Hanno Sauer
FollowPhilosopher who sees good and evil as human inventions
Hanno Sauer is a philosopher who argues that good and evil are human inventions, and that the values we share run deeper than our divisions suggest. His book The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality traces five million years of moral history, from our earliest ancestors to today’s culture wars. It was a Der Spiegel bestseller, was nominated for the German Non-Fiction Prize, and was named one of the best books of 2024 by the New Yorker.
Sauer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University, where he works on moral psychology, metaethics and the philosophy of social science.
"Blend[ing] insights from evolutionary biology, cognitive science and anthropology ... Sauer has made a heroic effort to chart how morality has changed since the first humanlike animals began to populate Africa to predict how it might change in the future." ― The Economist
Hanno Sauer is a philosopher who argues that good and evil are human inventions, and that the values we share run deeper than our divisions suggest. His book The Invention of Good and Evil: A World History of Morality traces five million years of moral history, from our earliest ancestors to today’s culture wars. It was a Der Spiegel bestseller, was nominated for the German Non-Fiction Prize, and was named one of the best books of 2024 by the New Yorker.
Sauer is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Utrecht University, where he works on moral psychology, metaethics and the philosophy of social science.
"Blend[ing] insights from evolutionary biology, cognitive science and anthropology ... Sauer has made a heroic effort to chart how morality has changed since the first humanlike animals began to populate Africa to predict how it might change in the future." ― The Economist