The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom

Humanity is creating an increasingly just and equitable world, according to Shermer (Why People Believe Weird Things). He argues that this is occurring in large part because our understanding of the natural world has come to depend on reason and science. Shermer ranges broadly—across such fields as economics, philosophy, politics, and biology—to provide evidence for his thesis. An engaging writer, he offers persuasive data to demonstrate the moral progress that has been made with women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, and animal rights. He also documents the abolition of slavery, the reduction in violence (particularly murder rates), and the decrease in war. Shermer is less successful, however, in demonstrating that a scientific worldview should be seen as the cause for all this, and his polemical outbursts detract from the seriousness of his message. More frustrating are his blinkered views on such matters as income inequality and his omission of rampant ecosystem destruction and an increasing extinction rate in his moral calculus. Essentially an apologia for Shermer’s libertarian politics, there is still ample material here that warrants attention. [em](Feb.) [/em]