on principles of scientific rationalism.
Perhaps, but during this same week, the secular opponents of these warriors have used a sophisticated nerve gas and thrown barrel bombs into civilian market places.
The leader of the 9/11 hijackers was a highly-educated city planner; the current head of al-Qaeda is a physician -- medical professionals abound in terrorist movements as can be seen by the Fort Hood gunman, the two attackers of Glasgow airport, and the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Knowledge of the scientific method does not necessarily lead to a belief in the things Shermer would like us to believe in.
It was science, after all, that gave us Zyklon-B gas, sarin, mustard gas, the atomic bomb, euthanasia and racial genetics. The architects of Auschwitz, the inventors of the Soviet gulags, the administrators of the Chinese laogai slave camps, the murders of the killing fields of Cambodia, those who provoked the Great Hunger under Mao Tse-tung were all keen rationalists who believed that human progress was possible, if only one were rid of those pesky Jews, bourgeois factory-owners, Orthodox priests, rich peasants, city dwellers, those who wore eye-glasses, clung to an ethnic identity or practised a backward religion.
Slavery is not dead or dwindling as Shermer insists it is, ask the Eastern European women trafficked into Europe or Saudi Arabia, ask the Yazidi girls being auctioned by the Islamic state, or the indentured workers in the Gulf States, or the factory labour in Chinese political prisons. A progressive species would not have launched the enormities of the sort beloved by Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, or the Kim dynasty.
We may have better manners than our ancestors, we may have better ideas about treating minorities or the weak but what Shermer (and Stephen Pinker before him) fail to recognize is that these advances are of certain contingent cultures, they are not inherited by homo sapiens as a species.
We are all of us, one earthquake, invasion, water shortage, electrical outage or epidemic away from barbarism.
If you want to know about the state of our species read Lord of the Flies not this wildly optimistic and silly book.
Prairie Pal
---
February 2, 2015
This book tries to fill in some of the whys in Steven Pinker's book "Better Angels of our Nature: Why Violence has Declined". The author starts off by defining morality as the "flourishing and surviving of sentient beings". It's not a perfect definition but in general the listener can latch on to it.
The author does go beyond Pinker's book and tries to fill in more of the reasons why violence has declined by looking at the facts from a morality point of view. Shermer knows it is more profitable to realize that man is the measure of all things and that our values are not etched in stone and aren't externally given to people, but are derived by people.
The continuous contextual approach (inductive) is almost always better than a binary, absolute approach (deductive). Using reason, science and observation can make us understand and appreciate the flourishing and surviving of others who aren't necessarily in our tribal group, be it kin, friend, community, or other self selected but always exclusionary group which divides 'us' from 'them' in some manner and leads to the widening of our moral sphere.
He looks at how our moral sphere is constantly becoming more inclusive. Slavery is the ultimate us against them. The realization of the wrongness of slavery and its abolition was a slow continuous process. For those who derive their values from external sources, the revealed religion sources just get it wrong on slavery. He considers in detail the widening of the moral sphere for less misogynistic attitudes towards women, the slow process of no longer making gays the other and even considers some of the issues in speciesism (the author is a specieist, as I am too, but I understand the issues).
It's hard for me not to fully embrace a book were I admire an author as much as I admire Michael Shermer, I read his articles frequently, I love his debates on the internet, he quotes accurately from Gene Rodenberry and Star Trek, he seems to love the same episodes of Twilight Zone that I do, and he quotes Michio Kaku extensively and other such things that I love too.
But, he doesn't stick to the narrative and falls off the track. For example, I am not sure why he uses Piketty and his "Capital in the 21st Century" to try to refute Piketty's own thesis. Inequalities are real in the world (and within America) and have been getting worse. He seems to think corporations aren't a threat to moral development and represent moral good. For me, corporations are not people, and can be a force of bad. He had a lot of things like that in this book which only gets in the way of his own thesis.
