Professor Martha C. Nussbaum on Vulnerability, Politics, and Moral Worth with Sam Harris
samharris.orgSubmitted by palsh7 t3_10hw7yd in philosophy
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BernardJOrtcutt t1_j5b000t wrote
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bradyvscoffeeguy t1_j5c9qr4 wrote
God I remember Nussbaum as the contemporary star of ethics back in something like 2010? Probably did all her work much earlier and I had only really started getting into ethics then. Good to see she got that official recognition, she deserved it.
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Grim-Reality t1_j5cr5kr wrote
Why are u posting this shit when half of it is behind a paywall lol. That sucks Harris.
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mjkjg2 t1_j5d16n9 wrote
what a coincidence, I watched this last night
mjkjg2 t1_j5d1aug wrote
he says all you have to do is email his site and he’ll give you free access
Grim-Reality t1_j5d5q82 wrote
Oh cool that’s neat thanks. It gives you a free 3 months sub. You can also buy 1 year for 30$. I listened to the first half it was a great episode.
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palsh7 OP t1_j5d7im4 wrote
45 minutes of free discussion of philosophy isn’t worth listening to?
palsh7 OP t1_j5d7u5t wrote
I expected a higher quality of commentary and criticism on this sub.
Huh.
Grim-Reality t1_j5d8l84 wrote
It wasn’t if your already familiar with the subject and have read nussbaum’s works. I learned very little, from the first 45 mins. I will listen to the rest, im sure it has more to teach.
marhide t1_j5d9qad wrote
You must be new then.
Sam Harris has long been considered guilty of wrongthink by the exact kind of people who populate American philosophy departments and this subreddit.
palsh7 OP t1_j5daoig wrote
You’re trying strangely hard to be negative for someone who just listened to a free 45 minutes of someone they’re interested in hearing from, commented elsewhere that it was a “great” episode, and then signed up for a free three months of the podcast so that they can listen to the second half.
palsh7 OP t1_j5dk67w wrote
I don't doubt that Sam has pissed off a lot of people on the left and right of the political and philosophical spectrum. I still would have thought a [wannabe] philosopher would have a more thoughtful way of saying "Fuck this guy I have a tertiary knowledge of."
palsh7 OP t1_j5dkkja wrote
... although it's better than the response of /r/psychology, which was to make a weird comment about Jordan Peterson in a thread in which Sam was interviewing an entirely different Psychiatry Professor from Harvard.
marhide t1_j5dl7qx wrote
I disagree with him about some things and agree with him about some things, but he’s thoughtful and articulate, and I always learn something from listening to him and his guests.
Surely nobody disagrees with him about everything, so it puzzles and annoys me that there are people here who think he should be completely absent from the subreddit just because he believes some things that other people don’t believe. It’s so childish and intolerant, but unfortunately that’s the direction western civil society is going.
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bildramer t1_j5e1f3u wrote
Most free discussion of philosophy isn't worth listening to, and might in fact have negative value. I'm not convinced these 45 minutes are different, based on your summary.
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Grim-Reality t1_j5fbx0c wrote
Not really, I meant it’s a great episode in general. People will learn from it. It’s not meant to be negative, you asked me personally what I got out of the first 45 mins. And i didn’t sign up just for this episode, I’m going to go back and check out the 300 other episodes.
palsh7 OP t1_j5fc384 wrote
I’m glad you like it. I’m not sure why you said it wasn’t worth listening to.
chrispd01 t1_j5fc8p9 wrote
What is the deal with Harris ? Just asking as I was excited to see Nussbaum whom I love since reading the Fragility of Goodness …
BernardJOrtcutt t1_j5ffulj wrote
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BernardJOrtcutt t1_j5fg44h wrote
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BernardJOrtcutt t1_j5fga5t wrote
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hammersickle0217 t1_j5fncza wrote
We aren’t allowed to talk about it. See all the deleted comments? The short version is that he has paper degrees and is intellectually dishonest. Very little critical thinking.
gardsy26 t1_j5fusu3 wrote
Please. It's because no one can provide a coherent credible criticism of him
Why is he intellectually dishonest?
hammersickle0217 t1_j5fv81z wrote
Tried that. It gets deleted.
gardsy26 t1_j5fvgjk wrote
DM the criticism so I can understand.
gardsy26 t1_j5fxzd6 wrote
You should find out for yourself! He has written many books and has a very influential podcast (my opinion). Here's the wiki:
Samuel Harris is an American philosopher, neuroscientist, author, and podcast host. His work touches on a range of topics, including rationality, religion, ethics, free will, neuroscience, meditation, psychedelics, philosophy of mind, politics, terrorism, and artificial intelligence. Harris came to prominence for his criticism of religion, and Islam in particular, and is known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism, along with Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.
Although after a recent interview which resulted in memes and click-bait headlines taking things out of context, he is now the whipping boy of the right. On the other hand he equally (if not more) criticizes the left, resulting him to be targeted by people who align there also. He's an easy target for online trolls and those who want to earn internet points fairly easily without critical thought.
palsh7 OP t1_j5gscx0 wrote
As my submission statement said, Sam Harris is the author of The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, The End of Faith, and other NYT best sellers. Sam received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. He has also practiced meditation for more than 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. He is the creator of the meditation app Waking Up.
palsh7 OP t1_j5gt2ez wrote
In the second half, which is paywalled if you don't request a free subscription, Sam takes issue with Nussbaum's assertion that there can be no hierarchy between living creatures, and that one should care as much about the killing of a mouse as the killing of a human. When pressed, she admitted that she wouldn't feel the same in both scenarios, but only because she is imperfect.
