Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Angus Deaton is a British economist and the author of The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality. In 2015 he won the Nobel Prize for economics. Pinker references Deaton’s work many times to demonstrate how people’s lives have dramatically improved in recent centuries, especially in terms of their health, lifespan, and wealth.

In Enlightenment Now, Pinker shares his admiration for C.P. Snow, a British scientist and author who argued for a rationalist approach to solving common problems such as disease. Snow believed that improving people’s quality of life should be the basis of society’s value system. Pinker supports Snow’s argument that developing science is a “moral imperative” since it can significantly contribute to improving people’s standard of living. Pinker contrasts Snow’s argument with that of his critic F.R. Leavis, an intellectual who argued that a society’s success is founded on engaging with literature with a kind of “religious depth of thought and feeling” (34). By including C.P. Snow’s arguments, Pinker credits the school of thought that has influenced him and argues against its critics at the same time.

Stewart Brand is an American writer and environmentalist who is famous for his role in creating the Whole Earth Catalog, which was popular with rural communes in the 1960s and 1970s. Pinker uses Brand’s work to support his argument for eco-pragmatism. Like Brand, Pinker believes that industrialization had important payoffs for humanity and that new technology can help us mitigate climate change. Additionally, he references Brand to argue in favor of genetically modifying plants to help farmers grow crops in challenging conditions.

Kant was a notable Enlightenment philosopher from Germany. Pinker praises Kant for denouncing war and laying out a pragmatic manifesto for peace in his essay “Perpetual Peace.” Pinker claims that Kant’s work helped encourage more peaceful conditions in Europe. In addition, Pinker credits Kant with encouraging the development of democracies and embracing reason while acknowledging that people are often irrational.