When Things Get Personal

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Alex Guerrero joins Spencer Case to talk about his book Lottocracy: Democracy Without Elections. The basic idea is that we should select our leaders by sortition, the way we select jurors for trials now. The discussion covers the problems with electoral democracy and several of the most objections to lottocracy. Also, you can buy Spencer's new book, Why It's Ok to Be Patriotic, here: https://www.routledge.com/Why-Its-OK-to-Be-Patriotic/Case/p/book/9781032061481

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Mark Schroeder, a professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California and author of many books, joins Spencer to talk about his new book, When Things Get Personal. One of the book's key ideas is the signal/noise distinction. Roughly, this amounts to the distinction between what truly reflects on a person and what reflects on external influences on that person's thought and behavior. Personal relationships require us to draw this distinction somehow, and drawing it in the wrong place leads to various relationship dysfunctions. 

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Honestly, a great episode! After a 5-year Hiatus, Christian Miller returns to the podcast to talk about his new book, The Honesty Crisis, which addresses six ways in which technology undermines the virtue of honesty. Topics include AI student cheating, sermon plagiarism by pastors, and the extent to which the norms of honesty are more flexible in certain contexts.

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Longtime friend Brother Dunstan Enzor -- a monk briefly famous for telling a United Airlines customer service representative "I love you; God bless you; I'll pray for you-- but you have not been helpful" -- joins Spencer to dissect a great work of literature-- John Milton's Paradise Lost. The topics that come up include the nature of free will, the privative account of evil, the problem of evil, and the apophatic approach to knowing God. 

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Before we can think rigorously about whether God exists, we need to know what "God" is supposed to refer to in the first place. That's the theme of this episode. Perry Hendricks, Nevin Climenhaga, and Steve Kershnar join Spencer Case to interrogate the notion of God. Is God defined by a single property such as "the greatest possible being" or must we say that God describes a being with a special collection of logically unrelated properties (e.g., all good, all knowing, and all powerful). Can God be responsible for his actions? Can any being have each of these properties to the maximal degree?

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!The great Mike Huemer returns to Micro-Digressions to talk about ways in which the American legal system is morally problematic. Topics include plea bargaining and jury nullification. For more discussion of these topics, see Huemer's book, Justice Before the Law. 

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Craig White, Ben Burgis, and Daniel Kodsi join Spencer Case to discuss--and debate--the Iran War.

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Gordon Barnes joins Spencer to talk about the issues he discusses in his new book, Applied Epistemology: An Introduction. 

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Eric Wiland joins Spencer to discuss his book, Guided by Voices: Moral Testimony, Advice, and Forging a 'We'. In the ensuing discussion, Eric and Spencer cover a wide range of topics, including how moral testimony can generate moral understanding, what sort of responsibility those who give advice have for the actions of those who act on it, and further lessons about standpoint epistemology and collective agency.

Tell Spencer your thoughts about this episode!Full professor of philosophy at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and sometimes David Cross impersonator Ryan Jenkins returns to Micro-Digressions to discuss the dangers of AI. The conversation covers such matters as the AI-alignment problem and why Chat GPT can't be horny.