Philosophy Talk Starters

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/right-privacy. Is the right to privacy – the right to be left alone and to control one’s personal information – really a right? Is privacy just a privilege that can be revoked any time it conflicts with other more important needs, like the need to protect our security? Who has the right to infringe upon our privacy and for what particular purposes? How much...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/democracy-universal-value. Americans value democracy, and expect others to value it. But is it a universal value? Does God, or rationality, or something very basic about human sensibility, dictate that states should be organized democratically? What if there were empirical evidence that some non-democratic form of government is more likely to produce human h...

A new year offers an opportunity to reflect on significant moments of the past twelve months. But what ideas and events that took shape over the past year have prompted us to question our assumptions and to think about things in new ways? What significant events – in politics, in science, and in philosophy itself – have called into question our most deeply-held beliefs? Join John, Ken, and their s...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/forgive-and-forget. At least forgive OR forget. Get things behind you. All good advice for those who don't want their life dominated by the bad things that have happened to them at the hands of others. This advice has also been applied to aggrieved populations following liberating reforms and revolutions, as in South Africa. But what is forgiveness? What are...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/military-what-it-good. Is the military draft a natural expression of democratic values, or a challenge to our most basic concepts of individual rights and liberties? Are the values that make for an effective military consistent with the values that make for a free and democratic republic? If the government must have the power to defend the nation, does it fo...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/nothing-sacred-anymore. Tribal societies lived in a world of the sacred and profane, ritual and taboo. Is there anything left of this structure in the modern world? Is anything really taboo, or are things just inadvisable, problematic, unhealthy, unwise, and less than optimal under the circumstances? John and Ken consider what, if anything, is still sacred w...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/miracles. Religions rely on miracles to demonstrate the authenticity of figures thought to have supernatural powers. Many people feel that key events in their lives were literally miracles. Many even claim to have witnessed miracles. But what counts as a miracle? Is it true, as Hume argued, that it is always more rational to disbelieve the testimony of a mir...

More at philosophytalk.org/shows/thinking-inside-box. Speaking to the National Association of Broadcasters in May 1961, FCC Chairman Newton Minow famously introduced the characterization of television as a “vast wasteland.” And that wasteland has only become vaster – though occasionally a flower will bloom, from “The Twilight Zone” and “Star Trek” to “South Park” and “Lost.” With help from listen...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/cooperation-and-conflict. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a problem studied in game theory that shows how two people might not cooperate even if it is in both their best interests to do so. It highlights the inherent tension between individual interests and a larger society. Should you pick up your trash at the lunch table? Should you push in your chair after gett...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/morality-and-self. Social psychologists have discovered that our self-images play a surprising role in our thinking about everyday moral matters. People who feel they have already proven themselves to be morally good feel less pressure to do the right thing than someone whose moral credentials are still in question. And people often resent, rather than appla...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/wisdom. Philosophy is the love of wisdom – or is it? Is this traditional definition outmoded? Is wisdom an anachronism, an elitist concept deployed by old learned people with nothing of practical value to say? Do the professors of philosophy around the world (or on this program) love wisdom any more or less than anyone else? John and Ken wise up with Valerie...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/latin-american-philosophy. Latin American Philosophy began centuries before anything of much philosophical consequence happened in North America. Yet in our own time, Latin American Philosophy is undergoing a protracted identity crisis. Is it just transplanted European philosophy? A reaction to analytical philosophy? A reflection of the themes of liberation...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/deconstructing-college-admissions-rat-race. America's elite colleges and universities spend millions of dollars to generate thousands of applicants, the vast majority of whom they reject. High school students – and their parents – work hard to gain entry to such institutions, and can be devastated by the rejection. Is there a purpose to this rat race? What v...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/time-space-and-quantum-mechanics. Quantum physics is regarded by many as the most powerful predictive theory science has produced. But there is no interpretation of what the theory means that all knowledgeable scientists and philosophers agree on. For example, quantum mechanics delivers no very clear message about the difference between past, present and fut...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/state-public-philosophy. In the 18th and 19th Century, philosophers and intellectuals were immersed in politics and popular culture. Even in the early 20th Century some of the leading academic figures of the time, like Bertrand Russell, also wrote for a broader public. Where have the public philosophers and public intellectuals gone? Can philosophers and int...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/philosophy-and-everyday-life. Philosophy isn't just about cosmic issues. Every day is full of events that raise philosophical questions: why do we eat the things we eat, work the way we work, go to the places we go? What ideas underlie our most basic activities? John and Ken look for depth in the daily grind with Robert Rowland Smith, author of "Breakfast Wi...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/psychology-evil. True evil seems easy to recognize: the killing of innocent children; assigning whole populations to death by gassing, or napalm, or aerial bombing. These acts go beyond the criminal, the mean, the bad. But what is the psychology of evil-doers? Are they monsters among us just like the rest of us, with one screw a little loose, or are they rad...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/atheism-and-well-lived-life. Atheists don't believe in God – does that mean they don't find life meaningful? Are atheists doomed to be grouchy nihilists, finding meaning only in criticizing theists? Or does a world without God offer its own meanings and values to structure a well-lived life? John and Ken search for a meaningful atheism with Louise Antony fro...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/whodunit-language-responsibility. Who is responsible for the broken vase in the foyer? How harshly should criminals be punished for their crimes? Did Justin Timberlake mean to disrobe Janet Jackson during her infamous ‘wardrobe malfunction’? Cognitive scientists have recently discovered some surprising ways in which the language we use influences how we thin...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/gay-pride-prejudice. The question of gay rights has become a hot button issue, with opposition taking on the air of a moral panic and support taking on the air of a righteous crusade. John and Ken attempt to dispassionately examine the competing scientific, religious, and philosophical visions of the nature of gayness. They explore the consequences of those...

Summer's just around the corner – what philosophers, philosophies, or philosophical issues do you want to read up on? Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" may not be the obvious choice to take on vacation, but there are lots of readable, beach-friendly classics and non-classics to add philosophical depth to your summer reading. Not to mention new and classic fiction books with a philosophical bent. Jo...

More at: http://philosophytalk.org/shows/cities-gentrification-and-inequality. In the 1960s, as many American cities burst and burned, the upper and middle classes fled to the suburbs, leaving behind a decaying infrastructure and a socially isolated urban underclass. In more recent times, many urban centers have undergone re-gentrification, and with it the return of the upper classes, safer neighb...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/should-marriage-be-abolished. State-sanctioned marriage has long been regarded as one of the bedrocks of a stable society. But in recent times, this venerable institution has become the focus of intense debate, as those long denied the right to marry clamor to be let in and those determined to keep marriage the way it's always been threaten to amend the cons...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/extended-mind. An increasing number of psychologists and philosophers believe that to understand how the mind really works, we must understand it as both embedded in a body and as situated in an environment. According to some, in fact, the body and the environment do not just house the mind, but are an essential part of the mind in the sense that workings of...

In the Middle Ages, people married, had children, went off to war and took on all the traditional trappings of adulthood by their early teens. But today many people put off those trappings until well into their thirties. Some have even suggested that we need a new vocabulary to describe the variety of life stages experienced by 21st century humans. John and Ken explore the new adulthood with Ethan...