An exclusive for the Partially Examined Life community, Chapter 6 of my new book Free Your Mind: New Philosophy Chapter 6 - I Have Turned My Thoughts Towards Wisdom As the rest of us sat back down after our break, one man remained standing. I initially perceived him as generically White, but then I thought he might be Jewish, Arabic or even Latino. He had very dark Continue Reading …
The Limits of Philosophical Ethics
From Stephen Scher and Kasia Kozlowska, Rethinking Health Care Ethics (Singapore: Springer Nature/Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), published open access/free download, which you can find here. Conflicts with other persons typically demand that we make explicit our reasons or feelings in an effort to work through any differences. Possible outcomes range from the non-negotiable Continue Reading …
The Power of Empathy for Good in the World
(Excerpted from the recently released, The Character Gap: How Good Are We?) Sometimes it is easy to get discouraged if, like me, you read a lot of psychological studies about how people behave when faced with moral choices. In some studies we find the majority of participants not helping even with simple tasks. Examples include carrying some papers down a hall, or letting Continue Reading …
New Books in Philosophy: Richard Deming’s “Art of the Ordinary”
Excerpted from Art of the Ordinary: The Everyday Domain of Art, Film, Philosophy, and Poetry by Richard Deming (© Cornell University Press) As most people recognize, the surprise of a joke can open our eyes to the absurdity of the commonplace. Comedy does not merely alienate or estrange, however, as the audience needs to remain in touch with what is being dislodged. Continue Reading …
New Books in Philosophy: Justin Snedegar on Contrastive Reasons
Listen to Justin interviewed on the New Books in Philosophy Podcast. When we are thinking about what we ought to do, we are nearly always deciding among options. And we often talk in ways that reflect this; statements about what one ought to do are frequently explicitly statements that identify some act as the one to be performed from a broader set of alternatives. Continue Reading …
New Books in Philosophy: Bongrae Seok on the Moral Psychology of Confucian Shame
Listen to Bonegrae interviewed on the New Books in Philosophy Podcast. Shame is a complex social emotion that has a particularly negative valence; in the West it is associated with failure, inappropriateness, dishonor, disgrace. But within the Confucian tradition, there is in addition a distinct, positive variety of moral shame, a virtue that, as Bongrae Seok writes, "is not Continue Reading …
New Books in Philosophy: Peter Balint on Respecting Toleration
Listen to Peter interviewed on the New Books in Philosophy Podcast. The freedoms prized and secured in modern liberal democratic societies give rise to significant forms of moral and social diversity. In many cases, these forms of diversity must be dealt with by the state and its citizens. A standard way of trying to address social diversity is to call for toleration. But Continue Reading …