Philosophy Talk

People tend to treat other people who differ from them, even in seemingly small and insignificant ways, as less than fully human. Our tendency to dehumanize the “other” has sometimes led to great atrocities like the Holocaust, the genocide in Rwanda, and the slave trade. It is arguably responsible for such widespread social ills as racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Where does our tendency to dehumanize others come from? Is it based on bad arguments hat can be rationally refuted, or are its origins deeper in the human psyche? Are we bound to see the “other” as less than fully human? John and Ken take a human approach with David Livingstone Smith from the University of New England, author of Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others.

Would you want to live forever? It’s a tempting notion that has been explored and imagined for centuries. Immortality may be desirable, but it may also be that death is a significant part of what gives meaning to life. So what would a society of immortal individuals look like? What might some of the challenges or rewards of an immortal life be? How would living forever affect our relationships with one another, our life goals, or simply the way we perceive time? Would the impacts of immortality ultimately be beneficial or detrimental to us? John and Ken tempt fate with John Fischer from UC Riverside, author of Our Stories: Essays on Life, Death, and Free Will. Part of our series Visions of Immortality.

We are faced with decisions all the time in life. Normally, we think about the possible outcomes and choose a course of action that matches what we take to be of most value to us. However, one might think that some decisions—like whether or not to have a child—can so profoundly transform our lives that we cannot possibly know what the outcome will be like until it actually happens. Are these the kind of decisions in which our regular approach to decision-making becomes useless? Can life-changing decisions ever be made rationally? If not, can we still make good choices? John and Ken make some major decisions with Laurie Paul from UNC Chapel Hill, author of Transformative Experience.

Imagine that your eight-year-old son arrives home boasting that he won the race that day in gym class. Right as your heart begins to swell with pride, he reveals that he wasn’t the only winner—the whole class won the race. The gym teacher, it turns out, thought that naming just one winner would be unfair. If our obsession with fairness leads to absurdities like this, why should we be so committed to being fair? Why not reserve the best we have to offer for those who actually deserve it? Can there be justice, kindness, and compassion in a world without fairness? John and Ken play favorites with Stephen Asma from Columbia College Chicago, author of Against Fairness: In Favor of Favoritism.

From Plato and Sextus Empiricus to Wittgenstein, many important thinkers have thought of philosophy as a type of therapy. By looking at our way of life through a philosophical lens, we can achieve a particular kind of understanding that can bring us peace of mind. But can philosophy really help those who experience mental anguish? Don’t we have shrinks and medication for that? If philosophy is more likely to raise more questions than it offers answers, how could it help us overcome suffering? What would it mean for an emotional or psychological problem to have a philosophical cure? John and Ken seek solace with David Konstan from NYU, author of The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature.

Whether for counterterrorism measures, street level crime, or immigration, racial profiling of minorities occurs frequently. However, racial profiling is illegal under many jurisdictions and many might say ineffective. Is racial profiling ever moral or is it always an unjustified form of racism? Is there any evidence that certain races or ethnic groups have a tendency to behave in particular ways? Or is racial stereotyping a result of deeply-held biases we’re not even aware of? Ken and guest host Jenann Ismael share their profiles with Linda Alcoff from the City University of New York, author of Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self.

We like to think of ourselves as self-aware, reflective beings, but psychological studies demonstrate that we’re usually overconfident in the accuracy of our own beliefs. Memory, for example, can be extremely unreliable, even when we feel certain we know what happened. Surprisingly, when we’re made aware of this, we adjust our level of confidence in ourselves only slightly. How, then, can we doubt ourselves in a rational and efficient manner to bring our beliefs closer to reality? And, just as importantly, how do we prevent ourselves from falling into the other extreme of constant second guessing? John and Ken don’t think twice with Sherri Roush from UC Berkeley, author of Tracking Truth: Knowledge, Evidence, and Science.

Niccolò Machiavelli is best known for arguing that people in power should use deception, force, and manipulation if those tactics are necessary to achieve their ends. In an age of unscrupulous politics and ruthless business practice, shouldn’t we be encouraging a move away from Machiavellian thinking? Then again, are we even sure that those “Machiavellian” views were really Machiavelli’s? If not, what did he really think, and what might we learn from him? John and Ken plot and scheme with Maurizio Viroli from Princeton University, author of Redeeming the Prince: The Meaning of Machiavelli’s Masterpiece.

Doing the right thing is often an extremely difficult task. Yet psychological research indicates that infants as young as 21 months old have a crude sense of what is right and wrong. This capacity is reflected by infants’ decisions to reward or punish characters in social scenarios. But surely a genuine, robust, mature moral compass is much more complicated than that. So what can babies tell us about adult morality? How much of morality is innate, and how much must we develop as moral thinkers? John and Ken talk infant morality with Paul Bloom from Yale University, author of Just Babies: The Origins of Good and Evil.

Turns out that Galileo was right and Aristotle was wrong: in a vacuum, a feather and a bowling ball will fall from a tall building at exactly the same speed. This is not to say that Aristotle wasn’t a brilliant thinker; empirical evidence shows he just had a wrong intuition. Even the most powerful intuitions we have can be misleading. Why is it, then, that many philosophers treat them as crucial when arguing for a conclusion? Can intuitions lead us to important truths about the world, or do they merely teach us about ourselves? John and Ken trust their instincts with Alvin Goldman from Rutgers University, author of Pathways to Knowledge: Private and Public.