ORIGINALLY RECORDED APRIL 6, 2020
ORIGINALLY BROADCAST APRIL 12, 2020
For a transcript of this episode, click here.
We are all preoccupied with the Covid-19 global pandemic and justly so. Everyone in the world has lots of little decisions to make, and many are facing life and death situations. What is the use of philosophy in all of this? Is it helpful? Is it a distraction? Can philosophy solve problems or even make a better world? In this wide-ranging discussion, our host Jack Russell Weinstein and guest Susan Neiman explore the absurdity of “trolley problems,” whether we should use the term “evil” to to describe a pandemic, and how we can best support Amazon employees. This episode is both a compelling and accessible philosophical exploration, and a historical artifact that records a unique moment in time. It has been described by one listener as “our most human of episodes.”
Susan Neiman is Director of the Einstein Forum, in Potsdam Germany. She has been a professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv University, and is the author of numerous books, most recently, Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil.
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