Professor of political science, John Mearsheimer, and professor of psychology, Steven Pinker go head to head on the betterment of humanity since The Englightenment. Which ideals are the best to guide human flourishing?

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The Enlightenment advocated reason, science, democracy, and universal human rights as a grounding for human morality and social organization. In the quarter millennium since, to what extent have these ideals been realized? Has the Enlightenment in fact been successful in bringing about moral progress? Are there viable alternatives to the Enlightenment vision?

#TheEnlightenment #CanWeMakeProgress #HumanFlourishing

John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and is considered to be one of the most influential international relations theorists of his generation. He is the author of How States Think: The Rationality of Foreign Policy and The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities.

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and one of the most prominent public intellectuals of our time. He has been named as one of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” Pinker is the author of Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters and Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

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