The Moral Arc - How Science Makes Us Better People - Michael Shermer -sup3r

 00 Prologue: Bending the Moral Arc 01 The Moral Arc Explained - Towards a Science of Morality 02 The Morality of War, Terror, and Deterrence 03 Why Reason Is the Primary Source of Moral Progress 04 Why Religion Is Not the Source of Moral Progress 05 The Moral Arc Applied - A Moral Science of Freedom Rights 06 A Moral Science of Women’s Rights 07 A Moral Science of Gay Rights 08 A Moral Science of Animal Rights 09 The Moral Arc Amended - Moral Regress and Pathways to Evil 10 Moral Freedom and Responsibility 11 Moral Justice: Retribution and Restoration 12 Protopia: The Future of Moral Progress

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.