Episode 6: Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)
Very Bad Wizards20 Okt 2012

Episode 6: Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)

Tamler contemplates ending it all because he can't get 'Call Me Maybe' out of his head, and Dave doesn't try to talk him out of it. This is followed by a discussion about drones, psychopaths, Canadians, Elle Fanning, horrible moral dilemmas, and the biggest rivalry in Ethics: utilitarians vs. Kantians.

Links

"Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama." by Conor Friedersdorf

"Why I Refuse to Refuse to Vote for Obama" by Robert Wright.

Dave's study "The Mismeasure of Morals"

The write-up of Dave's study in The Economist: "Goodness Has Nothing to Do With It"

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Episoder(335)

Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought")

Episode 322: A Theater of Simultaneous Possibilities (William James' "The Stream of Thought")

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Episode 321: The Journey Begins (Plus Blind Ranking Philosophers)

Episode 321: The Journey Begins (Plus Blind Ranking Philosophers)

David and Tamler begin their long journey home to Homer's Odyssey, the tale of king Odysseus' 10 year journey home after the Trojan war (maybe the greatest story ever told). We dive into the first two...

25 Nov 20251h 29min

Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist")

Episode 320: Forgive Me (Kafka's "A Hunger Artist")

David and Tamler return to one of their favorites, Frans Kafka, this time on his beautiful and distressing short story "The Hunger Artist," a story that brims with metaphorical possibilities but also ...

11 Nov 20251h 29min

Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")

Episode 319: The Shadow of the Object (Freud's "Mourning and Melancholia")

David and Tamler transfer their libidinal energy to Freud's 1917 article "Mourning and Melancholia," in which he tries to understand what's going on with depression, attempts to distinguish it from no...

28 Okt 20251h 35min

Episode 318: A PTA Meeting

Episode 318: A PTA Meeting

David and Tamler share some brief thoughts about Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece One Battle After Another before going deep on his most underrated movie Inherent Vice. We explore the many co...

14 Okt 20251h 48min

Episode 317: For Shame

Episode 317: For Shame

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30 Sep 20251h 23min

Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")

Episode 316: A Four-Letter Man (Hemingway's "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber")

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Episode 315: Ceaseless Striving (Schopenhauer's Pessimism)

Episode 315: Ceaseless Striving (Schopenhauer's Pessimism)

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