#26 - Moral Philosophy Cage Match (with Dan Hageman)

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 12:00:00 -0700

In a rare turn of events, it just so happened that one or perhaps both of your charming co-hosts spewed a bit of nonsense about Derek Parfit in a previous episode, and we had to bring in a heavy hitter to sort us out. Today we're joined by friend of the podcast Mr. Dan Hageman, immuno-oncologist by day and aspiring ethicist by night, who gently takes us to task for misunderstanding Parfit and the role of ethical theorizing, and for ignoring the suffering of pigeons. The critiques land, and convince Vaden that we should dedicate our resources towards providing safe and affordable contraception for Apex predators.

We cover all sorts of ground in this episode, including:

Mistakes we made in our thought experiments episode
Is it possible to over-theorize?
Wild animal suffering
Don't fish eat other fish?!
Feline family planning
Antinatalism
Moral Cluelessness
Population ethics and the repugnant conclusion (Ha!)
Similarities and differences between theoretical physics and theoretical philosophy

References:

Organization for the Prevention of Intense Suffering (OPIS)
Lukas Gloor's post on population ethics
Wild Animal Initiative
Pigeon Contraception (yes, really)
Hilary Greaves on moral cluelessness (talk+transcript, paper)
Better Never to Have Been by David Benatar.

Dan Hageman is a biomed engineer who works in immuno-oncology, but in his not-so-free time strives to sell himself as an amateur philosopher and aspiring 'Effective Altruist'. He spends much of this time trying to keep up with impactful charities focused on the reduction and/or prevention of extreme suffering, and in 2020 helped co-found a hopefully burgeoning side project called ‘Match for More’. He would like to note that the IPAs are to blame for any and all errors/misapprehensions made during his lively discussion with epic friends and podcast hosts, Ben and Vaden.

How many insect lives are morally equivalent to one human life? Send us your best guess at incrementspodcast@gmail.com. We'll reveal the correct answer in episode 1000.

Update 13/06/21: The original title of this episode was "Meta-ethics Cage Match (with Dan Hageman)" Special Guest: Dan Hageman.

#22 - Thinking Through Thought Experiments

Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 17:00:00 -0700

In this episode, we discuss Peter Singer's famous drowning child thought experiment, the role of moral theories, and the role of thought experiments in moral reasoning. From our perspectives, the conversation went something like this:

Ben's POV: Bravely and boldly trying to think through problems, Ben puts forward a stunningly insightful theory about the role of moral argumentation. Vaden, jealous of the profundity of Ben's message, tries to disagree but can't.

Vaden's POV: What the eff is Ben talking about? I disagree. No wait nvm I agree. Let's change the subject.

References in intro segment:

Talk by Joseph Agassi
Robert Sapolsky's book Behave
Milgram experiments
Stanford Prison Experiments (see also: Radio Lab's The Bad Show)

References in main segment:

Famine, Affluence, and Morality by Peter Singer
The Organization for the Prevention of Intense Suffering (OPIS)
Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit
Galileo's thought experiment: Parts of Falling Objects
Einstein's thought experiments

Put on a suit and drown a child before sending your best moral theory to incrementspodcast@gmail.com.

Increments - Episodes Tagged with “Derek Parfit”

#26 - Moral Philosophy Cage Match (with Dan Hageman)

#22 - Thinking Through Thought Experiments