Philosophy Talk Starters

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/ethics-torture. According to former Vice President Cheney, practices widely regarded as torture prevented further attack on America after 9/11. The facts are in dispute. But suppose he is correct – can torture be justified on such utilitarian grounds? What is the philosophical basis of our aversion to using torture? Is the moral principle not to torture abso...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/what-wife. The concept of a wife has been embedded in cultures, religious practices, social customs and economic patterns of wildly different sorts. Is there a core concept of what it is to be a wife? Is it a good concept, or one that deserves to be thrown on the trash heap of intellectual history because it perpetrates corrosive stereotypes of women? What c...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/fear. Fear is an emotion, but it is one with a long history in both political theory and politics in the real world. In many versions of social contract theory, it is a fear of the state of nature that leads to government in the first place. From McCarthy to post-9/11 politics, fear has played a leading role in American public discourse. Ken and John examine...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/what-normal. What does it mean to be normal? And abnormal? Who gets to decide, and what are the repercussions? When do we applaud deviations from the norm, when do we condemn them, and why? John and Ken take a look at the uses and abuses of making judgments about normality with Charles Scott from Vanderbilt University, author of "Living With Indifference" an...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/mind-reading. We base many decisions every day not only on the belief that other people have minds, but on detailed beliefs about what is going on in those minds: what these other people believe, feel, hope, and fear. The basis of our ability to "read" the minds of others is a lively area of research in psychology and the philosophy of psychology. Ken and Jo...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/philosophy-fiction. Philosophers think a lot about fiction. But do novelists think about philosophy? Do philosophers make good fictional characters? Can good stories be built around philosophical problems? When awarding its Genius prize to philosopher-novelist Rebecca Goldstein, the MacArthur Foundation said "[her] writings emerge as brilliant arguments for...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/nihilism-and-meaning. The ancients believed in an enchanted universe – a universe suffused with meaning and purpose. But with the dawn of modernity, philosophy and science conspired together to disenchant the universe, to reveal it as entirely devoid of meaning and purpose. Must any rational and reflective person living in the 21st century accept such nihili...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/it-wrong-wreck-earth. There are too many people, doing too much damage to the ecosystem, essentially guaranteeing that future generations will have a damaged Earth, and will have to invest incredible amounts of time, money and labor to repairing what can be repaired. But future generations are made up of people who don't yet exist – what obligations do we ha...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/minds-babies. Consciousness, morality, meaning and truth have perplexed and puzzled generations upon generations of philosophers. But could it be that we have been looking in all the wrong places to solve these imponderable mysteries? Could the minds of babies hold the key to philosophical progress? John and Ken are joined by renowned developmental psycholog...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/health-care-right-or-privilege. Do we have a right to healthcare, and to good high quality healthcare, in any precise and defensible sense? Or is the "right to healthcare" just a nice way to say it would be very nice if everyone had healthcare? John and Ken take a philosophical lens to the alleged right to healthcare and health insurance with Laurence Baker...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/schizophrenia-and-mind. To be human, philosophers have often said, is to be rational. But many people, for biological reasons, are clearly not rational. Schizophrenia is not only a malady, it is also a window on how the human mind works, and what it means to be human. Ken and John examine schizophrenia and its lessons for philosophers with John Campbell from...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/war-sacrifice-and-media. The media often present a sanitized and one sided narrative of war, torture and other forms of violence that blots out the faces and silences the voices of many of the main victims: the refugees, the victims of unjust imprisonment and torture, and the immigrants virtually enslaved by their starvation and legal disenfranchisement. Joh...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/what-are-words-worth. How do words shape our minds? Do the French suffer because they have no word for berry or cozy? Do we suffer because we have no word for schadenfreude? Why do we adopt new words, or give old words new meaning? Can we eliminate a concept by renaming it, or eliminating the word for it? Ken and John welcome back Geoff Nunberg, author of "T...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/philosophy-talk-highlights. It's a Philosophy Talk highlight reel for the membership drive. In this special episode, John and Ken relive some favorite moments from the Philosophy Talk archives. Listen to cognitive scientist Margaret Boden on creativity, computers, and the emotions, Stanford University's Kara Dansky on the nature of crime and punishment, Geor...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/postmodern-family. What is a family, and what distinguishes it from other kinds of associations? Is the traditional role of the family merely grounded in custom and habit, or is there a deeper philosophical justification for it? How has the structure of families changed over the ages, and how does it differ across cultures? John and Ken examine the structure...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/pornography. Is pornography an art form, or simply anything that depicts genitals in action? Where does mere eroticism end and pornography begin? In the internet age, pornography appears to have become not only more accessible but also more acceptable in American society – is this a welcome loosening up of a conservative tradition, or is it the path to moral...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/money-and-morality. Does our system of credit and money make upward social mobility possible for anyone willing to work hard? Or is it just a big Ponzi scheme? Are corporations the essential structures necessary to harness the capital, energy, intelligence, and leadership on a scale large enough to make and market the inventions that define modern life? Or a...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/prison-system. As of June 30, 2007, the prisons and jails in the land of the free held 2,299,116 inmates; one in every 31 American adults is in prison, on parole, or on probation. The state of California has more people in jail than China does, and this year expects to spend more on prisons than on higher education. Is something wrong with this picture? John...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/social-networking. From online bulletin boards at the dawn of the internet to the modern mammoths of Facebook and MySpace, people have used communications technology to associate in innovative ways. How do our old-fashioned values fit in to our new digital playgrounds? John and Ken network with Malcolm Parks from the University of Washington, author of "Pers...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/summer-reading-list-2009. Even if you're not going to Biarritz for the summer as usual, you can relax in the sun and read. There are a lot of readable, beach-friendly classics and non-classics to add philosophical depth to your Summer Reading. Join Ken and John to share some of the philosophically-minded reading on your list for this summer.

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/mind-and-world. What kinds of contact can the mind have with the world? Can we know how the world is in itself, or can we only know shadows of the world in our own minds? Are we trapped behind a veil of our own mental states? Is there a world outside my mind – or our minds – at all? John and Ken tackle the big questions of perception, the external world, and...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/worship. Worship is the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for something. The attitude of worship towards God or gods or ancestors is a universal of human culture. But why do we worship? Do objects of worship need to fulfill certain criteria? Does worship play a positive or negative role in human culture? Is it clear that a perfect, omnipotent...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/beliefs-gone-wild. Our brains evolved on the African savannah, but are now expected to deal with complex statistical information and other intricate concepts every day. The result: beliefs gone wild. Ken and John reveal the traps that the mismatch between our brains and the world we live in pose for ordinary mortals with their guest, The Undercover Philosoph...

More at http://philosophytalk.org/shows/desire. There are two ways to have your desires fulfilled: you can either get what you want (if you're lucky enough) or change your desires. If we can fit our desires to what we have, we're likely to be a lot happier. So why do we desire things that are out of reach? Why do we have desires that make us unhappy? And what can we do about it? John and Ken explo...

More at: http://philosophytalk.org/shows/too-much-information. “We’re just never going to catch up,” writes David Weinberger in "Everything Is Miscellaneous." That is, we're never going to catch up with the flood of information that is thrown at us by modern technology, especially the internet. We can never get all of our email filed, our digital pictures labeled, our calendars updated, our comput...