Books Podcast: Steven Pinker

This week’s books podcast was recorded live at a special Spectator subscriber event in London, where I was talking to the Harvard scientist and leading public intellectual Steven Pinker about his new book Enlightenment Now. Steven argues that – despite what the news tells us by every measure human well-being now is greater than at any previous point in history. And he attributes this to the values of the Enlightenment.

I asked him: which Enlightenment? Can morality really be based on reason alone? And what’s a professor of cognitive science and linguistics doing in this subject area anyway? You can hear his answers below.

And if you enjoyed that, please do subscribe on iTunes.