The Latest Episode of Why? Radio

“IS IT IMMORAL THAT THE WORLD IS PROFITING FROM SHAME?” WITH GUEST CATHY o’NEIL

Every day we are bombarded by advertisements for products and companies that exploit our insecurities and vulnerabilities. We’re told that we’re too fat to be loved, too lazy to be helped, or too…whatever. And if it’s not companies doing the shaming, it’s other people. Social networks are filled with commentors ridiculing those filmed acting out in public and some even organize to get the subjects of the videos fired from their jobs. Is any of this good or desirable? When is shame a moral tool for social pressure and when is it destructive? This episode explores these questions and more, relating them to health, identity, and injustice.

Cathy O’Neil is a data scientist and former math professor who moved to the private sector to work as a quant and an auditor. She is the author of two books Weapons of Math Destruction and more recently, The Shame Machine. This is her second appearance on our show. She joined us in April of 2018 to help us ask whether big data is destroying democracy.

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This Month’s Discussion of Current Events

Moral responsibility: the Lindsey clancy trial

Craig and Jack examine the Lindsey Clancy murder trial through questions of moral responsibility, mental illness, and criminal accountability. They explore how society should judge a person’s actions when severe psychological distress may affect intent, free will. and the ability to distinguish right from wrong.

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Read our Blog, PQED: Philosophical Questions Every Day

“What is empathy for?”

The battle over empathy is more than just politics. It’s actually about nihilism, masculinity, and the stability of the American republic.

Empathy makes you weak. This is a message that Charlie Kirk is supposed to have communicated to his millions of followers. Interestingly, he never actually said this; Elon Musk is the one who did. In an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, Musk remarked that “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.” You should care about other people, he reluctantly concedes, but then he doubles down: “there’s so much empathy that you actually suicide yourself.”

Kirk’s comments about empathy are different but more extreme. Criticizing Bill Clinton, he opines: “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that—it does a lot of damage.” Kirk also looks like he will concede his point by admitting that some people should, at times, feel sympathy for others, but he waves that conversation away. He is assuming that the distinction between empathy and sympathy is both clear and significant. It is not.

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Read the Free Book from Why? Radio Host Jack Russell Weinstein

Israel, Palestine, and the Trolley problem

On the futility of the search for the moral high ground

Arguments about Israel and Palestine are almost always accusatory and polemical. Rather than learning from one another, opponents jockey for the moral high ground trying to find that one attack they believe proves their side to be completely on the right, without compromise. This means Israel’s advocates dismiss Palestinian land claims without due consideration and Pro-Palestinian voices falsely accuse Israel of the most heinous modern crimes: colonialism, genocide, and apartheid. None of this is productive or healthy.

In Israel, Palestine, and the Trolley Problem: On the Futility of the Search for the Moral High Ground, philosopher Jack Russell Weinstein interweaves philosophy, history, politics, and personal experience to expose the argumentative mistakes we all make too often. Mapping out moral psychology—how we actually make moral decisions—and using the famous Trolley Problem as a metaphor, Weinstein paves the way for a new, more empathetic exchange of ideas about today’s most puzzling moral dilemma: how to find peace in the Middle East.

Jack Russell Weinstein is Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life at the University of North Dakota. He is also the host of the public radio show/podcast Why? Philosophical Discussions About Everyday Life.