staff. it's available for anyone that wants to use it. it's a source for genealogy and researchers and the source for people that are curious about the american experience. publishers use up all the it all the time because they have one of the largest elections of photographs. so if you need an elimination or illustration for something you're publishing, the chances are you are going to come to the american jewish archives. >> for more information about the recent visit to cincinnati and the many other cities visited by the local content vehicles, go to c-span.org/mac local content. >> you are watching book tv on c-span2. we are in las vegas attending the freedom fest interviewing authors and joining us now is somebody that's been on book tv for the previous books.

he writes that during the years i spent researching right through this book when i told people the subject was moral progress to describe the responses that i received incredulous is an understatement both people thought i was hallucinatory. >> right. >> the problem is that of course like everyone else. i'm trying to do is track the progress over centuries and millennia not for days and hours and weeks. for following the trend line if you think about it for a second, the abolition of slavery is illegal in every country for the few corrupt governance. it's nowhere in the the western world anymore. western world anymore. the abolition of torture is now a legal in the western doxies

and the right to vote by blacks and women into everyone over the world. the democracy itself is a normal progress. there are now 118 democracies in the world. in 1900 there were on the couple. the united states wasn't even a liberal democracy until 1920. so that is the kind of big progress that i'm talking about the civil rights movement, same-sex marriage is now legal as a week and a half and that is included in the moral argument. >> absolutely. in other words -- >> they want to conserve the old sort of class-based society whereas the long-term trend grants the individuals for autonomy and freedom and liberty over their own bodies and minds in other words here we are. this is what it is all about.

it's my mind and you can tell me what to do as long as i'm not hurting somebody else and for the people that want to get married, who cares it's nobody else's business. as long as no one is hurt. so that's the kind of stuff kind of step in the right direction. and having that as a standard. for the last 350 years or so. >> things are getting better and changes have happened. what is the criteria? while, it is my moral starting point making sure that us and

others like primate don't suffer. so you know one of the great utilitarian started about animal rights it's not can they talk but can they suffer so suffering with other people. do people have a right not to suffer? for coming you not causing some appeals to suffer is a moral decision. and that's how i make the argument by the way for free while. i'm making the argument is that the morality requires more choice. that's where it comes from and so what we have been giving doing as a society for 200 years since the end might have meant in the united states and the idea of the constitution and the bill of rights is that we are

saying everybody should be treated equally under the law. that is the new idea. it's only a couple of centuries old. they were invented in the 18th century they've taken off ever since. >> how does the enlightenment began? >> black >> it began with the idea that we can use reasons and logic and science to answer questions about the world that began. the universe is governed by the principles that can be discovered and then applied to change the world. the physics, biology, medicine, these all started shortly after new in it. everybody in europe and the uk and eventually in the united states wanted to emulate. they wanted to be the new tin of culture that is discover the principles that guide and the economy so there was no science

of economic in the wealth of nations is in the title of the book. the title of the book is the inquiry to the nature and cause of the wealth of nations. it's a bit of science. where does it come from because we want more of it for more people how to redo that. we can then apply it to the government society is to increase the prosperity of everybody. so everybody has been doing that. jefferson's idea structuring the government in a certain way to increase the prosperity, happiness, the pursuit of the property and so on, that's the idea. it is a scientific pursuit. >> from your book the bible is one of the most immoral works of literature. >> that is a pretty strong statement.

yes. the point of that statement is if you turn to the bible strictly speaking as a liberal reading by today's standards especially the old testament it is a book that nobody today practices any of the laws in deuteronomy for example, disobedient children or nonvirtual wives for mixing cotton and linen or working on the sabbath. these are the laws that were written for another time for another people. and i would put the abomination of the same-sex relationships in that same category. we can do better. we've already done better. most of the founding fathers in the united states were not religious. the point of the constitution as

is it doesn't matter what the relationship is. these are still the walls of the land. you have to obey them and i have to obey them. regardless of who is the dominant religion in the country. we don't care about that. these are the walls. [inaudible] spinnaker i think so for the most part. we have setbacks that we abolished it. granted it took a war to abolish it ultimately, but it is in its treatment of the native americans granting the right to vote only in 1920. that took many took over half a century. we are slow but we get there. free markets and liberal talkers these are the two best conversations we have for the country to shift from a theocracy to the hierarchical

structure where most people are poor and virtually everybody in society is fairly prosperous and has liberty. and the united states is one of the champions of that. the constitutional republic is a good system. >> what is an explanation of free-market capitalism leads to a moral society? >> if you want to generate more prosperity for people, that does make life better for everybody. and capitalism -- every economist knows that is the best way to increase prosperity not just for the 1% but for everybody at the bottom. psychologically, what they do is break down the triple barriers. i don't know you but money for goods or services i don't care what race you are and what's tried or from and what religion you are it doesn't matter you treated me properly by contract

and i treated you properly by exchange and so on. that is one of the benefits of trade. it's like travel having opened borders and people that travel west tend to be less liberal in terms of freedom and tolerance and differences than other people that don't travel as much. so it's people that are different from you in which you don't have to kill them or enslaved than you can then you can do something that benefits them and also benefits you and that has been one of the great benefits of capitalism but almost no one sees the most academics are liberals it's a good thing that but it is one of the best things ever invented. >> you said you worked on this book for several years. >> it's been a long time. i didn't know that much about the history of war. >> when the great powers went to war 1945 was the last time.

they are decreasing and it's true, it's nothing like the holocaust of the tragedies and so on. those are anomalies compared to today. even though there are still bad things happen. isis is bad, but it's tiny compared to somebody a century ago. so we are getting a handle even on the bad guys. i have been progress two steps forward and one step back. there are always going to be enough bad things to fill the evening news but if you're a pessimist you have no trouble finding evidence. but if you pull back and take the long view again, trendlines, not headlines you will see things are really hitting better. >> you have a pain pin in your lapel but says the skeptics. >> it is the name of my magazine. we are a science magazine that

basically investigate all kinds of controversial things, global warming, terrorism. those are the newest issues, and ask a schedule threat. a scheduled thread. there's a lot of myths. so we are the myth busters as it were. >> what do you teach? >> i teach a course called skepticism 101 how to think like a scientist and not be a geek is what it's called. basically i'm taking 18 euros right out of high school and teaching them how to use their brain turning them from marsh and to critical thinking. >> what does it mean to think scientifically? >> thinking critically being skeptical to the claims on the evidence and the challenges the critical questions of any and think for yourself. >> who is your favorite philosopher?