The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast

What's the crisis of liberal democracy? Dylan, Wes and Seth are joined by St. John's College President J. Walter Sterling to discuss Abraham Lincoln's "On the Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions" (1838) plus the beginnings of Steven Pinker's Enlightenment Now (2018), Patrick Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed (2018), and Francis Fukuyama's "Liberalism and Its Discontents" (the 2020 essay).

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Enrollment is now open for Mark's online political philosophy course. See partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.

Nessa teaches philosophy at Lone Star Community College and writes on the philosophy of humor. We thought we should get this topic out before we wrap our season (and Bill's regular participation) and reach 100 episodes.

We go through the main theories (superiority, incongruity/surprise, unconscious triggering, i.e. funny because it's true on some level we don't necessarily want to admit). Then Nessa (fictionally) becomes our podcast format consultant. We wrap up by considering the appeal of various stand-up comedians.

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We are concluding our treatment of Peter Railton's "Moral Realism" (1984), and given that you likely haven't listened to the seven preceding parts, this discussion can serve as a standalone summary of not only Railton's view, but of the best efforts of Mark and Wes to actually figure out what a plausible naturalistic, empirical account of ethics could amount to. You can consider this a conclusion to our recent PEL episode series on meta-ethics.

Read along with us, starting on PDF p. 42.

Sign up to support Closereads at patreon.com/closereadsphilosophy to get all parts of this discussion plus lots more content. Get all public Closereads episodes (including part one of this series) at closereadsphilosophy.com or on YouTube.

I bet you’d like to have an excuse to read some Aristotle, and Locke, Rousseau, Simone Weil, and other fun texts. Well, go read about this opportunity at partiallyexaminedlife.com/class, and then follow the link to enroll.

Not sure? Watch a sample (a full seminar from last semester on Plato) of what such a class is really like.

Continuing on on Just and Unjust Wars (1977), ch. 5-6. When might it be morally permissible to strike first? When is it permissible (or obligatory?) to intervene in another country's internal affairs militarily? We discuss Walzer's historical examples and apply his theories to current wars.

Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and tons of bonus discussion.

Sponsors: Visit functionhealth.com/PEL to get the data you need to take action for your health. Get a $1/month e-commerce trial at shopify.com/pel.

Enrollment is now open for Mark's online political philosophy course. See partiallyexaminedlife.com/class.