#56 Simon Blackburn: Metaethics, The Bases of Ethical Systems, Meaning of Life, and Beauty
Dr. Simon Blackburn taught Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. He is a distinguished research professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also a Fellow of Trinity College, and a member of the professoriate of New College of the Humanities. He was previously a Fellow of Pembroke College, and has also taught full-time at the University of North Carolina as an Edna J. Koury Professor. He is a former president of the Aristotelian Society. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2002, and a Foreign Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2008.
In this episode, the conversation centers around metaethics. We talk about evolutionary theory as the basis of morality; the shortcomings of reason; the is-ought dichotomy; the properties of moral axioms; the ethics of religion; the internal contradictions of moral relativism; the condition of nihilism; free will and personal responsibility; truth and cruelty; pleasure in ethics; religion, science, and the meaning of life; the philosophical problem of immortality; and the relationship between beauty, truth, and morality.
Time Links:
What is metaethics?
Evolutionary theory as the basis of morality
The trouble with reason
The is-ought problem
About moral axioms
The ethics of religion
Contradictions of moral relativism
Nihilism
Free will and personal responsibility
Can truth be cruel?
Pleasure in ethics
Religion, science, and the meaning of life
Immortality
How is beauty related to truth and morality?
Follow Dr. Blackburn’s work
Follow Dr. Blackburn’s work:
Website: http://www2.phil.cam.ac.uk/~swb24/
Books: https://www.amazon.com/default/e/B000APFM0S