It's a minor thing, but I can't help myself. The author says "Alan Turing is agruably the most important man for the Allied's victory in WW II". Alan Turing is a hero of mine, but I don't think that statement is defensible. Betchley Park was a cooperative, and the Polish Mathematicians (God Bless the Poles!), cracked the enigma code first. For a marvelous audible book on the subject read, "Seizing the Enigma". Also, he states "most people agree that for WW I both sides are to blame". I would strongly recommend Max Hasting's recent book, "Catastrophe 1914" for a refutation of that statement.
I would say, Pinker's book, "Better Angels of our Nature" is my favorite book. It opened my eyes to how the world has improved since the dawn of time and how our moral sphere keeps getting wider (less of us against them and more of us). Most of what is good in Shermer's book is in Pinker's book. I realize Pinker's book is very technical. This book is not. Even though the author does ramble (much like this book review!), this book is a fine substitute for Pinker's book for those who don't love sets of tables, long historical reviews, an author who keeps on his narrative and summaries of scientific papers.
The author does go beyond Pinker's book and tries to fill in more of the reasons why violence has declined by looking at the facts from a morality point of view. Shermer knows it is more profitable to realize that man is the measure of all things and that our values are not etched in stone and aren't externally given to people, but are derived by people.
The continuous contextual approach (inductive) is almost always better than a binary, absolute approach (deductive). Using reason, science and observation can make us understand and appreciate the flourishing and surviving of others who aren't necessarily in our tribal group, be it kin, friend, community, or other self selected but always exclusionary group which divides 'us' from 'them' in some manner and leads to the widening of our moral sphere.
He looks at how our moral sphere is constantly becoming more inclusive. Slavery is the ultimate us against them. The realization of the wrongness of slavery and its abolition was a slow continuous process. For those who derive their values from external sources, the revealed religion sources just get it wrong on slavery. He considers in detail the widening of the moral sphere for less misogynistic attitudes towards women, the slow process of no longer making gays the other and even considers some of the issues in speciesism (the author is a specieist, as I am too, but I understand the issues).
It's hard for me not to fully embrace a book were I admire an author as much as I admire Michael Shermer, I read his articles frequently, I love his debates on the internet, he quotes accurately from Gene Rodenberry and Star Trek, he seems to love the same episodes of Twilight Zone that I do, and he quotes Michio Kaku extensively and other such things that I love too.
But, he doesn't stick to the narrative and falls off the track. For example, I am not sure why he uses Piketty and his "Capital in the 21st Century" to try to refute Piketty's own thesis. Inequalities are real in the world (and within America) and have been getting worse. He seems to think corporations aren't a threat to moral development and represent moral good. For me, corporations are not people, and can be a force of bad. He had a lot of things like that in this book which only gets in the way of his own thesis.
It's a minor thing, but I can't help myself. The author says "Alan Turing is agruably the most important man for the Allied's victory in WW II". Alan Turing is a hero of mine, but I don't think that statement is defensible. Betchley Park was a cooperative, and the Polish Mathematicians (God Bless the Poles!), cracked the enigma code first. For a marvelous audible book on the subject read, "Seizing the Enigma". Also, he states "most people agree that for WW I both sides are to blame". I would strongly recommend Max Hasting's recent book, "Catastrophe 1914" for a refutation of that statement.
I would say, Pinker's book, "Better Angels of our Nature" is my favorite book. It opened my eyes to how the world has improved since the dawn of time and how our moral sphere keeps getting wider (less of us against them and more of us). Most of what is good in Shermer's book is in Pinker's book. I realize Pinker's book is very technical. This book is not. Even though the author does ramble (much like this book review!), this book is a fine substitute for Pinker's book for those who don't love sets of tables, long historical reviews, an author who keeps on his narrative and summaries of scientific papers.
December 18, 2021
I enjoyed it very much. Despite our immediate feeling that moral attitudes are very low in this world we live in, the author demonstrates with facts & figures that we have come a long way from much worse times. Indeed. However, we have along way to go yet. And I don't know if we are receding somewhat, with white supremacists and nazis in the larger democracies, wars in various major areas of the world, organized crime, etc. But, "chin up", we need to be positive.
Last chapters are too speculative. I guess it is this inherent need to try and foresee the future. But it does not demerit the core of the essay.
Fully recommended.
