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PREVIEW-Ep. 260: Locke on Moral Psychology

January 11, 2021 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

One last take on John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), covering Book II, ch. 21 and 28.

What makes a moral claim true? Do we have free will? What makes us choose the good, or not? In this coda to our long treatment of Locke’s opus, we bring together all he has to say about morality, which is strangely modern yet also just strange.

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Ep. 260: Locke on Moral Psychology (Supporters Only)

January 11, 2021 by Mark Linsenmayer Leave a Comment

One last take on John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), covering Book II, ch. 21 and 28.

What makes a moral claim true? Do we have free will? What makes us choose the good, or not? In this coda to our long treatment of Locke’s opus, we bring together all he has to say about morality, which is strangely modern yet also just strange.

Should We Always Seek to Forgive?

January 1, 2020 by Neel Burton 1 Comment

The modern concept of forgiveness is fundamentally flawed. Instead of learning to forgive, we should learn to resent rightly, and, in some cases, to pardon.

New Books in Philosophy: Bongrae Seok on the Moral Psychology of Confucian Shame

July 20, 2017 by Robert Talisse 1 Comment

In his new book Moral Psychology of Confucian Shame: Shame of Shamelessness, Dr. Seok discusses positive aspects of shame as viewed through a Confucian lens.
Listen to an interview with the author on The New Books in Philosophy Podcast.

What the Word “Bigot” Actually Means (and Why it is Important)

November 29, 2013 by Wes Alwan 68 Comments

Update: Coates responds. I rebut. Ta-Nehisi Coates and Andrew Sullivan have both responded to my criticisms of their claim that Alec Baldwin is a “bigot” for, among other offenses, calling a photographer a “cocksucking fag.” In doing so, they resort to two tried-and-true tactics available to someone on the losing side of an argument: the first is to quietly abandon various Continue Reading …

No, Alec Baldwin is Not a Bigot

November 20, 2013 by Wes Alwan 49 Comments

Update: Coates responds here, and Sullivan here. My follow-up here. Alec Baldwin is a talented actor who also happens to be extremely intelligent, verbally dexterous, and politically active on the left. And he has a history of getting in trouble for very public (or publicized) displays of anger, once leaving a rant on his 11-year-old daughter’s voicemail in which he called Continue Reading …

The Moral Uselessness of Moral Outrage

May 26, 2013 by Wes Alwan 18 Comments

Andrew Sullivan has accused Glenn Greenwald of “justifying” terrorism for a post that is largely about the inconsistent use of the word “terrorism.” Greenwald’s response is a thorough and decisive debunking of Sullivan’s accusations, but I wanted add something as a follow-up to my discussion of Sullivan’s incoherence on these issues.  In this latest piece, he doubles down on the Continue Reading …

Episode 42: Feminists on Human Nature and Moral Psychology (Citizens Only)

September 5, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Discussing Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s utopian novel Herland (1915) and psychologist Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice (1983). How does human nature, and specifically moral psychology, vary by sex? Charlotte Perkins Gilman claims that when philosophers have described human nature as violent and selfish, they have in mind solely male nature. Females, left to themselves in an isolated society, would be supremely peaceful, rational, and cooperative. With guest Azzurra Crispino. Learn more.

End song: “Mother’s Day” by Mark Linsenmayer (2007). Read about it.

PREVIEW-Episode 42: Feminists on Human Nature and Moral Psychology

September 5, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 39 Comments

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Discussing Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s utopian novel Herland (1915) and psychologist Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice (1983). How does human nature, and specifically moral psychology, vary by sex? Charlotte Perkins Gilman claims that when philosophers have described human nature as violent and selfish, they have in mind solely male nature. Females, left to themselves in an isolated society, would be supremely peaceful, rational, and cooperative. With guest Azzurra Crispino.

Looking for the full Citizen version?

Magnetic Morality Modulation

August 2, 2011 by Daniel Horne 3 Comments

This September, PBS will re-broadcast an interesting episode of NOVA ScienceNOW, which touches on some points raised in PEL’s interview with Patricia Churchland. The episode demonstrates a procedure called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), which can influence a person’s moral judgments as they are being made, simply by messing with the neural activity located within the brain’s Right TemporoParietal Junction (RTPJ): If you find Continue Reading …

Topic for #42: Feminists on Human Nature and Moral Psychology

July 25, 2011 by Mark Linsenmayer 19 Comments

This episode will feature Azzurra Crispino, whom you might recall from our Kant on epistemology episode. We’re reading two works that were significant for the development of her interest in feminist philosophy: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland(1915) is a utopian novel about a society of all women. Gilman thought that when classic philosophers describe human nature as essentially selfish or competitive, Continue Reading …

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About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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