The Moral Arc How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom
Author(s): Michael Shermer
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 this provocative and compelling book, 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.
General Information
- :
- : Henry Holt & Company
- : Henry Holt & Company
- : 0.757
- : 01 January 2015
- : 23.50 cmmm X 15.60 cmmm X 4.40 cmmm
- : United States
- : 01 February 2015
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Michael Shermer
- : 1
- : en
- : 560
- : includes 83 illustrations