Last chapters are too speculative. I guess it is this inherent need to try and foresee the future. But it does not demerit the core of the essay.
Fully recommended.
March 1, 2015
I must admit that this book didn't quite live up to expectations (though I did like it). I was expecting a little more Sam Harris's The Moral Landscape and less Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature. The problem is that the book mostly continued to tread on familiar territory and there wasn't as much new information as I had hoped.
The first chapter is immediately familiar if you've read any of Shermer's previous books- a basic look into science and skepticism. The second chapter is about terrorism. For me, this was pretty informative, though it didn't quite connect with the overall theme of the first section. I found the third and four sections fairly intriguing. I enjoyed learning about how the Enlightenment Principles lead the way toward greater morality and how they influenced the Founding Fathers. I also thought the section about our past immorality over time was disturbing, but interesting nonetheless(ex: people used to burn cats alive for a laugh).
I think part 2 is the strongest section of the book. Shermer describes four evolutions and progressions on morality: the abolition of slavery, the freedom of women (surprised at how little I was taught in school!), the acceptance of gay rights, and the acceptance of animal rights. I had some issue with the author's own seeming abdication of responsibility on the last topic, but as a whole I think the topic was treated with due diligence and realism (ie- it's unlikely the world will go vegetarian).
Part 3 had its moments. The first section is basically what makes people regress to 'evil'. Shermer (and others) have delved into this topic in detail before, but its always fascinating. The second section is in defense of free will and how much control we have over our actions: an interesting chapter that may have been better explained (perhaps with more graphics). The third section was my favorite in this portion of the book. It was a look at criminal justice and retribution and has more prescriptions on how to fix the current system. (I suppose this is more what I had hoped for in the book). The last chapter was my least favorite. More and more of Shermer's books seem to have an exhausting section on libertarianism as the 'one true way'. While some of his ideas about city-states separate from ineffective big government were thought-provoking (obviously just about everyone has been fed up with Congress), other digressions were a bit tedious to me.
Overall, I agree with Shermer's (and other authors) who have noted that the moral arc does trend upward. Shermer is still one of my favorite authors and I enjoyed his take on this topic. In my mind, The Science of Good and Evil will always be my favorite of his, but this was an intriguing, (mostly) historical perspective.
The first chapter is immediately familiar if you've read any of Shermer's previous books- a basic look into science and skepticism. The second chapter is about terrorism. For me, this was pretty informative, though it didn't quite connect with the overall theme of the first section. I found the third and four sections fairly intriguing. I enjoyed learning about how the Enlightenment Principles lead the way toward greater morality and how they influenced the Founding Fathers. I also thought the section about our past immorality over time was disturbing, but interesting nonetheless(ex: people used to burn cats alive for a laugh).
I think part 2 is the strongest section of the book. Shermer describes four evolutions and progressions on morality: the abolition of slavery, the freedom of women (surprised at how little I was taught in school!), the acceptance of gay rights, and the acceptance of animal rights. I had some issue with the author's own seeming abdication of responsibility on the last topic, but as a whole I think the topic was treated with due diligence and realism (ie- it's unlikely the world will go vegetarian).
Part 3 had its moments. The first section is basically what makes people regress to 'evil'. Shermer (and others) have delved into this topic in detail before, but its always fascinating. The second section is in defense of free will and how much control we have over our actions: an interesting chapter that may have been better explained (perhaps with more graphics). The third section was my favorite in this portion of the book. It was a look at criminal justice and retribution and has more prescriptions on how to fix the current system. (I suppose this is more what I had hoped for in the book). The last chapter was my least favorite. More and more of Shermer's books seem to have an exhausting section on libertarianism as the 'one true way'. While some of his ideas about city-states separate from ineffective big government were thought-provoking (obviously just about everyone has been fed up with Congress), other digressions were a bit tedious to me.
Overall, I agree with Shermer's (and other authors) who have noted that the moral arc does trend upward. Shermer is still one of my favorite authors and I enjoyed his take on this topic. In my mind, The Science of Good and Evil will always be my favorite of his, but this was an intriguing, (mostly) historical perspective.
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