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Episode 149: Plato’s “Crito”: A Performance and Discussion

October 17, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

Broadway bigwigs Walter Bobbie and Bill Youmans perform Plato's dialogue in which Socrates awaits his execution after being convicted by an Athenian jury of corrupting the youth and dissing the gods. Given that the verdict was clearly unjust, should Socrates take up Crito's offer to help him escape the city? Socrates says no: given that he's lived his whole life benefitting by  Continue Reading …

Ep. 149: Plato’s “Crito”: A Performance and Discussion (Citizen Edition)

October 16, 2016 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Authentic Broadway bigwigs Walter Bobbie and Bill Youmans perform Plato's dialogue in which Socrates awaits his execution after being convicted by an Athenian jury of corrupting the youth and dissing the gods. Given that the verdict was clearly unjust, should Socrates take up Crito's offer to help him escape the city? Socrates says no: given that he's lived his whole life  Continue Reading …

Applying the Epicurean Theory of Justice to Cannabis Legalization

February 23, 2016 by Hiram Crespo 3 Comments

Cannabis legalization is an idea whose time has come. Bill Maher recently gave us an eye-opening monologue on it, and in his newest book Waking Up, Sam Harris argued that experimenting with altered states of consciousness is certainly a civil right, and that everyone should have certain mind-altering experiences at least once in a lifetime. From an Epicurean perspective, we  Continue Reading …

Episode 98: Guest Michael Sandel Against Market Society

July 26, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On his book What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (2012), and also bringing Sandel into the discussion begun without him in our last episode about his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Free economic transactions are supposed to benefit both the buyer and the seller, so why not allow prostitution, vote buying, pay-to-immigrate, selling ad space on  Continue Reading …

Episode 98: Guest Michael Sandel Against Market Society

July 26, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 38 Comments

On his book What Money Can't Buy: the Moral Limits of Markets (2012), and also bringing Sandel into the discussion begun without him in our last episode about his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Free economic transactions are supposed to benefit both the buyer and the seller, so why not allow prostitution, vote buying, pay-to-immigrate, selling ad space on  Continue Reading …

Topics for #97-100: Sandel, Symposium, and What We’ve Learned

July 18, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

You've likely all heard about our big ep. 100 recording, and should surely start reading Plato's Symposium right now prep for that. To help you get all the various speakers involved in that work straight in your head, you might want to listen to the "In Our Time" episode on this from last January. The dialogue is about love, and a number of participants of this ancient  Continue Reading …

Rawls’s Second Principle: Compromise or Clusterf*#$?

December 19, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

Rawls's principle 2a, to remind you, is (quoting from wikipedia here): Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that (Rawls, 1971, p.302; revised edition, p. 47): (a) they are to be of the greatest benefit to the least-advantaged members of society, consistent with the just savings principle (the difference principle). This has appeal to modern liberals  Continue Reading …

Cooperative Society and Natural Rights

December 17, 2013 by Seth Paskin 5 Comments

When reading Rawls for the podcast, I took note of a seemingly innocuous distinction between Rawls and the traditional social contractarians that nonetheless struck me as odd given his appeal to social contract theory.  The traditional social contract theorists assume that rational individuals enter into social contracts to secure natural rights.  "Secure" here means 'protect  Continue Reading …

Episode 85: Rawls on Social Justice

December 7, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

On John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971), most of ch. 1-4. What makes for a just society? Rawls gives us a thought experiment: Imagine you don't know whether you're rich or poor or any of the other specifics of your situation (he calls this going behind "the veil of ignorance" into the "original position"). Now what principles would you pick to determine basic social  Continue Reading …

Episode 85: Rawls on Social Justice

December 7, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 30 Comments

On John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971), most of ch. 1-4. What makes for a just society? Rawls gives us a thought experiment: Imagine you don't know whether you're rich or poor or any of the other specifics of your situation (he calls this going behind "the veil of ignorance" into the "original position"). Now what principles would you pick to determine basic social  Continue Reading …

Precognition of Ep. 85: John Rawls

December 6, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

Seth Paskin summarizes the John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. Listen to the full PEL episode. Read more about the topic at partiallyexaminedlife.com. A transcript is available on our Citizen site's Free Stuff page.  Continue Reading …

Precognition of Ep. 85: John Rawls

December 6, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

Seth Paskin summarizes the John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. Read more about the topic. Listen to the full episode. Read a transcript.  Continue Reading …

Topic for #85: John Rawls’s Theory of Justice

November 10, 2013 by Mark Linsenmayer 5 Comments

Listen now to Seth's Precognition for this episode. On the evening of 11/10, we're discussing John Rawls. What is justice? Rawls interpreted this question as asking what basic social rules and structures would result in a society that we'd consider fair. Justice is fairness, on a social level. Fairness, of course, is an intuitive notion, and begs for a philosophical  Continue Reading …

How Did We Get Here?: Fukuyama on The Origins of Political Order

December 11, 2011 by Tom McDonald 4 Comments

In his new book The Origins of Political Order,Francis Fukuyama tackles the history of the idea and its reality "from prehuman times to the French Revolution." Fukuyama works under the contemporary name of political science, but he is really one of the few people we have today intellectually able to go beyond the narrow confines of academic specialization and to give us the  Continue Reading …

Episode 40: Plato’s Republic: What Is Justice? (Citizens Only)

July 11, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Plato

Discussing The Republic by Plato, primarily books 1 and 2. What is justice? What is the ideal type of government? In the dialogue, Socrates argues that justice is real (not just a fiction the strong make up) and that it's not relative to who you are (in the sense that it would always be just to help your friends and hurt your enemies). Justice ends up being a matter of  Continue Reading …

PREVIEW-Episode 40: Plato’s Republic: What Is Justice?

July 11, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 44 Comments

Plato

This is a 31-minute preview of a 1 hr, 37-minute episode. Buy Now Purchase this episode for $2.99. Or become a PEL Citizen for $5 a month, and get access to this and all other paywalled episodes, including 68 back catalogue episodes; exclusive Part 2's for episodes published after September, 2020; and our after-show Nightcap, where the guys respond to listener email and chat  Continue Reading …

Topic for #40: Plato’s Republic

June 5, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

What is justice? What is the ideal type of government? These are the two questions we'll be focusing on in our discussion of the most famous book of philosophy ever. Look, we realize that if you've ever taken a philosophy class, you've likely already been introduced to this work, and there are many many other places on the Web to find out about it, including some great  Continue Reading …

Episode 9: Utilitarian Ethics: What Should We Do?

September 18, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Discussing Jeremy Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation chapters 1-5, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and modern utilitarian Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality.") Going full tilt on the Greatest Happiness principle, with talk of gladiators, consensual cannibalism, and illegal downloads. How many Pleetons were in your last  Continue Reading …

Episode 9: Utilitarian Ethics: What Should We Do?

September 18, 2009 by Mark Linsenmayer 47 Comments

Discussing Jeremy Bentham’s An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation chapters 1-5, John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, and modern utilitarian Peter Singer's "Famine, Affluence, and Morality.") Going full tilt on the Greatest Happiness principle, with talk of gladiators, consensual cannibalism, and illegal downloads. How many Pleetons were in your last  Continue Reading …

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