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Moral Minority

By: Charles & Devin
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  • Summary

  • Moral Minority is a podcast on moral philosophy and the problem of moral foundations. Why does morality matter? What grounds the moral principles to which we appeal when making judgments about right and wrong, justice and injustice? Do we have good grounds for making the judgments we do make–in our everyday lives, our relationships, our work, or in politics? And if not, where does that leave us?



    © 2024 Moral Minority
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Episodes
  • Vocation Lectures

    Vocation Lectures
    Apr 4 2024

    This episode discusses the German sociologist Max Weber's Vocation Lectures. In these lectures, Weber outlines a secular conception of the meaning of a vocation, the role of passion in politics and scholarship, and the kind of ethically responsibility that confronts us given the unavoidably violent nature of modern politics. Weber characterises modernity as the instrumentalization of reason and scientific knowledge towards the end of a kind mastery or control over the natural world. In a secular world, how do we decide what matters to us or what ends to pursue? If the nature of politics depends upon a desire for power, how do we motivate individuals of strong convictions to pursue politics and yet keep the lust for power in check? Weber doesn't necessarily offer satisfactory answers to these questions, but invites us to face the painful and frustrating choices of political action in a disenchanted world with clear-eyed dignity.
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    1 hr and 23 mins
  • Shame & Necessity

    Shame & Necessity
    Mar 9 2024

    In Shame and Necessity, Bernard Williams interrogates what we can still glean about the universal character of human action and the notion of responsibility from a study of the Ancient Greeks. William provides a philosophical interpretation of the historical circumstances of the Greek understanding, expressed in the tragedies, of agency, responsibility, and the role of luck in human affairs. His claim is that our modern concept of moral responsibility does not deserve its presumed role as a paragon case of human action. A theory of action need not be exclusively a theory of distinctly moral motivation. The Greek ethical sensibility differs from our modern one in emphasizing shame rather than guilt as the fitting response to agents as causes. Shame is directed at the failure to be seen by others and ourselves as individuals worthy of our established character. Importantly, for Williams, our concept of guilt as inextricably tied to moral responsibility does not represent a progressive development in our moral consciousness, but a contemporary prejudice. Can modernity dispense with metaphysically deep concepts like free will and still account for our ethical lives? What is the scope of our distance from the Greeks?
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Sources of Normativity

    Sources of Normativity
    Feb 26 2024
    This episode turns to Christine Korsgaard's Tanner lectures, "The Sources of Normativity," to explore how morality might be rationally vindicated from within the nature of practical rationality. Korsgaard's project is an iteration of the Enlightenment's attempt to ground morality in human nature. Korsgaard suggests that the correct moral theory will not merely provide an explanation of our moral natures, but also be justified in the light of our status as reflective animals. Her constructivist account of normativity will conceive of obligations as integral to our sense of identity, which in turn depends on our status as deliberative agents who must act upon some principle. Is the source of normativity a product of the correct application of moral concepts to the sphere of action? Are values the product of our self-legislating will? Can we understand unconditional obligations as derived from our shared identity as human beings?

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    1 hr and 15 mins
Philosophy Social Sciences
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