Tamar Schapiro is Professor of Philosophy at MIT. Her work centers on value theory, the history of ethics, and how this relates to human agency and reasoning. Robinson and Tamar’s discussion center around her latest book, Feeling Like It: A Theory of Inclination and Will, which explores the relationship between the two in a Kantian framework. They also talk about her experience teaching ethics at STEM-focused schools (Tamar taught at Stanford for fifteen years before moving to the east coast), Kant’s thoughts on free will, topics in the history of ethics, and why she teaches Ayn Rand’s philosophy to undergraduates. You can keep up with Tamar and her work through her PhilPeople page, at https://philpeople.org/profiles/tamar-schapiro.

Robinson's Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com 

OUTLINE

00:00 Introduction

4:44 Tamar’s Interest in Ethics

9:35 Teaching Ethics at MIT

11:40 On Inclination and Will

18:10 Distinguishing Inclination and Will

21:23 The Moment of Drama

26:27 Rationalism and Intellectualism

29:56 Tamar’s Theory

36:58 Kant and the Animal Self

38:33 Freud and Analytic Philosophy

40:36 A Normative Component to Tamar’s Theory

53:54 Kant’s Kingdom of Ends

56:53 Kant on Free Will

1:00:50 Rationalism and Sentimentalism

1:07:16 Hobbes on Moral Obligation

1:12:02 On Richard Price

1:15:04 Jeremy Benthem on Utilitarianism

1:20:44 Cognitivism and Non-Cognitivism

1:23:44 The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.