This may have been the most important question raised in the discussion: is it only "speciesism" that leads us to value complex life more than "less complex" life, or is there actually a rational basis from which to ask the question of which animals' lives are more important? To what degree are all creatures conscious, and what level of consciousness is deemed "conscious enough" for us to feel empathy? What kind of world would we be living in if we actually cared less about four homeless people than about five squirrels?
This touched on some of the same ideas that Sam has discussed with Peter Singer, Uma Valeti (Memphis Meats), and others, as well as one of his hobby horses, consciousness.
chrispd01 t1_j5guudg wrote
Well, yeah. I read your submission, Stephen. But there seems to be a lot of buzz about him. Your statement wasn that helpful on the gossip side …
palsh7 OP t1_j5gy0as wrote
I don't know what "Stephen" is supposed to mean.
"What's the deal with [him]" is a pretty unspecific question. Are you asking why it is that some people don't like him? If that's what you meant, I can answer that.
He started his writing career attacking religion alongside Richard Dawkins, so the Christian Right really didn't like him. Then more recently he criticized Donald Trump quite a lot, so they got even more incensed. Then he rejected association with some former debate partners like Jordan Peterson, publicly saying that they'd gone off the deep end during the Trump years, and during Covid, and that made the right even angrier.
But the Left doesn't like him, either. While attacking religion post-9/11, he paid special attention to Islam, and how the specific tenets and beliefs of a religion or religious person can lead to increased suffering. This got people like Glenn Greenwald and Sam Seder quite angry, because they thought it supported endless war in the Middle East. More recently, as I mentioned, Sam debated Jordan Peterson about religion, and because his relationship with him during the debates was friendly, people lumped them together. Sam has also rejected most of the talking points of the social justice Left, and was labeled racist when he interviewed Charles Murray, the author of The Bell Curve, popularly believed to be a text that supports racism. Though he is no further right on race than someone like John McWhorter, who is fairly center-left politically, this label has stuck in some circles, especially after Ezra Klein debated him.
Most of his time, though, is spent talking about consciousness, the self, free will, meditation, charitable giving, and other middle of the road topics.
chrispd01 t1_j5hakn2 wrote
I have no idea where the Stephen came from - some auto-complete. Thanks for this. Very thorough and appreciated.
palsh7 OP t1_j5ias7x wrote
>very thorough and appreciated
Someone downvoted it. LOL.
chrispd01 t1_j5ic2kw wrote
Welcome to Reddit. Where no honest effort goes unpunished ….
palsh7 OP t1_j5icc2m wrote
This entire post was at 0 for like the first five hours or so. I was pleasantly surprised to see it break through. Didn’t think it would even be visible.
chrispd01 t1_j5idvzc wrote
I just really like Nussbaum. She is such a great reader and writer .. I need to figure out how to access this interview
Tinac4 t1_j5j2lfa wrote
Unless unddit missed something, your removed comment was was “Obligatory down vote, for Sam.” and nothing else. What makes you think that the mods removed your comment because it criticized Harris, and not because it violated commenting rules 1 and 2?
[deleted] t1_j5k2wkv wrote
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XiphosAletheria t1_j5m8v1r wrote
>This may have been the most important question raised in the discussion: is it only "speciesism" that leads us to value complex life more than "less complex" life, or is there actually a rational basis from which to ask the question of which animals' lives are more important?
I mean, "important" is a value judgement, and so the question becomes "important to whom and for what". Animals are super important to me, for instance, because they provide me with a lot of different food products. I suppose the term "specieism" is an attempt to try to draw parallels with the notion of "racism", and to transfer the current moral outrage over the latter to the former, but if you ignore the emotional elements, the parallel isn't particularly helpful.
palsh7 OP t1_j5mhm83 wrote
>animals are super important to me
Seems like you find the debate important, then?
BernardJOrtcutt t1_j5mpwjy wrote
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>Read/watch/listen the posted content, understand and identify the philosophical arguments given, and respond to these substantively. If you have unrelated thoughts or don't wish to read the content, please post your own thread or simply refrain from commenting. Comments which are clearly not in direct response to the posted content may be removed.
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clavesto69 t1_j633zet wrote
She has no novel idea, says nothing of value. Run of the mill academic with no exposure to reality. I was shocked she didn't get Sam's joke on the type of food they offer at gatherings to get consensus on controversial religious topics..
palsh7 OP t1_j5at4po wrote
January 19, 2023
Martha C. Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics, appointed in the Philosophy Department and the Law School of the University of Chicago. She gave the 2016 Jefferson Lecture for the National Endowment for the Humanities and won the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, the 2018 Berggruen Prize in Philosophy and Culture, and the 2020 Holberg Prize. These three prizes are regarded as the most prestigious awards available in fields not eligible for a Nobel. She has written more than twenty-two books, including Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions; Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice; Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities; and The Monarchy of Fear.
Website: simonandschuster.com
Sam Harris is the author of The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, The End of Faith, and other NYT best sellers. Sam received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. He has also practiced meditation for more than 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. He is the creator of the meditation app Waking Up.
Summary
Sam Harris speaks with Martha C. Nussbaum about her philosophical work. They discuss the relevance of philosophy to personal and political problems, the influence of religion, the problem of dogmatism, the importance of Greek and Roman philosophy for modern thought, the Stoic view of emotions, anger and retribution, deterrence, moral luck, sexual harassment, the philosophical significance of Greek tragedy, grief, human and animal flourishing, the "capabilities approach" to valuing conscious life, the rightness or wrongness of moral hierarchies, "the fragility of goodness," and other topics.