Enlightenment Now
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress is a 2018 book by cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, published by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, that advocates for the core Enlightenment principles of reason, empiricism, science, and humanism as drivers of measurable human advancement.[1][2][3] The book systematically marshals empirical data from diverse fields—including demography, economics, criminology, and environmental science—to demonstrate long-term progress in key indicators of well-being, such as rising life expectancy, declining extreme poverty rates, reduced violence, expanded literacy, and improvements in ecosystem services despite population growth.[1][2] Pinker attributes these trends to institutional applications of Enlightenment values, including market economies, democratic governance, and scientific innovation, while cautioning against counter-Enlightenment ideologies like nationalism, religion, and romanticism that he argues impede further gains.[1][2] Upon release, Enlightenment Now achieved commercial success as a New York Times bestseller and garnered acclaim from figures in science and policy for its rigorous use of data to counter pessimistic narratives prevalent in media and academia.[4] However, it provoked controversy among critics, particularly those aligned with progressive or postmodern viewpoints, who contended that its focus on aggregate progress overlooks rising inequality, cultural disruptions from globalization, and existential threats like climate change, though Pinker rebuts such claims as selective or empirically unsubstantiated, often stemming from ideologically driven sources resistant to quantifying improvement.[5][6][7] The work has since influenced public discourse on optimism and rationality, reinforcing Pinker's role as a proponent of evidence-based humanism amid debates over societal decline.[5]Publication and Context
Publication Details
Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress was first published in hardcover on February 13, 2018, by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House.[3] The initial edition measures 6.44 x 1.66 x 9.54 inches and carries ISBN-10 0525427570 and ISBN-13 978-0525427575.[3] A paperback edition appeared on January 15, 2019, from Penguin Books, with ISBN-13 978-0143111382, 576 pages, and dimensions of 5.40 x 8.20 x 1.40 inches.[8] An unabridged audiobook, narrated by Arthur Morey, was issued by Penguin Random House Audio in 2018, spanning 16 audio CDs.[1] The book has seen international releases, including a Portuguese translation by Companhia das Letras on September 6, 2018, in paperback format with 664 pages.[1] A UK edition was published by Allen Lane (Penguin) with ISBN-13 978-0141979090.[9]Author's Background and Motivations
Steven Pinker, born on September 18, 1954, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Jewish parents who were engineers, grew up in a secular household that emphasized intellectual curiosity and skepticism toward dogma.[10] He earned a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from McGill University in 1976 and a PhD in experimental psychology from Harvard University in 1979, focusing initially on visual cognition and psycholinguistics.[10] [11] Early in his career, Pinker served as an assistant professor at Harvard from 1980 to 1981, followed by positions at Stanford University (1981–1982) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he advanced to full professor in 1989.[11] He returned to Harvard in 2003 as the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, a role he continues to hold, conducting research on language acquisition, the modularity of mind, and evolutionary influences on human behavior.[12] Pinker's academic output includes over a dozen books, such as The Language Instinct (1994), which popularized computational theories of language, and The Blank Slate (2002), which critiqued nurture-over-nature dogmas in social sciences using evidence from genetics and cognitive science.[13] Pinker’s scholarly work has consistently emphasized empirical evidence and rational inquiry, often challenging prevailing ideological narratives in psychology and linguistics, such as extreme behaviorism or cultural relativism, by drawing on cross-disciplinary data from neuroscience, anthropology, and statistics.[12] His 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature argued, through historical data analysis, that violence has declined globally due to institutional and cultural shifts favoring reason and self-control, laying groundwork for his later defenses of progress.[13] This empirical focus stems from Pinker’s training in experimental methods and his advocacy for evolutionary psychology, which posits that human cognition evolved adaptive mechanisms testable via observation and modeling, rather than unverified assumptions.[12] Pinker wrote Enlightenment Now (published February 13, 2018, by Viking) to systematically demonstrate, using metrics like life expectancy, poverty rates, literacy, and homicide statistics, that human conditions have improved dramatically since the 18th-century Enlightenment, attributing this to principles of reason, science, and humanism.