Michael Shermer, a professor, column writer for Scientific American, longtime public champion of reason and rationality and author of, “The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People,” claims that we are living in the greatest moral period of our species’ history. “The Moral Arc” is about moral progress that made evident through widespread data and epic stories that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, freedom, and truth. It is difficult to imagine how the arc of morality can bend toward justice without rational examination of the consequences of one’s actions. Of the many factors that have come together over the centuries to bend the arc in a more moral direction, science and reason are foremost.
The Scientific Revolution
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In “The Moral Arc”, he takes on skeptics who belittle science, who claim it has no moral focus and produces nothing but hopelessness and loss. He makes the astounding claim that science, specifically because of its rational, emotionless, and progressive attitude towards revealing the truth, has helped to lay the moral groundwork for modern society, pointing the way to a more objective and decent world. He starts the book with a story of Martin Luther King Jr. and explains how his famous speech in Washington DC which proved that the Moral Arc itself does indeed bend towards justice. Shermer explains that the term “The Moral Arc”, which is the title of title of this book as well as the reference that King used in his speech, is from a 19th …show more content…
Shermer finds lessons in an episode of "Star Trek" (the power of mercy) as well as on a trip he took to the Galápagos Islands (the complexity of ecological tradeoffs) and finds inspiration in sculptures of strong women carved by his aunt that sit near him as he writes. "The arc of the moral universe is long," Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1965, "but it bends toward justice." Long indeed. In retrospect, it seems remarkable that arguments against now-obvious injustices, such as slavery and women's subjection, had to be made repeatedly over centuries before they finally "took." Yet, even with such data, the thesis of Shermer’s work remains solid. Even though science has brought us the atomic bomb, it is also a tool that can teach us about well-being and offer us moral progress. "The Moral Arc" presents an impressive account of how far we have come but it reminds us that reason will need a lot of help to make our moral progress
We must also suppose that before that time, the progress of reason will have gone hand in hand with progress in the arts and sciences; that the ridiculous prejudices of superstition will no longer cover morality with an austerity that corrupts and degrades it instead of purifying and elevating it. (Condorcet)
A nobel prize winning, architect of the atomic bomb, and well-known theoretical physicist, Professor Richard P. Feynman, at the 1955 autumn meeting of the National Academy of science, addresses the importance of science and its impact on society. Feynman contends, although some people may think that scientists don't take social problems into their consideration, every now and then they think about them. However he concedes that, because social problems are more difficult than the scientific ones, scientist don’t spend too much time resolving them (1). Furthermore he states that scientist must be held responsible for the decisions they make today to protect the future generation; also they have to do their best, to learn as much as possible,
This essay will explore parallels between the ideas of the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. The scientific revolution describes a time when great changes occurred in the way the universe was viewed, d through the advances of sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The enlightenment refers to a movement that grew out of the new scientific ideas of the revolution that occurred in the late seventeenth to eighteenth century. Although both the scientific revolution and enlightenment encapsulate different ideas, the scientific revolution laid the underlying ideological foundations for the enlightenment movement. A number of parallels exist between the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment; there was a decrease in the belief in authority, there was an increased belief in Darwinism, The importance of science grew as beneficial to society, the ideas of society as better off without scientific and knowledge. The parallels between the scientific revolution and the enlightenment will be explored throughout this essay.
Dr. Michael Shermer is a Professor, Founder of skeptic magazine, and a distinguished and brilliant American science writer to say the least. In His book The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us Better People he sets out to embark on the daunting task of convincing and informing the reader on sciences’ ability to drives the expansion of humanity and the growth of the moral sphere. Although such a broad and general topic could be hard to explain, Shermer does so in a way that is concise, easy to understand, and refreshing for the reader. This novel is riddled with scientific facts, data, and pictures to back up shermers claims about the history of science, humanity and how the two interact with one another.
