The Science of Good and Evil

"This is an ambitious book, and it does not disappoint. The questions Shermer addresses are as old as rational thought, but they have taken on a new urgency as we come to understand ourselves through the sciences of mind, brain, genes, and evolution. His analyses are sophisticated and filled with good sense, and are enlivened with fascinating material from science and history. The Science of Good and Evil is an excellent snapshot of contemporary thinking about the nature and sources of morality."—Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate

"Morality must have arisen long before modern religion came around to lay claim to it. Michael Shermer engagingly brings this controversial topic to life. This is the most convincing argument to date that the origin of our sense of right and wrong is to be found within us, that it is part and parcel of human nature."—Frans de Waal, author of Good Natured

"Michael Shermer's brain is a place where science, history, and psychology meet in the service of common sense. He uses his insatiable curiosity to penetrate the fog of fuzzy thinking, shedding light on the most controversial issues of science and society. Yet another courageous book."—K. C. Cole, author of Mind Over Matter and The Hole in the Universe

"There is no other volume on evolutionary ethics and its history that is as stimulating, critical, and comprehensive as Michael Shermer's. All of us are daily challenged by ethical dilemmas, and one's solutions are rarely satisfactory to everyone; this is particularly true if some of the solutions based on religion and philosophy. In the end, we must construct a Darwinian answer to the daily challenge of living a moral and ethical life. The best guide known to me is Shermer's profound analysis in The Science of Good and Evil."—Ernst Mayr, author of What Evolution Is

"Imagine there's no Heaven (as John Lennon suggested): what, then, is the foundation for morality? Skeptic magazine editor Shermer seeks to answer that question and to discover a scientific explanation for our notions of good and evil. He quotes Darwin to the effect that all scientific observation must be either for or against some point of view and avers his own viewpoint to be 'non-theistic agnosticism': the decision that, since God's existence is unprovable, he will live and act as if there is no God. The origins of morality and ethics, common to every society on Earth, must then lie in human institutions, Shermer concludes. Over hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors arrived at moral principles designed to maintain peace and order in communities of ever-increasing size and complexity. The earliest 'moral' principles are those that many animals recognize, such as protecting one's mate or young. As human society grew, the needs of larger and larger groups became the basis of morality; at the center of many of them lies something like the Golden Rule, treating others as we would wish to be treated. At the same time, early superstitions coalesced into religions, each of which took on the role of sanctioning the moral principles of its parent society. Shermer goes on to argue that evil has no independent existence but is inherent in human nature. Yet no outside authority is needed to make us moral, he argues; atheists (or temporary doubters) seem no more inclined to kill and steal than the religious. The true dignity of our morality arises from its basis in our common humanity. Shermer draws effectively on familiar instances, from the Columbine killings to the Holocaust, to illustrate and support his thesis. [This is a] thought-provoking and well-honed examination of deep questions."—Kirkus Reviews