Philosophy Talk

Justice, truth, and identity;  race, society, and law—these all come into dramatic play as South Africa makes the tumultuous transition to a post-apartheid democracy.  How has the new South Africa constructed its concepts of reconciliation?  How has its historical emergence meant a rethinking, reimaging, re-experiencing, relabeling, and repoliticizing of race?  John and Ken discuss reconciliation...

Quantum mechanics is an astoundly successful, mathematically elegant, explanatorily deep, even beautiful scientific theory.  Yet it reveals a truly puzzling world of micro-entities: entities that can be at two places at once, that can “travel” from here to the other side of Alpha Centauri in an instant without traversing the space in between, that behave like waves when unobserve but like particle...

After World War II the Nurenberg trials and the conventions that arose out of them codified the idea that there are right and wrong ways to wage war.  That prisoners of war have definite rights, and that non-combatants should be treated differently than soldiers.  Some think the idea of a morality of warfare makes no sense, and that the distinction between soldiers and non-combatants is meaningles...

Politics, especially American politics, puts pressure on words like “liberal”, “conservative” and “values” as they are used more as weapons than as tools for communication. John and Ken discuss this process and the philosophical shifts that often accompany changes in meaning with famed San Francisco linguist Geoff Nunberg, a regular on “Fresh Air.”

Some actions are right, and some are wrong. But aren’t some even better than right—the kinds of things that heroes and saints do? Yet some philosophers think that such “supererogatory” acts make no sense; we should always do the best thing open to us, and there is no room for better than best. John and Ken discuss the philosophy and psychology of saints and heroes with Susan Wolf from the Universi...

The 17th Century philosopher Rene Descartes is often considered the father of modern philosophy.  His Meditations are a staple in introductory philosophy courses, and his views on the relation of mind and body have dominated philosophical discussion of this issue for three hundred years.  John and Ken discuss the life, times, and philosophy of this fascinating French philosopher with Ron Rubin fro...

Where would we be without emotions?  Many philosophers throughout history have thought the emotions serve only to cloud our judgments and actions.  Phrases like “He’s just acting emotionally” or “Her judgment is clouded by emotion” are phrases of condemnation, not of praise.  Still, some philosophers have argued the emotions have an intelligence of their own and that the emotions are indispensable...

It would be nice if we always knew the morally right thing to do, if our choices and commitments were painted in stark black and white.  Unfortunately life is full of gray areas, including situations in which all the choices that confront us seem morally problematic, in which all the people who surround us seem composed of equal parts good and evil.   John and Ken explore the extent to which reali...

What is the sound of one hand clapping?  Does Zen Buddhism provide a unique perspective on the world that transcends the wisdom in Western Philosophy?  Is there a special kind of Zen logic?  Or is it just one more religion?  John and Ken welcome Robert Scharf from UC Berkeley, author of Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism.

Does a hungry child in a far away land have any less of a demand on your good will and aid than a hungry child from your own family or neighborhood?  Does each individual have the duty to give to the worldwide alleviation of poverty up to the point at which further giving would cause his or her own family more harm than it would do good for others?  Or is responsibility for others a mostly local a...

What makes me who I am? Is it fair of me, or others, to take my race or ethnicity as part of whom I am? How does the age-old virtue of standing up for kith and kin comport with the demands of fairness as cosmopolitanism? Join John and Ken and Philosophy Talk regular Anthony Appiah from Princeton.

Parents have duties to their children. But do grown up children have obligations to their parents? More generally, do the younger members of a society have obligations to their elders? Where would such obligations come from? What are their limits? John and Ken investigate the moral ties that bind the generations together with Norm Daniels from Harvard University, author of From Chance to Choice: G...

Is the human mind a relatively inflexible program bequeathed to us by evolution, and culture just a veneer that gives age-old urges a respectable cover?   Or our minds largely the product of language, culture, and civilization, with evolution having supplied only the most basic hardware and operating system?   John and Ken welcome Leda Cosmides to shed some light on the human mind.

Is prostitution morally objectionable?   Should it be illegal?   Or is it simply a market transaction, where one party sells a service for a price that another party is willing to pay, and no third party is harmed?   Philosophy Talk favorite Debra Satz joins John and Ken.

Confucius laid down a pattern of thinking followed by more people for more generations than any other human being on the face of the earth. No matter what religion, no matter what form of government, the Chinese (and most other East Asian civilizations) and their way of thinking can in some way be shown to have Confucian elements about them. John and Ken discuss the ancient wisdom of Confucius wit...

Justice is a virtue and so, many claim, is forgiveness. But they seem inconsistent. Is forgiveness really a virtue? Philosopher Charles Griswold discusses the South African reconciliation process, truly evil people, and the virtue of forgiveness.

Allegedly independent radio commentators taking money to spout the government line! Fake news reports being produced and distributed by the Administration to promote a partisan agenda! Journalists abandoning neutrality and objectivity to become cheerleaders for a political doctrine! Where can this happen? Right here in the good old U.S. of A. propaganda is all around us! But what exactly is propag...

Are there genes for practically everything? For being gay? For being mean? For being a philosopher? Does modern science show that we are largely the product of our genes — or not? Join Ken and John and famed philosopher of biology John Dupre to see how trapped you are by your genes.

Arthur Schopenhauer, the great Nineteenth Century philosopher, had a pessimistic vision of the world as “will and idea.” Our will to survive serves no high purpose; the world is at best a shared illusion.   Schopenhauer influenced Nietzsche and Wittgenstein and inspired our guest, prominent psychiatrist Irv Yalom, to write the novel The Schopenhauer Cure. What truths, metaphysical or psychological...

We like to think of ourselves as enjoying unrestricted freedom of the will.  But modern science increasingly teaches us that our choices are causally determined by some combination of our genes, our upbringing, and our present circumstances.  Can the idea of freedom of the will be reconciled with the scientific outlook or is free will an illusion?  If we give up on the idea that we have freedom, w...

Progress in neuroscience may soon make possible an age of neurocosmetology: the use of drugs to let people affect the way their brains work, so as to make them more effective, more attractive, and more like their “cognitive ideal.” A world where all the women are beautiful and all the men handsome might be bearable if boring. But would a society full of type-A’s work at all? Can it be rational to...

Are there objective standards of beauty? Or is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Must art be beautiful to be great art? What is the role of the experience of beauty in a good life? John and Ken take in the beauty with Alexander Nehamas from Princeton University, author of Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art.

Can committed believers and committed non-believers share a common political life in the context of a secular state?  Committed believers may want the policies of the state to reflect their deeply held religious convictions and values.  Committed non-believers may not want the state imposing religiously inspired values in the absence of any purely secular justification.  Must religion retreat from...

David Hume was a superb essayist, a brilliant philosopher, and a world-class bon vivant. His philosophical views in ethics, epistemology, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion, though shocking to many in his own time, are enduring touchstones of modern philosophy, still required reading of every student of philosophy. Join John and Ken for a tour of a few of Hume’s most startling ideas with D...

Erotic experience is a human good. Mature, consenting adults should be able to explore the erotic realm freely, without outside interference. Pornography is illicit and destructive. But what is the real difference between the erotic and the pornographic?  Is there a bright line? In our attempts to regulate pornography do we run the risk of infringing upon the erotic freedoms of consenting adults?...