The Evolution of God

In his latest book, The Evolution of God, Robert Wright effectively argues that the moral imagination (e.g., the ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person) has evolved as a natural product of humanity’s evolution. He writes:

[A]s natural selection ground along, creating more and more intelligent forms of life, it eventually created a form of life so intelligent as to give birth to a second creative process, cultural evolution; and as cultural (especially technological) evolution proceeded, the human species exhibited larger and larger expanses of social organization, and eventually this expanse approached global proportions, and in the process there appeared a moral order, linkage between the growth of social organization and progress toward moral truth. (450).

Wright’s book provides a strong suggestion that the “purpose” and meaning of human history included the development of the moral imagination which itself, works to ensure the survival of the human species.