Their ideas reflected America’s vitality and gumption. William James was a prominent philosopher of ethics from the late 1800s to early 1900s. He was trained in medicine and later used his experience to debate medical ethics. He said there can be no final truth in ethics and posed three questions: what the origin of moral ideas is, the meaning of words such as “good” and “bad” and how people measure these words. His belief that there is no end in ethics is supported by his claim that new solutions to problems must be found continually as a response to new and changing societal demands. James asserts “ethical science is just like physical science, and instead of being deductible all at once from abstract principles, must simply bide its time, and be ready to revise its conclusions,”. James’ beliefs are entirely American in their liberal, religious and accepting views. His beliefs have proven to be withstanding and have become an integral part of the American
The scientific revolution can be considered one of the biggest turning points in European history. Because of new scientific ideas and theories, a new dawn of thinking and questioning of natural elements had evolved. Scientific revolution thinkers such as Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus all saw nature as unknowable and wanted to separate myths from reality. During the scientific revolution during mid 1500-late 1600s, key figures such as Isaac Newton and Nicolaus Copernicus greatly impacted Europe in terms of astronomical discoveries, scientific methods, and the questioning of God to challenge the church’s teachings.
Initially, The book “The Moral Arch” by Michael Shermer talks about as technology advances that we all become more moral to each other. I agree that as we become more technological, we become more moral in majority life, especially when it comes to capital punishment, violent crimes, religion, freedom, and democracy. We can see it through our history during the industrial revolution era, and through our generation today. Science will continue to make us more moral about our daily activities.
“Every natural process is a version of a moral sentence. The moral law lies at the centre of nature and radiates to the
We need a critique of moral values, the value of these values should itself, for once, be examined?. [What if] morality itself were to blame if man, as a species, never reached his highest potential power and splendour? [GM P 6]
“The end justifies the means” is the famous quote of Machiavelli (Viroli, 1998) which puts the emphasis of morality on the finale results rather than the actions undertaken to achieve them. Is this claim true in the field of the natural sciences? Whether atomic bombings, as a mean used to end World War II, justifies the death of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What is moral limitation in the acquisition of knowledge in the natural sciences? How is art constrained by moral judgment?
Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, radical and controversial ideas were created in what would become a time period of great advances. The Scientific Revolution began with a spark of inspiration that spread a wild fire of ideas through Europe and America. The new radical ideas affected everything that had been established and proven through religious views. "The scientific revolution was more radical and innovative than any of the political revolutions of the seventeenth century."1 All of the advances that were made during this revolutionary time can be attributed to the founders of the Scientific Revolution.
The changes produced during the Scientific Revolution were not rapid but developed slowly and in an experimental way. Although its effects were highly influential, the forerunners Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, and Rene Descartes only had a few hundred followers. Each pioneered unique ideas that challenged the current views of human beingsí relationship with nature. With the backing of empirical observation and mathematical proof, these ideas slowly gained acceptance. As a result, the operation of society, along with prior grounds for faith were reconsidered. Their ideas promoted change and reform for humansí well-being on earth.
As Europe began to move out of the Renaissance, it brought with it many of the beliefs of that era. The continent now carried a questioning spirit and was eager for more to study and learn. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many discoveries were made in subjects all across the realm of science, but it was the doubting and testing of old traditions and authorities that truly made this time into a revolution. The Scientific Revolution challenged the authority of the past by changing the view of nature from a mysterious entity to a study of mathematics, looking to scientific research instead of the Church, and teaching that there was much knowledge of science left to be discovered.
middle of paper ... ... Lindberg, David C. Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution. Eds. David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman.
Art is limited in a very large number of ways by the ethical judgements we make, but it is also often brought into existence as a result of our morals and emotions. These judgements seem to handicap the production of knowledge of and through art, but they are also vital to it. This is a sign that abandoning our morals would be difficult, but impractical for the arts. For science, however, abandoning these morals to avoid the obstacle of ethical judgements would allow us to understand much more than we do today, and even more than we did hundreds of years ago; however, these judgements also keep our developments in check. They may prevent some good, but they definitely prevent irreversible harm as well. It is clear that ethics has many drawbacks, but it is a necessary element of our lives.