#354 — Is Moral Progress a Fantasy?

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sam Harris speaks with John Gray about the possibility of moral and political progress. They discuss historical and current threats to freedom of thought, the limits of law, the spread of dangerous technology, failures of convergence on norms and values, Arthur Koestler, de-industrialization in Europe, fellow travelers and the progressive embrace of barbarism, Bertrand Russell, the absurdity of pacifism, utilitarianism, the moral landscape, George Santayana, moral and scientific realism, pragmatism, atheism, Schopenhauer, liberalism as an historical accident, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast, this is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this you're not currently on our subscriber feed and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense Podcast, you'll need to subscribe at Sam Harris.org. There you'll also find our
0:24.9	scholarship program where we offer free accounts to anyone who can't afford one. We
0:29.0	don't run ads on the podcast and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.
0:34.0	So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one. Today I'm speaking with John Gray.
0:45.0	John is the author of many books, including The Silence of Animals, Black Mass, Straw Dogs, and the New Leviatans.
0:57.0	He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, and he has been a professor of politics at Oxford, a visiting
1:05.1	professor at Harvard and Yale, a professor of European thought at the
1:09.2	London School of Economics, and he's also been a frequent critic of the new atheists.
1:15.0	One of his books is seven types of atheism,
1:18.0	where several of my colleagues and I come in for some rough treatment.
1:22.0	Anyway, John and I cover a lot of ground here or rather he does.
1:26.2	He is a wealth of knowledge about the history of ideas. We discuss the historical and current
1:31.5	threats to freedom of thought, the limits of law, the
1:35.3	illusion as he sees it of political and ethical progress, the spread of dangerous
1:40.1	technology, failures of convergence on norms and values, Arthur Costler,
1:46.6	de-industrialization in Europe, the phenomenon of fellow travelers and the progressive embrace
1:52.2	of barbarism, Bertrand Russell, the absurdity of pacifism,
1:58.0	utilitarianism, the moral landscape, George Santayana, moral and scientific realism, pragmatism, atheism, Schopenhauer,
2:09.2	liberalism as a historical accident and other topics. John is a fascinating man as you'll hear.
2:16.8	And now I bring with John Gray.
2:25.0	John, thanks for joining me.
2:27.6	I'm very glad to be with you Sam.
	...

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