Posts Tagged Ethics
Episode 14: Machiavelli on Politics
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on February 7th, 2010
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:33:23 — 85.6MB)
Reading Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince and Ch. 1-20 of The Discourse on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy.
What’s a philosophically astute approach to political matters? What makes a government successful? Should you keep that fortress or sell it for scrap? If you conquer, say, Iraq, do you have to then go and live there for the occupation to work out? Is it OK to display the heads of your enemies on spikes, or should you opt for a respectful diorama?
Besides the famous Prince, Mr. M. wrote, at about the same time, the Discourses on Livy which focus on republics instead of princedoms, so the combined picture is less out of sync with our time than you might think, meaning we talk about G.W. Bush for a bit (sorry).
Plus: An inspirational speech to play at middle school assemblies across the land!
Skim the texts at http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm and maybe at http://www.constitution.org/mac/disclivy_.htm.
The Isaiah Berlin article we talk about a bit is “The Originality of Machiavelli,” which you read most of if you search for the essay title in this book preview: http://books.google.com/books?id=Zjv9fBU-YRoC&dq=berlin+the+proper+study+of+mankind&source=gbs_navlinks_s
End song: “Se Piangi, Se Ridi” (Mogol/Marchetti/Satti), recorded by Mark Lint in 2000.
Episode 12: Chuang Tzu’s Taoism: What Is Wisdom?
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on December 6th, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:50:14 — 101.0MB)
Discussing the “Chuang Tzu,” Chapters 2, 3, 6, 18, and 19.
It’s the second-most-famous Taoist text and the most humorous, with anecdotes about people singing at funerals and jumping out of moving coaches while drunk. What could it possibly mean to “make all things equal?” and how is the Taoist sage different from our other favorite paragons of virtue (hint: magical powers)?
Featuring special guest panelist Erik Douglas, another U. Texas philosophy grad school dropout now living in England, who knows more about Eastern philosophy than we do.
Read along at http://www.terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html.
The end song requires explanation: I had a “New Age” period where I investigated Eastern philosophy, tried to be cheerful all the time, and was generally insufferable. This song, “Pass Time Incorporeal,” is an artifact of that time, with lyrics from early fall 1989; the recording is from 1993. It finally slipped out on a 1996 album of similar goofiness rejected from my “real” albums called “Black Jelly Beans & Smokes.”
Episode 10: Kantian Ethics: What Should We Do?
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on October 19th, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:05:03 — 114.6MB)
Discussing Fundamental Principles (aka Groundwork) of the Metaphysic of Morals.
We try very hard to make sense of Kant’s major ethical principle, the Categorical Imperative, wherein you should only do what you’d will that EVERYONE do, so, for instance, you should not will to eat pie, because then everyone would eat it and there would be none left for you, so too bad.
Also, Kant on free will, “things in themselves,” our duties to animals, and prostitution! Plus: Should you go to grad school?
The Kant reading can be found at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5682. The Allen Wood article “Kant on Duties Regarding Nonrational Nature” is here: http://www.stanford.edu/~allenw/papers/Nonrational.doc.
End song: “Stop” by Madison Lint (2003).
Episode 9: Utilitarian Ethics: What Should We Do?
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on September 18th, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:59:04 — 109.1MB)
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 orgasm? Should animals count in the utilitarian calculus? What is Bentham’s skull up to nowadays? This extra long episode (patched together from two recording sessions, as Seth’s audio track got toasted for most of the first one) is disgustingly thorough and only occasionally internally redundant.
Read along at http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/bentham01.htm, http://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm, and http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972—-.htm (Also, for some more information on Singer’s view of animal liberation, see http://www.utilitarian.org/texts/alm.html.)
End song: “So Whaddaya Think?” by Mark Lint and the Fake (2000).
Episode 5: Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics
Posted by Mark Linsenmayer in Podcast Episodes on July 16th, 2009
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:41:17 — 0.0KB)
Discussing Books 1 and 2.
What is virtue, and how can I eat it? Do not enjoy this episode too much, or too little, but just the right amount. Apparently, if you haven’t already have been brought up with the right habits, you may as well give up. Plus, is Michael Jackson the Aristotelian ideal?
You can read the text discussed at http://www.constitution.org/ari/ethic_00.htm.
End song: A newly recorded cover of Billie Jean by Mark Lint and the TransAmerikanishers. (Hear it by itself here.)
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. Discuss episodes and provide feedback here or via our Facebook group. You can also e-mail comments to mark@marklint.com.
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