[2] Motivated by widespread pessimism in media and intellectual circles—despite data showing reductions in child mortality from 43% in 1800 to under 4% by 2015, and global extreme poverty falling from 90% in 1820 to 10% in 2015—he sought to counter declinist views from both populist right-wing sources decrying moral decay and left-leaning critics emphasizing inequality or environmental risks without acknowledging baseline gains.[14] [2] In the book’s preface and interviews, Pinker expressed frustration with "progress denial," arguing that rejecting evidence of advancement undermines solutions to remaining challenges, as it erodes commitment to the very tools—scientific innovation and institutional reform—that drove verifiable improvements like the eradication of smallpox in 1980 and a 95% drop in battle deaths per capita since 1945.[15] [14] He positioned the work as an extension of Enlightenment thinkers like Locke and Condorcet, urging renewed adherence to these ideals amid rising anti-rationalist trends, while acknowledging critics' points on issues like climate change but insisting on data-calibrated responses over fatalism.[16]Core Thesis and Arguments
Definition of Enlightenment Ideals
In Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (2018), Steven Pinker identifies the core Enlightenment ideals as reason, science, and humanism, arguing that their systematic application has yielded measurable advancements in human welfare since the 18th century.[2] These principles emerged from thinkers like John Locke, David Hume, and Adam Smith, who emphasized empirical inquiry over religious dogma and monarchical authority, fostering institutions such as markets, universities, and constitutional governments that prioritize evidence-based governance.[17] Reason refers to the disciplined use of logic, evidence, and probabilistic thinking to navigate reality, countering innate cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and availability heuristic, as detailed in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011).[17] Pinker contends that reason enables individuals and societies to make predictions, test hypotheses, and depoliticize disputes, as evidenced by its role in reducing fallacies in policy debates from public health to economics; for instance, rational analysis contributed to the decline of pseudoscientific practices like bloodletting by the mid-19th century through adherence to controlled trials.[17] Science embodies the Enlightenment commitment to discovering the universe's causal laws via falsifiable experimentation and cumulative knowledge-building, distinguishing it from anecdotal or ideological assertions.[17] Pinker highlights its achievements, including the eradication of smallpox in 1980 through vaccination campaigns grounded in Edward Jenner's 1796 empirical methods, and defends it against critiques linking technological progress to ethical lapses, insisting that science's integration with humanistic values amplifies benefits while mitigating harms.[17] Humanism constitutes a non-theistic moral framework centered on maximizing sentient well-being—encompassing longevity, health, prosperity, knowledge, safety, peace, freedom, and meaningful experience—without reliance on supernatural justification or sacrificial ideologies.[17][18] Pinker describes it as deriving value from empirical improvements in human lives, exemplified by the global literacy rate rising from 12% in 1820 to 86% by 2015, and articulates its credo: "Abundance is better than poverty. Peace is better than war. Safety is better than danger. Freedom is better than tyranny. Equal rights are better than bigotry and privilege."[19] These ideals interconnect, with reason and science providing tools for progress and humanism directing their ethical orientation against countervailing forces like tribalism and authoritarianism.[2]Causal Mechanisms of Progress
Steven Pinker attributes the observed improvements in human well-being to the Enlightenment triad of reason, science, and humanism, which together form a causal engine for progress by enabling problem-solving, empirical discovery, and a focus on individual flourishing.[2] Reason counters cognitive biases and tribalism through critical thinking and institutional design, such as markets that harness self-interest for collective gain via the extended order of trade and specialization.[17] Science provides the evidentiary foundation, yielding innovations like the Haber-Bosch process for synthetic fertilizer, which averted famines and supported population growth from 1.6 billion in 1900 to over 7 billion today without proportional increases in starvation. Humanism, emphasizing human welfare over supernatural or authoritarian dictates, prioritizes metrics like longevity and prosperity, fostering norms against violence and discrimination that have expanded rights and reduced practices such as slavery and dueling.