whats wrong speciesism

kagan interview on speciesism

Philosophy

On Carl Jung’s “Approaching the Unconscious” from Man and His Symbols, written in 1961.

What’s the structure of the mind? Jung followed Freud in positing an unconscious distinct from the conscious ego, but Jung’s picture has the unconscious much more stuffed full of all sorts of stuff from who knows where, including instincts (the archetypes) that tend to give rise to behavior and dream imagery that we’d have to call religious. We neglect this part of ourselves at our psychological peril, and Jung also attributes the ills of the age (like nihilism and WWII) to being out of touch with our larger, unconscious selves.

Sound like goofy pop psychology? Well, Jung’s book was written specifically for the populace, and many have run with his emphasis on spiritual self-knowledge and his openness to talk of the paranormal to conclusions less well founded than Jung would have liked. Mark, Seth, and Wes keep trying to make the text speak to other philosophical works but eventually get sidetracked and occasionally personal on this very special episode.

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Jung on the Psyche and Dreams - Partially Examined Life

On Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Gay Science (1882, with book 5 added 1887).

What is wisdom? Nietzsche gives us an updated take on the Socratic project of challenging your most deeply held beliefs. Challenge not just your belief in God (“God is dead!”) but uncover all your habits of thinking in terms of the divine. Question the motives behind relentless inquiry: the “will to truth.” Realize how little of your life is actually a matter of conscious reflection, and the consequent limits on self-knowledge. The very act of systematization in philosophy overestimates what we can know; instead, we need a “gay” (in the sense of cheerful, carefree, and subversive) science (in the sense of organized knowledge; this is not about modern experimental science) that chases after fleeting insights and is able to question, i.e. laugh at, the pretensions of its own activity. This is the position from which one can then artistically create one’s own character and one’s values, and this “creation” is not whimsical in the sense of arbitrary, but is a matter of rigorous and careful discernment, an exercise of one’s “intellectual conscience.” Hear Mark, Wes, and Dylan frolic through this field of aphorisms and short essays.

Nietzsche's Gay Science - Partially Examined Life

The 2015 Society for Applied Philosophy annual lecture was given by Professor Shelly Kagan of Yale University. 

Abstract: Peter Singer famously argued in Animal Liberation that almost all of us are speciesists, unjustifiably favoring the interests of humans over the similar interests of other animals.  Although I long found that charge compelling, I now find myself having doubts.  This paper starts by trying to get clear about the nature of speciesism, and then argues that Singer’s attempt to show that speciesism is a mere prejudice is unsuccessful.  But I also argue that most of us are not actually speciesists at all, but rather accept a view I call modal personism.  Although I am not confident that modal personism can be adequately defended, it is, at the very least, a philosophical view worthy of further consideration.    

2015 - SAP Annual Lecture: Shelly Kagan, 'What's Wrong with Speciesism?'

2015 - Shelly Kagan, 'What's Wrong with Speciesism?' - Audience Discussion

The 2015 Society for Applied Philosophy annual lecture was given by Professor Shelly Kagan of Yale University. Following the talk, Professor Kagan was interviewed by Jeff McMahan (Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford)

    

2015 - Shelly Kagan Interview, 'What's Wrong with Speciesism?'

Shirley talks about a special place she visited as a child and her memories there.

998 The Shack

Todd just had a party and he talks with Meg about all the things he needs to clean up in the house.

1415 Party Clean Up

Gilda gives Katie some tips on things she should do or try when she visits Venezuela.

1417 Travel Tips for Venezuela

Gilda talks about the different regions in his home country and names some nice places to visit.

1418 A Look at Venezuela

Speaker(s): Professor Axel Honneth | This lecture develops Freud's implicit idea of the freedom of the will. For Freud, the 'healthy' person is very often determined by the same kind of irrational powers to which the neurotic personality is subjected. On the basis of a 'normalised' concept of repression, Freud has to explain how a normal subject should be able to gain emancipation from these unconscious constraints of his or her will. What conception of the individual self-relationship will enable us to solve this problem? How might we clarify the link Freud established between individual autonomy and the reflexive appropriation of one's own past? Thu, 21 Jun 2007 18:30:00 GMT

Appropriation of Freedom: Freud's conception of the individual self-relation [Audio]

Lively interview with Yale University philosopher, Shelly Kagan, about death, the subject of his popular Yale course and new book.

Death and Metaphysics, Prof. Shelly Kagan

An audio recording of Vita Bella!'s panel discussion "Fear and Leading the Meaningful Life" with Yale Professors Michael Frame, Laurie Santos, and Shelly Kagan.

November 27, 2012

fear and the meaningful life

axel honneth

The Society for Applied Philosophy (UK) was founded in 1982 with the aim of promoting philosophical study and research that has a direct bearing on areas of practical concern. It arose from an increasing awareness that many topics of public debate are capable of being illuminated by the critical, analytic approach characteristic of philosophy, and by direct consideration of questions of value. These topics come from a number of different areas of social life - law, politics, economics, science, technology, medicine and education are among the most obvious. The purpose of the SAP is foster and promote philosophical work that is intended to make a constructive contribution to problems in these areas. It does so through workshops, conferences, and lecture programmes.

2015 - SAP Annual Lecture: Shelly Kagan, 'What's Wrong with Speciesism?'

AppliedPhil