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Michael Shermer joins us to discuss his newest book, The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom.
This week we’re joined by Michael Shermer to talk about his book The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom (2015).
What exactly is science, and how does a belief in science advance culture? How are natural rights related to science? How does Shermer define human flourishing—and how does science and reason help us achieve it? What’s the difference between science and pseudoscience, and how can we tell? What, if anything, does government have to do with all this? And lastly, how do scientific beliefs change over time?
Show Notes and Further Reading
Michael Shermer, The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom (book)
Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (book)
Benjamin R. Barber, If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities (book)
Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (book)
Peter T. Leeson, The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates (book)
Dr. Michael Shermer is Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, and a columnist for Scientific American.
Aaron Powell founded Libertarianism.org. He is now the host of (Re)Imagining Liberty, a podcast about the case for radical freedom.
Trevor Burrus was a research fellow in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review. His research interests include constitutional law, civil and criminal law, legal and political philosophy, legal history, and the interface between science and public policy.
He is the editor of A Conspiracy against Obamacare (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) and Deep Commitments: The Past, Present, and Future of Religious Liberty (Cato, 2017). Burrus holds a BA in philosophy from the University of Colorado at Boulder and a JD from the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. He also contributed a chapter to Libertarianism.org’s Visions of Liberty.