[2] These mechanisms operate through interlocking institutions and processes. Free markets and property rights, informed by reason, have driven exponential economic growth, with global GDP per capita rising approximately 20-fold since 1820 due to innovation incentives and trade liberalization. Democratic governance, embodying humanistic equality and rational deliberation, correlates with peace by institutionalizing the monopoly on legitimate violence (the Leviathan state) and promoting cosmopolitan ties that deter war, as evidenced by the absence of great-power conflicts since 1945. Scientific feedback loops—measuring outcomes, testing hypotheses, and iterating solutions—underpin advances in health, such as vaccines eradicating smallpox in 1980 and reducing child mortality from 43% in 1800 to under 4% globally by 2020. Pinker describes progress as a virtuous cycle sustained by these elements: data collection reveals problems, reason critiques failed policies, science innovates remedies, and humanism evaluates against welfare standards, preventing backsliding. For instance, the Green Revolution's high-yield crops, developed through scientific breeding and distributed via market mechanisms, lifted over a billion from extreme poverty between 1960 and 2000. This contrasts with stagnant or regressive eras dominated by dogma or coercion, underscoring the causal role of open inquiry over fatalism.[17] While acknowledging risks like technological misuse, Pinker maintains that doubling down on these mechanisms—via education in rationality and evidence-based policy—offers the best path to continued gains, rather than nostalgia for pre-modern conditions.[2]Empirical Evidence of Progress
Metrics in Health and Longevity
Global life expectancy at birth has increased substantially over the past century, rising from approximately 31 years in 1900 to 73.3 years in 2024, reflecting advancements in public health, nutrition, and medical interventions.[20] This progress accelerated post-1950, with global averages climbing from 46.5 years in 1950 to 66.8 years by 2000, before further gains to 73.1 years in 2019, though temporarily reversed by 1.8 years during the COVID-19 pandemic peak in 2020-2021 due to excess mortality.[21] [22] Healthy life expectancy, which measures years lived in good health, followed a similar trajectory, advancing from 58.1 years in 2000 to 61.9 years by recent estimates.[23] Child mortality rates have plummeted, with the global under-5 mortality rate declining by 59% from 93 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 37 in 2023, averting an estimated 55 million child deaths over the past two decades through expanded vaccination, improved sanitation, and antipoverty measures.[24] Neonatal mortality, concentrated in the first month of life, fell from 5.0 million deaths in 1990 to 2.3 million in 2022, though it accounts for nearly half of under-5 deaths and remains highest in low-income regions.[25] These reductions are corroborated by World Bank data tracking infant mortality per 1,000 live births, which show consistent global drops tied to interventions like oral rehydration therapy and insecticide-treated nets against malaria.[26] Infectious disease control exemplifies causal progress, with smallpox—the only human disease eradicated—eliminated worldwide by 1980 after a WHO-led vaccination campaign that prevented over 300 million deaths in the 20th century alone.[27] [28] Vaccination coverage has since expanded, reducing measles deaths by 73% from 2000 to 2018 before setbacks, while polio cases dropped 99% since 1988 through global immunization efforts.[29] Maternal mortality ratios have decreased globally by about 40% since 2000, from higher baselines to 223 deaths per 100,000 live births by 2020, with total annual deaths falling to 260,000 in 2023, primarily through better obstetric care, family planning, and hypertension management in low-resource settings.[30] [31] Progress stalled in some regions post-2015 due to conflicts and pandemics, but long-term trends link declines to female education and healthcare access.[32]| Metric | 1990/2000 Value | Recent Value (2022/2023) | Decline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under-5 Mortality Rate (per 1,000 live births) | 93 (1990) | 37 (2023) | 59%[24] |
| Neonatal Deaths (millions) | 5.0 (1990) | 2.3 (2022) | 54%[25] |
| Maternal Deaths (annual, thousands) | ~546 (1990 est.) | 260 (2023) | ~52%[33] [34] |
| Global Undernourishment Prevalence | 15% (2000-2002) | 8.2% (2024) | ~45%[35] [36] |
Metrics in Prosperity and Knowledge
The share of the global population living in extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as less than $2.15 per day in 2017 purchasing power parity terms, declined from 42.2% in 1981 to 8.5% in 2023, reflecting a reduction of over 1.1 billion people in absolute terms despite population growth.[39] This trend accelerated post-1990, with the number of people in extreme poverty halving by 2015, driven primarily by economic liberalization in Asia, particularly China and India, though recent revisions to poverty lines have slightly moderated the reported declines for earlier decades.[40] Global GDP per capita, adjusted for inflation and purchasing power, rose from approximately $6,500 in 1990 to over $18,000 in 2023 (in 2017 international dollars), representing an average annual growth rate of about 2%, with accelerations in emerging markets contributing to broader income convergence.| Year | Extreme Poverty Rate (%) | Global GDP per Capita (2017 intl. $) |
|---|---|---|
| 1981 | 42.2 | ~7,500 |
| 2000 | 28.8 | ~9,000 |
| 2015 | 10.1 | ~13,000 |
| 2023 | 8.5 | ~18,000 |